What country is that happening and what does your contract actually say about work location?

The contract sadly does not say work is remote and is vague enough that I can't do much. Country is the UK. I agreed on an informal agreement to work from home because the money was good.

The polite way is to find a job with a competitor and hopefully they will succeed where your current employer is failing.

"to support the economy we needed to be back in the office"? what do they mean?

@njzk2 They're already renting out office space they don't want to put to waste and the middle management doesn't think they can adequately monitor employee's work if they aren't in the same physical office. For some managers it also helps their sense of self-importance to force people to be in their physical presence instead of managing them remotely.

"Speak softly and carry a big stick"... do you have (or can you find) a big stick?

BTW, depending on how the RTO was phrased, you could use it to refuse calls outside working hours... "sorry, not allowed to work from home, see you Monday"

I suspect management is not likely to be responsive to "I'll be less productive in the office environment." I'm sure many managers suspect that WFH causes lots of distractions (children/spouse, doing chores during work hour, personal phone calls).

If your employer clearly stated that they are in financial trouble you should look around independently of the RTO order...

Tell your boss that you are also experiencing hard financial times and was hoping that your company would triple your salary to make up for it. OR you can agree on the value of your work and honor that agreement regardless of outside factors.

The concept of "They are already renting office space and . . . " shouldn't be anywhere near a primary consideration. Managing to get to the defined goals in the productive way should be the driver. If the company's management doesn't express and practice that - well then, that is the first problem. If that means remote work/hybrid/office is most productive for each department, the data ought to prove it out.

"very touchy about any criticism of it" - get out as soon as you can. Working from the office - if working from home has been shown effective - does not "support" the economy. It is a net drain, a waste of resources at many levels. This "supporting the economy" argument is so back-asswards that I don't even know where to start. Waste never supports economy as a whole.

Since I got a work phone, I often use it during my (public transit) commute to check chats and emails. Not quite as productive as using the same time on a real screen, but better than nothing. Don't do this if you are driving a car, though.

What if the company wants to do "layoffs in disguise"? Maybe the struggling company wants to get rid of staff without announcing formal layoffs and the most politically correct way is to make the job conditions less appealing?

"They are very firm on this policy and very touchy about any criticism of it." - Reddest of flags.

due to hard financial times we would need to do more work to help the company, as Boxer would say: I will work harder! (On Academia they would say: Don't walk. Run.)

@Kubahasn'tforgottenMonica It does if "GDP" is used as a measure of "how good the economy is doing", which sadly is still pervasive despite being entirely unsuitable for this purpose (as its inventors have said many times).

Get another job. It's clear their increasing expectations don't match what you're willing to do. It sounds like they don't match your job description either.

"The contract sadly does not say work is remote" Question answered. Your commuting time cannot be used as an excuse to work less, because you agreed to it when signing the contract.

@Elerium115: The OP does not intend to "work less", they just intend to work not any more than they already to (and presumably contractually agreed to).

@O.R.Mapper But the OP says "Since I am losing around 8-10 hours a week going to and from the office [...] I am likely to get less work done, not more" which kind of implies that commuting will result in less work done than when working remote.

Is this a position you accepted while everyone was in fear, working from home, or were you working here, in the office prior to the "great experiment", then really grew to like WFH and are reluctant to go back to the office? If the former, this is a change in work terms on which you might have some room to negotiate, if the latter, suck it up and go back to what you were happy doing before...

"Our workplace decided that to support the economy we needed to be back in the office" -- I'm guessing the workplace didn't actually say this, but that it's a sarcastic take by the OP in reference to some urban politicians & business groups arguing for that. (E.g.: NYC mayor said that here.) OP, can you confirm?

@Elerium115: Getting less work done is something quite different from working less. Especially as the OP mentions they are in an open plan office, it is totally possible they are working the same amount of time, and even, as far as that can be "measured", put in the same amount of "effort", and yet get a lot less work done, both due to unspecific (background noise, general added stress level from knowing lots of people will perceive virtually anything you do) and specific (people come to ask questions because you're there) disturbances.

They explicitly said it was to support the local economy. It wasn't a sarcastic take.