Dell wants employees back in the office, and they are mad

Cal Jeffrey

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A hot potato: Some Dell employees are fuming about a perceived broken promise regarding working from home. Statements from top executives in 2021 led them to believe they could work from home forever. However, the company now wants them back in the office at least three days per week.

Most of Dell's staff started working strictly from home during the pandemic. The company went to great expense to equip these employees with the tools to do their jobs remotely. At the time, Dell COO Jeff Clarke said the "investment" was such that the company would likely just keep people working from home rather than call them back into the office.

"After all of this investment to enable remote everything, we will never go back to the way things were before," Clarke said in a Q2 2021 earnings call. "Here at Dell, we expect, on an ongoing basis, that 60 percent of our workforce will stay remote or have a hybrid schedule where they work from home mostly and come into the office one or two days a week."

It was a sentiment that even CEO Michael Dell echoed. Dell bragged about company productivity being at an all-time high in a September 2022 LinkedIn blog post, adding that forced office work is "doing it wrong."

Many employees took this to mean they would never have to set foot in the office again. One can imagine the disappointment when Clarke informed everyone via email this week that they would have to start coming back into the office three days per week. Some disgruntled employees have called it a "soft layoff," implying that Dell is only calling them back to the office to shed some employees who would rather quit than return to the office, thus saving the company from having to dole out redundancy compensation.

Clarke said the company would make the transition gradually, and employees would have options and time to work things out regarding their modified work schedules.

"We know many of us have arranged our lives around remote work over the past three years," Clarke said in an internal memo seen by The Register. "This is not a light switch transition. We understand it will take time to prepare and adjust to being in the office more regularly again. This is the beginning of us more clearly defining hybrid work for our company."

Dell is allowing affected workers a loose timeframe to return to the office "as soon as you can arrange it" to ease the transition. The mandate only applies to employees within an hour's commute to the closest Dell office facility. Employees can also choose their three office days.

According to at least one employee, the three-day mandate is inconsistent with Dell's pre-Covid work schedules. Most hybrid employees before the pandemic spent only two days per week in the office. Now it seems to be three days across the board.

Employees have a list of reasons they do not wish to return to Dell offices, including fewer amenities, no child care, shared workspaces, and inadequate parking, resources, and infrastructure. But not all workers agree with the 100% work-from-home "norm."

One 15-year employee stated that since Covid, new hires have gone downhill. He claims that green employees don't get the same training and supervision that makes them good enough at their jobs to work from home effectively.

"It became a joke," said an anonymous employee on TheLayoff forum. "Juniors send memes around about using text is better than phoning people. No initiative to do the work they are given and no one to help them. Because there is no one around them to learn from and their manager is missing and equally as unskilled they just go quiet."

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Three days a week isn't terrible. I mean I understand the frustration after being home a while but hybrids not that bad.
yeah, I don't see much of an issue with going in a few days a week. I'm lucky enough to go into work for 3-4 hours and then go home once I'm done so if I have to go to the office 2 times a week for a few hours then I don't really care. If they would force me to come into the office and make me sit there for 8 hours after I already got all of my work done then that would be a different story.
 
This is going about the wrong way: Just saying '3 days is not too bad plus only if you live reasonably close to the office' is already conceding without any supporting evidence, than in-office work brings any tangible benefits to productivity which just isn't the case: I just keep seeing people make the argument 'People are not as well trained, they're doing less job' And all these excuses when every single study has shown that productivity increased during covid restrictions.

I don't care if they say 'Only half a day per week' because it's just not the case: people need to get over this mentality that only people who are constantly watched, constantly monitored, socially pressured to behave are the only ones capable of being productive. This is just not the case and bad management and organizational skills: Give people a good enough paycheck for a reasonable workload and they'll be productive without having to babysit them.
 
This is going about the wrong way: Just saying '3 days is not too bad plus only if you live reasonably close to the office' is already conceding without any supporting evidence, than in-office work brings any tangible benefits to productivity which just isn't the case: I just keep seeing people make the argument 'People are not as well trained, they're doing less job' And all these excuses when every single study has shown that productivity increased during covid restrictions.

There are 2 scenarios when this is remotely true:
- You are very disciplined and able to create the work-home barrier regardless of your location and surroundings
- You have a very simple life and no need for such barrier, since being at home is basically like being at the office

In any other scenario you won't be working as much (but maybe compensated with working harder, idk). Case in point from the article: "Employees have a list of reasons they do not wish to return to Dell offices, including no child care". It basically implies that there are workers "running a childcare at home" for their children. How are you able to take care of the children AND work at the same time with superior productivity?
 
This is going about the wrong way: Just saying '3 days is not too bad plus only if you live reasonably close to the office' is already conceding without any supporting evidence, than in-office work brings any tangible benefits to productivity which just isn't the case: I just keep seeing people make the argument 'People are not as well trained, they're doing less job' And all these excuses when every single study has shown that productivity increased during covid restrictions.

