Thread regarding Dell Inc. layoffs

I heard some inside info that was supposedly from an executive. This happened because Jeff Clarke was pi---d about the majority of people not complying with the original hybrid work guidance. The motivation is just to maintain tax exemptions. He doesn’t care if it drives people to quit.

It makes more sense than claiming this is to foster collaboration and innovation. Maybe people would have been more compliant if he had not glossed over previous commitments to remote work, and he had not blatantly lied about the reasons for going back.

Time to organize and fight back. Everyone should opt for remote and give the lowest tell dell scores possible.

It’s not like they were handing out promotions anyway…

Employees will abide by all policies including contracted hrs, no more extra free time, you remove fexlibility....employees will also remove flexibility and that's impactful when you also have a policy of spreading teams in different geos so you are not dependent on a single site and never again have the catastrophe that happened when Russia was closed. Will shareholders really continue to trust leadership of this company who seem to keep getting it wrong with all the flipflopping?!

This is not a well thought out decision by Dell. This will lead to unproductive time in the office and missed collaboration with colleagues and teams who are in different time zones and different countries. Dell is a global company and now more time will be wasted on commutes. Early morning or late evening calls/meetings will be impacted, resulting in less collaboration amongst employees in different time zones.

Go to the Seattle office to do Xoom meetings with your team in Bangalore and Texas. Nice carvom emissions. This is a Bain and Co move to encourage attrition without severance. Bane is a cancer on high tech.

the real reason is they no you are doing jacksh!t at home and you need to be monitored closely. 'Show us your papers"

Current FAQ states they will not dictate how many hours a day you need to be on site. Wonder will that change and is it going to be 39 FULL days on site. Being in a loud noisy office for all afternoon meetings with people all over the world....please tell me how that is in person networking and all that $hit they have copied and pasted in existing FAQs!

Dell could be transparent here and admit why they’re doing it. They want to cull the ranks without paying for a VSP or announcing a massive WFR and tanking the stock. They also are tying to maintain their facility tax breaks. If my first assertion is not true, then incentivize the return to office. Hit 20 days a quarter, get 500 Inspire points. 30 gets your 1000, so on and so forth.

There is no mention of a cut to IBP if you stay remote

Dell employee here.

So if we opt out on this RTO and opt for WFH our IBP Bonus will be cut, we won't be in line for any role promotion our future growth will reduce.

This is gold

So you can immediately opt for remote and not ever be told you have to go to the office ever again. . . . never get hassled about it and just get on with your job.

OR

Get promoted so you can go work in the office and lose that extra money on parking and stress and office conflict.

There is going to be a massive rush to click that big fat remote button. No brainer for all.

On my contract acceptance letter it says “Remote” as the location and the country. I was never given any indication that the role would require me to go to an office, very odd, now an email is going to indicate I will immediately be a hybrid worker and have to go in 3 days a week. Feels like that shouldn’t be allowed….

Such stupid rationale.

"relationships we believe are best built through in-person connection paired with a flexible approach. "

So what about teams that are spread out geographically anyway? Everyone makes it into the office just to get online and collaborate? When they do that from home already?

Posted in another thread, but felt it should be in this one, too...

