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Dell has informed employees on its global sales team they must begin working from the office five days per week, a memo has revealed.
The note to sales staff, sent on September 26, said all global sales team members able to work from a Dell office must be onsite five days a week starting today, September 30.
The mandate comes after the tech giant introduced a three-day-per-week in-office mandate for all Dell employees in February 2024, sparking major backlash from its workforce and contributing to a drop-off in employee engagement.
Why has Dell called sales staff back to the office full-time?
Bill Scannell, President of Global Sales & Customer Operations, and John Byrne, President, Sales, Global Regions, Dell Tech Select authored the memo.
The pair highlighted the cultural power of Dell’s onsite sales environment.
“This Sales floor is a unique environment that combined high energy with a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement,” they wrote. “To harness this energy and grow skills, we believe our sales teams need to be together in the office.”
Scannell and Byrne also suggested that the decision was made based on productivity metrics for sales employees. “Our data shows that sales teams are more productive when onsite,” the memo continued.
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The business leaders acknowledged that the mandate is a “shift from current expectations,” but emphasized the speed of change in the technology industry.
All sales staff able to travel into the office are expected to do so, with field sales staff told to split their time between in-person meetings with partners or customers and visits to Dell Technologies offices.
“When we're not traveling to meet with customers and partners, we are in the office,” Scannell and Byrne stated.
The memo also noted that Dell hopes bringing sales staff back to the office will help employees gain better real-time feedback, guidance, and support from sales managers.
Remote working “exception rather than the routine”
Dell’s sales leaders said the business will rely on the strength of its culture of in-person collaboration and human interaction as the industry shifts toward an “a new AI world.”
The memo ceded that some cases will necessitate remote work. “We know situations will arise when you need to work remotely. This is expected,” it said. “But working remotely should be the exception rather than routine.”
Although the mandate comes into effect immediately, the memo acknowledged that some staff who have organized their lives around the three-day in-office mandate might need time to make new arrangements.
An addendum to the memo stated that “Implementation will be subject to local laws, regulations and practices, including works council and employee representative consultation where applicable.”
RTO mandates unpopular with US workers
Dell has struggled with significant backlash from its staff since introducing a three-day RTO mandate in February, informing workers they must classify as a hybrid worker or a remote worker.
Hybrid workers were told to be in the office a minimum of 39 days per quarter tracked with electronic badge swipes and VPN monitoring, with a color code then assigned to employees indicating their level of on-site presence.
Meanwhile, remote employees were told they were free to work from home but choosing this path would leave them ineligible for promotions. “Career advancement, including applying to new roles in the company, will require a team member to reclassify as hybrid onsite,” a memo sent to employees said.
Despite Dell’s hopes that this would push workers back to the office, company data appeared to show that nearly half of US employees chose to continue working from home.
Moreover, its most recent annual employee engagement survey, “Tell Dell,” which surveyed around 98,000 workers, showed that the company’s employee net promoter score (eNPS) dropped from 62 to 48 in the space of one year.
Criticism from Dell staff has ranged from claims that the mandate is a form of “quiet firing” and “anti-women,” particularly for those who are not within a commutable location of one of Dell’s 17 “approved” US office sites, to employees pointing out that being on a globally distributed team meant that in-office work was pointless as there was still no in-person collaboration.
One worker said that their time in the office is spent on video calls “with people in different conference rooms across the country by themselves.”
Amazon has also recently introduced a controversial mandate requiring all corporate staff to return to the office five days per week. “We’ve observed that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and, teams tend to be better connected to one another,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy in a memo to staff.
The move has similarly proved highly unpopular with the company's employees. A survey conducted by Blind of over 2,500 verified Amazon workers revealed that 73% were contemplating a job switch due to the new return to office mandate, with 91% expressing dissatisfaction. 80% knew of colleagues who were actively seeking new roles, and a third had already witnessed resignations.
