- Dell CEO issues a new return to office mandate to employees, in another big reversal from the company's formerly flexible policy.
Dell workers are being called back to the office full-time. The company’s CEO, Michael Dell, wrote that they are “retiring hybrid policy,” starting March 3rd for all employees that live near the office—according to a memo as obtained by Business Insider.
The email, sent Friday morning, lauds in-person human collaboration as the most efficient form of working, an interesting argument for a tech company. “What we're finding is that for all the technology in the world, nothing is faster than the speed of human interaction,” wrote Dell, claiming that a “thirty second conversation can replace an email back-and-forth that goes on for hours or even days.”
Adding that other teams such as sales, manufacturing, and engineers, are already in person , Dell adds that they’d like to see that attendance and the “same sense of urgency and drive everywhere.” He asks employees to hold questions as the company is “still working through details,” but claims he wanted to share the news earlier so workers “have time to process and plan.”
The door isn’t fully shut for remote work though, as Dell notes that the company “remains committed to flexibility,” and tells employees to work with their bosses to meet their needs. Those who are “remote and live a long distance from a Dell office,” will stay remote.
“We continually evolve our business so we're set up to deliver the best innovation, value and service to our customers and partners,” a Dell Technologies spokesperson told Fortune in a written statement. “That includes more in-person connections to drive market leadership.”
While many CEOs in finance or in tech have reversed formerly flexible schedules in the name of increased productivity and collaboration—data has yet to fully back up this claim. Hybrid work “better for the people at no cost to the companies,” Laszlo Bock, consultant and former Google senior executive told Fortune in January, adding that it can successfully increase productivity if managed well.
But when it comes to the return of the office, the call of tradition is strong while CEOs are uncertain about this new way of working. “You default back to what you’re comfortable with,” Bock said this past fall of the return to traditional-style management and a fully-in person workweek.
Dell’s stance on remote work
Like many other companies, Dell has slowly inched away from remote work over the last couple of years. But even before the boom in flexible schedules during the pandemic, Dell stood apart in its early offering of remote work. Before 2020, 65% of Dell team members were “leveraging remote work opportunities 1-5 days a week,” wrote Dell in a LinkedIn post in 2022 titled “culture is key to hybrid work.”
A year prior Dell told American computer publication CRN that remote work is “absolutely here to stay.”
In February 2024, Dell unveiled a new hybrid plan that asked workers to identify as hybrid or remote. The catch: promotions were to be withheld from remote workers. Almost 50% of the workforce selected to work remotely rather than deal with the RTO push, according to internal data from the company, Business Insider reported.
Workers made their feelings about the move clear in their annual review of the company last year. The employee survey score referencing whether Dell workers would recommend the company to others took a nosedive, decreasing overall from 63 to 48 in one year— sources told Business Insider.
“No matter what, I’ve never seen a score move that fast in the wrong direction,” an anonymous employee told the outlet. The stricter policies could further impact morale.