I don't care if they say 'Only half a day per week' because it's just not the case: people need to get over this mentality that only people who are constantly watched, constantly monitored, socially pressured to behave are the only ones capable of being productive. This is just not the case and bad management and organizational skills: Give people a good enough paycheck for a reasonable workload and they'll be productive without having to babysit them.
Not every job is the same obviously. Had I not spent years on the office I would not be nearly as advanced as I am. But some Jobs may not benefit from the face to face. It's not a blanket situation regardless of what studies say.
 
They act like they are entitled to work from home when in fact they are not. Well, I guess they could if they make their own multibillion dollar company. Until then they get their pay checks from the company they work for.

They say Dell is going back on their word. I think they need to go and read what the COO said which was.

"Here at Dell, we expect, on an ongoing basis, that 60 percent of our workforce will stay remote or have a hybrid schedule where they work from home mostly and come into the office one or two days a week."

He pretty much says work from home as well as work in the office 1 to 2 days a week as well. So if Dell now says up to 3 days a week, then I guess if these people want to keep their jobs, they better get their act together and go into work. Before Covid they had to go to work at least 5 days a week and were able to deal with childcare and everything else.
 
Three days a week isn't terrible. I mean I understand the frustration after being home a while but hybrids not that bad.
That's not the point, the point is, they were told they will always be able to work fully remotely or just go to office one or 2 days in a week. This mean, many of them just moved away from cities, to live in bit cheaper and nicer neighborhood, calculating their ways to commute sometime back to office and saying: ok, if that's a day in a week I don't mind to waste 2 hours in my car, because I wont waste usual commute time at other days. They set up, put kids to local schools, and continued doing good work. Now, insecure managers who are trying to fix issues instead of looking for the actual one, want to simply push away their responsibility and saying 'crap happens because..... they aren't in office! that has to be it! our management is perfect, our deep understanding of project is perfect, it is not us, its them! - which is typical BS.
So if you get some policy change and you making your life around it, and then someone is just cancelling it out of the blue, then it is obvious they getting pissed. Well organized companies do not have such issues, but those big ones usually have incompetent mid management stuff.
 
This is going about the wrong way: Just saying '3 days is not too bad plus only if you live reasonably close to the office' is already conceding without any supporting evidence, than in-office work brings any tangible benefits to productivity which just isn't the case: I just keep seeing people make the argument 'People are not as well trained, they're doing less job' And all these excuses when every single study has shown that productivity increased during covid restrictions.

I don't care if they say 'Only half a day per week' because it's just not the case: people need to get over this mentality that only people who are constantly watched, constantly monitored, socially pressured to behave are the only ones capable of being productive. This is just not the case and bad management and organizational skills: Give people a good enough paycheck for a reasonable workload and they'll be productive without having to babysit them.

Isn't it possible that the studies showed an increase because workers were already trained and productive, while productivity falls for new hires?
 
This is going about the wrong way: Just saying '3 days is not too bad plus only if you live reasonably close to the office' is already conceding without any supporting evidence, than in-office work brings any tangible benefits to productivity which just isn't the case: I just keep seeing people make the argument 'People are not as well trained, they're doing less job' And all these excuses when every single study has shown that productivity increased during covid restrictions.

I don't care if they say 'Only half a day per week' because it's just not the case: people need to get over this mentality that only people who are constantly watched, constantly monitored, socially pressured to behave are the only ones capable of being productive. This is just not the case and bad management and organizational skills: Give people a good enough paycheck for a reasonable workload and they'll be productive without having to babysit them.
as a man who WFH, I 100% agree - I hate going to the office because I way way way more productive at home and I am sure this is true for a lot of people.
 
My son got hired by Dell during the pandemic and has worked from home since. Just bought a house and is pretty much settled. The closest Dell office is 90 miles away.
 
I'll take a position if one of these probably well paid folks dont wanna come in, I'll drive wherever the f*** they want me to if the pay and benefits are on point.
 
every single study has shown that productivity increased during covid restrictions.

I don't think it's too surprising that productivity went up during Covid when basically everyones social lives got deleted.

For what its worth I echo the comments that training and engagement is very difficult at home. I am still very much wanting flex in my working week, but equally can't deny that if everyone in my company WFH for 5 days a week, I am 100% confident that our employee development would be a lot worse.
 
This is going about the wrong way: Just saying '3 days is not too bad plus only if you live reasonably close to the office' is already conceding without any supporting evidence, than in-office work brings any tangible benefits to productivity which just isn't the case: I just keep seeing people make the argument 'People are not as well trained, they're doing less job' And all these excuses when every single study has shown that productivity increased during covid restrictions.

