As the other commenter said, it is all busy work to make themselves (and anyone else who care) feel productive. It looks good, calendars are filled with important-sounding discussions, and they're also the ones getting the "praises" when they announce what "their" team is doing in various meetings when higher ups are present.

They looked and were very busy in the office, never sitting in one place. I think remote work essentially reveals that they're essentially just casually chatting on zoom all day long. The decorum is really what makes things look important.

On a final note, I had to replace my manager for 1 month, and I inherited a ton of 1h+ meetings every week. It was ridiculous, I felt like cancelling meetings most week but I didn't want to look like I was slacking off, so I was basically just doing the equivalent of standup meetings with the various teams and devs and cutting it short. That's it, a bunch of people telling me their progress for a few minutes a day and I was effectively replacing my manager on top of my actual role. Whenever something blocked progress I would simply tell people who to connect with and ask of they wanted me to setup a meeting or preferred to use the live chat. That's about it.