Dell (DELL) , a tech company that’s famous for its PC products, earlier this month began mandating most of its employees to return-to-the office three days a week and has given some workers the option to work remotely with the risk of stunting career advancement opportunities.
Now, employees are claiming that the new mandate is causing internal turmoil within the company as they have been given no direction on which offices to report to and are starting to believe that the mandate is a way for the company to quietly lay off its employees, according to a new report from The Register.
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Dell told its employees earlier this month that most workers will be reclassified as hybrid and and that they will have to work from an office a minimum of 39 days each quarter. Only employees who make lower salaries have the option to work fully remote.
The option — to either work in-person or remotely — is now reportedly frustrating employees at the company. If workers choose to report to the office three times a week, then they will have to report to an assigned office and do not have the option to pick which office to attend due to “capacity or business function constraints,” according to The Register. Also, some employees claim that they live in locations that don’t have a nearby office building.
The report also revealed that a memo on office locations was allegedly sent to employees where it states: “Do not Google or show up at Dell locations/offices that you have not previously gained access to and expect to have access to that Dell location."
On the flip side, some employees, who do choose to work remotely, claim that they have to make career sacrifices to keep their freedom. Those sacrifices include being passed over for promotions or internal job opportunities, no funding for team onsite meetings, and they also run the risk of their jobs being the first to get cut when it comes to planning layoffs.
"Choosing to be remote does indeed put career advancement at a standstill. If you choose to accept a promotion after going remote, that comes with the requirement of being in office 39 days out of the quarter," an employee told The Register.
Concerned employees at the company claim that the new return-to-office policy is Dell’s way of quietly reducing its workforce.
Tech companies have been opting to quietly cut its workforce to avoid the bad press that’s associated with mass layoffs and to relieve the hefty financial strain of issuing severance packages.
Dell paid over $700 million in severance costs last year after it conducted two rounds of layoffs, one in February and one in August, according to its third-quarter earnings report.
Some companies have even used return-to-office mandates as a way to shrink their workforce. Also, tactics such as “quiet firing” have been used by management at some companies to help push employees out the door. This is when management creates a work environment that is uncomfortable for employees.
A few ways a company might push employees to resign from their positions using the "quiet firing" tactic include halting promotions or career advancement, enforcing new policies that further complicate systems, giving employees little to no feedback or lack of support from management, delaying the timeline on certain conversations or fulfilling promises, etc.
A 2022 survey from JobSage showed that almost 1 in 3 managers at companies have “quiet fired” an employee, and this was mostly done through reducing that employee’s workload, not offering them promotions or raises and not giving them new career challenges.
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