Dell is reportedly set to impose a company-wide return-to-office mandate requiring all employees to work on-site for at least 39 days a quarter.
As reported by The Register, the new hybrid work policy — which balances out as three days a week — is an expansion of a return-to-office mandate that was introduced last year, which dictated that employees who worked within an hour of an office had to be on-site at least three days a week.
That 2023 promise overruled Dell's 2020 commitment during the pandemic that 60 percent of its workforce would only have to work on-premises once or twice weekly.
The new return-to-office mandate reclassifies most Dell workers as hybrid employees, according to The Register's source. The source added that workers below a particular pay grade and level of seniority could choose to work fully remotely but that that decision could negatively impact their career opportunities at the tech giant.
The Register's source claimed:
It’s clear from the details I’ve seen that this is a way of thinning the herd. Folks who live a few hours away from the office will have to go into an office and if they do not, they have to sign up to a remote contract with the tacit understanding that being remote is career limiting."
The source's logic runs that introducing the policy will encourage some workers to resign from the company because the work/life balance would no longer suit them and suggests that Dell anticipate employee attrition as a result.
Allegedly, some worker groups will be exempt from the new policy in customer-facing or field-based teams.
The source also said Dell engaged in layoffs last week, but no concrete numbers were outlined. In North America, reportedly, most workers who were fired last week were marketing and non-sales staff, while sales staff are expected to take a hit this week. According to The Register, 15 percent of Netherlands-based staff were laid off, while there's a voluntary programme in France for workers with ten or more years with the company to leave.
2024: A Tough Year So Far For Industry Layoffs
It's been a challenging year for layoffs in the tech space so far.
Google has already let 1,000 employees go, while The Verge reported last month that Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai told staff to expect further layoffs as 2024 progresses. Microsoft let go 1,900 workers from its gaming branches at the end of January, while Amazon began the month announcing it would cut 18,000 jobs from across its businesses.
