Another way to read this - many managers have gotten so deep into their "I have lots of employees in the office and visibly working on...something or other" worldviews that they are blind (perhaps willingly) to how little work there really is to do, and who is doing it.

For a sane company, which would be worth more - (1) finding and firing the (few at best) employees who are actually "cheating on them" this way, or (2) finding and firing the managers who are oblivious to, or ignoring (if not creating) the vast waste of company resources that "faithful" employees, merely pretending to be needed full-time, represent?

But hell will probably freeze over before the WSJ advocates for finding & firing worthless managers.