The majority of Dell’s sales team will no longer have the option to work remotely starting Monday, according to a Reuters report this week citing an internal memo. The policy applies to salespeople worldwide and is intended to help “build skills,” the memo said.
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Previously, like most Dell employees, sales teams were allowed to work remotely two days per week. The memo, which claims to have been posted by a Reddit user (The Register reported that the post “similarly” resembled one it had seen separately), states that field salespeople are not required to come into the office but “should prioritize face-to-face time with customers and partners.” The policy does not apply to “remote sales team members,” but Dell said that additional communications regarding remote workers will be forthcoming “in the coming weeks.” Bloomberg reported that senior sales executives Bill Scannell, Dell’s president of global sales and customer operations, and John Byrne, president of global sales and territories at Dell Tech Select, signed the memo.
Dell sees mandatory in-office presence as a way to maintain its sales team culture and drive growth, according to the memo, which touts things like “real-time feedback” and a “dynamic” office energy. Going forward, remote work will only be allowed as an exception, Dell said.
The letter, reportedly sent to workers Thursday, doesn’t give employees much time to adjust. The memo acknowledges that workers have built their schedules around working from home regularly, but it doesn’t offer an immediate solution.
In a statement to The Register, a Dell spokesperson confirmed the policy change, saying, “We continue to evolve our business to be ready to deliver the best innovation, value and service to our customers and partners, including more face-to-face connections to drive market leadership.”
Dell began enforcing its return-to-office (RTO) policy after the COVID-19 pandemic, initially requiring employees to work in the office 39 days per quarter (about three days per week) or work entirely remotely. However, the remote option was apparently discouraged, as Dell reportedly told remote workers in March that they were ineligible for promotions. Still, nearly 50 percent of Dell employees are opting to continue working remotely, Business Insider reported in June.
The return to the office has been accompanied by VPN tracking and access cards. Some employees have accused Dell of trying to shrink its workforce with this policy, even though it is laying off 13,000 people in 2023 and plans to make more cuts. In August, Dell announced additional layoffs, but did not specify how many.
Dell’s RTO policy changes follow a similar move by Amazon, which is also requiring employees to work in the office five days a week starting next year. After the announcement, a survey of 2,585 Amazon US employees found that 73 percent were considering looking for another job.
The memo also acknowledged to workers, “Yes, this is a change from previous expectations.” It was a reversal from Dell’s previous stance on remote work. In 2022, CEO Michael Dell wrote a blog post saying that Dell had “not seen a significant difference” between remote and in-office workers. COO Jeff Clarke also made a similar statement in 2020.
The debate over whether remote work hurts productivity continues. While Dell claims its decision is backed by data, several studies have shown that returning to the office can actually hurt productivity. For example, a July 2023 Great Place to Work survey of 4,400 workers found that productivity declined for both in-office and remote workers when their workplaces were forced to be remote.
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