From the article:<p>"We also obtain information about employees’ gender, seniority, and the number of skills listed on their individual LinkedIn profiles, which serves as a proxy for employees’ skill level."<p>'Best talent' can be defined only in relation to a particular role, i.e. the job title, expectations and credentials.<p>If the study were to show that, of the software engineers at level X at a particular company, RTO mandates caused the loss of a greater percentage of the better performers, than of the lower performers, that would:<p>- be interesting<p>- match my intuition.<p>Unfortunately, the study does not seek to estimate this, nor does its design make that possible.<p>Using seniority as proxy for 'best talent' seems flawed because seniority doesn't mean someone isn't underperforming, as this is always relative to expectations.