I don't care if they say 'Only half a day per week' because it's just not the case: people need to get over this mentality that only people who are constantly watched, constantly monitored, socially pressured to behave are the only ones capable of being productive. This is just not the case and bad management and organizational skills: Give people a good enough paycheck for a reasonable workload and they'll be productive without having to babysit them.
I think it's simplistic to say productivity increased during the pandemic. Productivity has grown at a below average rate since 2005. In April 2021, the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated a $10B loss in productivity since 2010 which translates to a $95,000 loss per worker. In May 2022, CNN reported a 7.5% decline in productivity, the largest decline since 1947. On top of that unit labor cost surged 11.6%. Hourly compensation rose 3.5% while productivity declined 7.5%. So, people are getting paid more to do less work. In the quarter prior to that productivity increased by 6.3%, so it's not all up nor all down.

A lot of those studies relied on people self-evaluating their productivity. I'm sure people felt more productive because they could do their job, get the laundry done, mow the lawn and other tasks not related to their work. A Harvard study also showed that work hours increased during the pandemic by an average of 8.2%. I don't think we will know the full impact on productivity for a few more years. Will we be stronger and more productive or will we languish in mediocrity?

The TL;DR here is that overall productivity today is lower than the highs of the late 90s and early 2000s. People working from home tend to work more hours and in some cases are more productive, but it's not universal and there are many contributing factors.
 
If company policy is you work IN the office, then you work IN the office.
Don't like it?

QUIT!
 
Studies on productivity cannot be applied across the board, and as @waclark mentions, some studies are self-evaluating surveys. The bottom line is the bottom line. Every big company has highly paid bean counters that do their own internal analysis. They know what their office overhead is, and they know their actual productivity levels. They will base WFH scheduling based on what is best for the company's bottom line. Rest assured, if keeping workers at home benefits the employer, they are not going to call employees back just to piss them off. They aren't basing their decisions on tradition or any other personal bias, especially in this economy--all decisions are based on the dollar signs, period.
 
I would not be amused. If there's a reason to come in? Sure. If they are having you come in, so instead of sitting at a computer with maybe a phone or headset at home, you are coming into an office space so you can sit at a computer with maybe a phone or headset? (And, apparently, with inadequate space for everybody and inadequate parking?) Screw that.
 
If productivity was really so much better with full work from home, companies would not be mandating that workers return now. After all the #1 goal of the vast majority of companies is to make money. Try explaining to shareholders that you decided to make less money and then forced that that despite worker outrage.

So are more companies deciding to make less money deliberately? Is that a trend now?

Not a chance. The opposite effect is the desired outcome, everything else we hear on the topic is just background noise around that fact.
 
If productivity was really so much better with full work from home, companies would not be mandating that workers return now. After all the #1 goal of the vast majority of companies is to make money. Try explaining to shareholders that you decided to make less money and then forced that that despite worker outrage.

So are more companies deciding to make less money deliberately? Is that a trend now?

Not a chance. The opposite effect is the desired outcome, everything else we hear on the topic is just background noise around that fact.
Maybe. But I've seen cases where it appears they just have executives who have not gotten used to collaborating online, so they assume others can't either; or they think people must "stand around the watercooler" to talk to others. Or some managers have the management style that involves walking through the office space to physically monitor people, which of course they cannot do if they are not there. Executives do not make decisions 100% by the numbers (perhaps some do but...); the high-profile cases of this being some cases of television shows being cancelled over the years that still had good ratings, because an executive decided they didn't care for that show; and movie studios that will have a new executive come in who cancels movies that are in some cases right at the end of post-production; neither is sensible based on the raw numbers.

Some take the accountant's view of things, the view that the office space as a "sunk costs" asset that is going to waste if people are not coming into the office (which is largely true...especially if the total demand for office space has dropped enough in the area they would have difficulty selling the space to anyone else...) I don't think this is a great reason to force people back into offices, but is hard to refute.
 
That all sounds like background noise to me hwertz.

All these major companies are calling people back into the office. They are profit driven companies and all claim there are communication and productivity reasons that they want people back in. Have you ever heard of Apple, Microsoft or Google doing something that wasn't profit driven? What about banks?

It's actually hilarious that people don't believe them when they say... "We're doing this to make more money", when all there has ever been before is accusations that all these companies ever care about is money.

Adobe
Airbnb
Amazon
Apple
Asda
Bank of England
Canva
Capital One
Citigroup Inc
Coinbase
Deloitte
Deutsche Bank
Disney
DoorDash
Dropbox
eBay
Ericsson

EY
Google
Goldman Sachs
Grammarly
HSBC
J.P. Morgan
KPMG
Lyft
Meta

Microsoft
Morgan Stanley
Nationwide
Natwest
Netflix
Ocado Group
Reddit
Revolut
Salesforce
Slack

Spotify
Shopify
Starbucks
Twitter
Uber
UBS
Unilever
Wise
Zoom
 
That all sounds like background noise to me hwertz.

All these major companies are calling people back into the office. They are profit driven companies and all claim there are communication and productivity reasons that they want people back in. Have you ever heard of Apple, Microsoft or Google doing something that wasn't profit driven? What about banks?
Sure, but Dell has numbers saying the employees were more productive out of the office. So they now have their executives making recommendations going against their own numbers. To me this sounds like going by "gut instinct" rather than following the numbers.
 
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