The managers will bring it up because they have pressure on them coming from higher up to have their reports all be compliant with the work-from-office policy, and in extreme cases, they would be expected to manage out the people who are flouting it. Not doing these things could easily result in an unsatisfactory performance rating for the manager.

Completely ignoring any RTO/WFH-specific aspects, one of the jobs of a manager is to communicate and explain corporate policies to their direct reports, and enforce those policies.

i bet working for you is like working for a dictator.

a job of a manager is to gain trust both up and down the chain. if you’re forcing your employees to do something, you’ve lost their trust.

Yes, a job (not the job) of a manager is to gain trust up and down. Imagine, just for a fleeting moment, that "communicating and explaining corporate policies" may actually play a role in this! "Here is why we have to RTO 5 days a week: [corporate bs]."

Now let's also imagine that you already have the trust of your direct reports (I would think a lot of Amazon managers don't but that's neither here nor there). You explain a policy to them - they have to be in the office 5 days a week or Things happen, whatever they may be. This person just refuses to do it. Is the manager to just say "oh well I don't want to 'be a dictator' so I'll just let them ignore this policy?" Of course not. They'd be abdicating part of their job if they did that.

yes the manager at that point decides if it’s worth burning the trust they’ve built or if they should push back harder.

see in the example you’ve given, you’ve still placed the employee second over the business. or to put it another way, a human over money. so poof, gone is the trust if you did have any.

Anecdotally, I'm aware of managers who've been sacked for pushing back. Knowledge of this is probably enough to reshuffle priorities in the current economic situation.

As a random line manager of a small team, you can't meaningfully push back against a company-wide mandate. Hell, even directors can't do that. That decision is being made by the CEO. You either enforce it or suffer the consequences.

> see in the example you’ve given, you’ve still placed the employee second over the business

I mean yes, this is how businesses work. Of course the business is of primary importance over any individual employee, especially employees who are in violation of prioritized corporate mandates. Anytime someone is fired, for pretty much any reason including poor performance, that's prioritizing the business's needs over the individual's. But that's literally just what everyone signed up for; the business is a mission and profit-driven organization, and it puts its needs above those of any individual cog in the machine.

The GP's comments in this subthread make it pretty clear their opinion of business owners, executives, even middle and lower management are mustache-twirling villain billionaires (or billionaire wannabes) trying to suck every last penny out of their poor witless employees.

HR will bring it up, because it's a KPI they track. They don't tell you this and you have no idea what the threshold is, so the manager can't help you beyond a vague "HR won't approve the higher rating I want to give due to your in office attendance".