After reversing its position on remote work, Dell is reportedly implementing new tracking techniques on May 13 to ensure its workers are following the company’s return-to-office (RTO) policy, The Register reported today, citing anonymous sources.
Dell will track employees’ badge swipes and VPN connections to confirm that workers are in the office for a significant amount of time.
Dell’s methods for tracking hybrid workers will also reportedly include a color-coding system. From “consistent” to “limited” presence, the colors are blue, green, yellow, and red.
The Register reported today that approximately 50 percent of Dell’s US workers are remote, compared to 66 percent of international workers.
An examination of 457 companies on the S&P 500 list released in February concluded that RTO mandates don’t drive company value but instead negatively affect worker morale. Analysis of survey data from more than 18,000 working Americans released in March found that flexible workplace policies, including the ability to work remotely completely or part-time and flexible schedules, can help employees’ mental health.
There’s not a single person I work with who lives in my metro area. Going to an office is the dumbest thing I can think of.
Did they think that’d give them good optics or do they just not care?
They only care that it looks good to the out of touch, sociopathic management type
So I’ve worked in business for 17ish years now, and the only consistent thing I can say about business leadership is they are there to have their egos stroked.
They do not care about money or other people until they look bad, and even then they don’t do anything until someone threatens to take away the group of people forced to listen to them.
Working from home hurts their ego. This method (RTO) doesn’t improve value and increases turnaround, which increases expenses if you are happy with the amount of people working for your company, as replacing people costs money.
So either Dell still needs to get rid of people, or a bunch of old fucks need someone to suck up to them in person.
Are their egos fragile because they know the people who do the real work are… not them?
Hard to say, you could be right. That’s where I’m less sure. I’ve had jobs where a (not direct manager) boss thinks I do less than I do, and more than I do.
The ones who believed I did less believed they did more than me regardless of what my manager reported or actual work done. The ones who believed more consistently didn’t hand me work and I eventually would leave.
One job I had different people who disagreed about the actual amount of work I did based on if I was at my desk vs the amount of awards I had vs my lunch breaks vs my extra work projects. I’d have feedback sessions with my manager about burnout but also if I was taking too long for lunch and going home too early.
What I’m saying is I think people are terrible at assessing subordinates work.
Yeah it’s probably more complicated than a single factor/parameter, eh. Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences!
This came straight from Michael Dell, per multiple conversations with directors and managers at Dell. He’s probably trying to squeeze out all the old employees to replace them with cheaper people. There’s no clear reasoning at all, which means it’s underhanded bullshit or he’s a moron.
Yeah I was wondering if it was an underhanded way to get rid of people without officially letting them go. Seems like a lot of time and money tracking people to do that though, so I really have to wonder if they’ve lost the plot, thus me leaning towards incompetence.
That all said, and to hedge my bets, I haven’t seen their Financials. Maybe the verification is using cheap labour like YouTube review systems, for instance, or maybe they are really bloated.
Dell will track employees’ badge swipes and VPN connections to confirm that workers are in the office for a significant amount of time.
So if you need a tracking system or you wouldn’t know if they were in the office or not, why do you need them office?
The only marginally logical excuse i’ve heard for RTO is to justify rented office space.
Love it when the logical excuse is the Sunk Cost Fallacy.
Though I think there’s some truth - companies still pay employees for their WFH rigs / utilities (or they should be, anyway), so it’s not exactly free for them to have WFH (just a lot cheaper, if there’s a choice).
The logical excuse I buy into is that commercial real estate is valued on it’s income and if business aren’t renewing leases because they don’t need office space, then commercial real estate values tank. That and thinly veiled layoffs.
Which companies pay for WFH expenses? I worked for the biggest software company in the world in 2022 and there was no WFH allowance. We were 100% WFH at that point.
Remote work is not right for ALL companies. Just ones that are completely or predominantly software-based.
Breakfast cereal manufacturing - hey. Someone’s gotta be there to close up all the boxes.
I forget - does Dell make breakfast cereal?
Remote work is not right for ALL companies. Just ones that are completely or predominantly software-based.
I would expand to all the jobs that can be done with a laptop, an internet connection and a phone.
A large portion of most rich peoples investment portfolios is commercial real estate.
So if remote work takes off then offices devalue and their invest profiles diminish. That’s why all the big business have colluded to force RTO, even if it would ostensibly cost their business more to do so. The execs personal savings are more important.
This, and it’s a way to make sure urban economies with investments stay stimulated… If the companies said “okay, just do your job, IDC” then a lot of people would move to rural areas. Also, corporate office leases are usually long, like 15 years. If the companies stop paying their leases, the entire flimsy financial system would crumble, since modern economics/property prices are more about potential/theoretical value rather than real value. You need a big fancy building in a fancy city to attract top talent, high earners, so it keeps the class system intact as well.
You need a big fancy building in a fancy city to attract top talent,
WFH attracts me, not fancy buildings in cities… YMMV i guess.
You need a big fancy building in a fancy city to attract top talent, high earners, so it keeps the class system intact as well.
I don’t think that this is that true anymore.
You can tell how important working from the office is by the fact that they can’t tell whether or not people are working from the office.
Maybe people need to start talking about unionizing while in the office.
Color coding people? So they are doing a caste system?
They’re queuing people for “priority layoffs”. Also, more heavily automating worker productivity metrics.
If you’re in the “bad” batch, there’s no reason you shouldn’t start looking for another job. Plenty of employers are offering remote work and if Dell doesn’t want you someone else will take you.
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Just to be clear, this is the same Dell who fucked up and leaked a bunch of personal info.
… the number-one cause of which is usually missed patching, which is caused by people just.not.caring.
I can see this going very well for them.
based on the dell products i’ve used, i’m not working there. i get the motive, but they need some good ass cybersecurity to have information like that be kept safe
This sounds like a recipe for malicious compliance if I ever heard it.
Many people chose a ‘remote’ role that requires no office visits but hamstrings your career growth. I know a bunch now enforcing 5PM as the end of their day. But there will always be happy worker bees.
Like, showing to work wearing a colored armband?
Hello comrade
Ha 😃. This was my first thought as well. I just shared the link to a friend of mine working for “Friend Computer” to ask him what class of citizen he was going to be.
Color coding humans… Following in IBM’s footsteps yet again. 1939 was a hell of a year for the database.
“You must go in to the office, so that you can get on calls with your team or other teams, which are in the other global offices.” (rolling eyes)
Where I work they are so fucking stupid they are making everyone go back to the office to ‘foster collaboration’ but all the seating is random - you sit somewhere new every day, first come first served. What useful tasks am I going to collaborate on with random people from all different parts of the company sitting around me each day? It shows that the executives are just fucking liars and aren’t willing to tell the truth, which is that they need people spending money in the cities to help with their portfolios. Or they are just doing what everyone else is doing. Or they’re just on a power trip. Or all of the above.
My current company stated that if you have a local office and want to go there fine, but otherwise do your job where it makes sense. Of course my boss is on one coast, the rest of my team is spread out in multiple states on the other coast, and I’m kind of in the middle of the country.
Mine told everybody “if you have a local office and want to go there fine, otherwise you’re laid off. Also we’re closing a bunch of offices so if you don’t live near one anymore you have to move at your own expense. Otherwise you’re laid off. Also no job guarantee even if you do move, we might lay you off the next day. Hey why is morale in the toilet?”
We had a large layoff a few months ago, including people with over a decade of time at the company, and a meeting afterwards where an exec said, “Yes you were working hard before, and now with many hundreds of people let go, we are asking you to work even harder.” Not all rainbows and butterflies where I am, just that one piece about remote work. :)
Got a weird speech recently that we all need to work hard for the company to succeed, but raises and bonuses were dependent on the “economy and stock market” doing well, if “the economy” was going to continue to do poorly, then there was nothing management can do about skipping another year of raises, and we should just be glad we haven’t had another RIF.
A few months ago my director started discussions on return to office mandates. No one else really paid any attention.
I went in today and nobody is here, including my director. I don’t think anyone thinks the commute is worth the value they’re pitching.
I should have slept in an extra two hours.
Worst are the meetings of international work groups. Stressful travel, being away from the family for days, sitting in a shitty meeting room talking about the same shit you talk about online and then sitting with a bunch of people getting senseless drunk, cringing constantly. I hate those meetings.
Used to be so awesome during corona. Took 4-6 hours, comfortably sitting in my home office, now it takes 3 days costing maybe 50,000€, instead of 0€, without more results.
That really is one of the most ridiculous parts. Even if your team is local, a huuuge amount of interaction is spread across tbe globe.
Budget for monsy spent on pizza parties, etc to encourage workers back to office: $0
Budget for money spent on tracking and whipping employees based on managerial whims: Infinite
Folks, has corporate culture become a cancer on society?
Folks, has corporate culture become a cancer on society?
Become?
The Nanny State