"Introducing Dell Technologies’ hybrid work policy

Today we’re announcing our hybrid work policy, which formalizes and adds accountability to the guidance we first introduced in May of last year. This policy is being implemented in phases and in accordance with local laws and regulations.
Going forward, all roles will be classified as field, onsite, hybrid or remote. Team members in field roles require significant customer travel such as sales, services or support. Onsite roles require an onsite presence to fulfill responsibilities.
Initially, all team members not in a field or onsite role will be classified as hybrid, regardless of your distance to a Dell office (we no longer distinguish “major Dell offices” from any others). Team members who were hired as remote or are part of the Connected Workplace program will also be classified as hybrid initially. See below for a one-time opportunity to change your designation.
Team members in hybrid roles will be expected to be onsite at a Dell office at least 39 days per quarter. We will make allowances for vacation, time off, corporate holidays and business travel.
In March, team members in hybrid roles will have a one-time opportunity to change your designation to remote, with manager approval. We believe strongly in the hybrid model and encourage team members to opt for this classification over remote.
For remote team members, it is important to understand the trade-offs:
• Career advancement including applying to new roles in the company will require a team member to reclassify as hybrid, field or onsite.
• Travel budgets will not be increased for remote team members to attend onsite events or meetings.
Starting in Q2, we will track badge access to all Dell offices to monitor regular onsite attendance. Hybrid team members failure to meet expectations will be considered a policy violation and may be considered in talent assessments and other organizational planning decisions.
The world is changing rapidly, accelerated by the transformative influence of generative Al. This all plays to our strengths, and we’re wel positioned to seize this once-in-a-lifetime technology revolution. Doing so will require us to collaborate, challenge each other in healthy ways, learn from each other and stay informed to make good, quick decisions - all in service of innovating for customers and winning. Key to doing all this are relationships - relationships we believe are best built through in-person connection paired with a flexible approach.
What’s next for us is starting right now. This policy replaces our previous Connected Workplace program but retains the elements of choice and flexibility both with the one-time exercise as well as flexibility in how you fulfill the 39-day onsite requirement.
For more information on our hybrid work policy and FAQs, refer to our Hybrid Work SharePoint site.
Please continue to talk with your manager and look for more details on the remote opt-in process soon."

If they start discriminating remote people over other employee, I recommend to sue DELL, especially in EU you'll have high chances to win

backward thinking and a game of supremacy over employees. Such decisions are the reason why unions are successful. Hello from Bratislava

So if you make the one time choice to be remote, you will not be eligible for promotion and will not be able to apply for internal jobs without changing to hybrid. It’s not like they are promoting most people anyway… Someone asked about LTI, there must be some executives on this thread.

Does this apply to those working in the Federal Department and don't even have a corporate computer?

"Field" to me is: roles that are customer facing (non-sales) such as field and professional services resources. Those resources were typically tied to a "field" office in their region. There are other employees also based out of those offices (sales, field and ps delivery managers, etc). Most of those offices closed. So, if you're a delivery manager who use to work in the Conshohocken office, or the Livonia, Michigan office (just examples) where those offices closed and never re-opened...where do you go under this new RTO policy? Or are you labeled a "field" resource? There are many non-customer facing employees who were based out of these field offices who would be negatively impacted by this blanket policy. If you require RTO, you need to give them an office to return to.

Field work is for people who go onsite to customers (tech support/replacement, sales, etc.). So, only very specific job roles are field.

What constitutes “field” vs “hybrid”

Are office re-openings a part of this announcement? I'm not sure where everyone is supposed to go given all the offices that were closed during covid. Unless anyone not near a major campus is classified as a 'field' employee. Further, the people on my team are spread around the globe. Not a single person I work with lives in my metro area...what's the point of going into an office?

Watch thousands of people relocate only to be laid off in six months or a year anyways

What a joke

@1pge+1qQAjByV Not surprised. But we've all seen that there is no job security regardless of location. Why should I uproot my life and family and abandon a good mortgage rate to relocate to another state where we don't know anyone, have no support network from extended family, have no doctors, friends, and so on just to possibly, marginally, reduce my chance of getting laid off?

I'd rather just opt for remote and accept whatever risk comes with that. And if that means I'm laid off in the near future, I'd gladly choose that over relocating. Job market for what I do is better here than it is at the nearest Dell site, so it's a no-brainer.

how can I quiet quit if I've forced to be in the office three days a week? why wont dell leave me alone to do my own thing? if I am forced to the office then I will get bored and might end up doing more work than dell expects of me.

Whoa!

This is discrimination.

Another item I found interesting was them more or less outright admitting that remote people are the first to go in a reorg/layoff.

Also from the FAQ everyone will see on Monday:

"Hybrid, field and onsite classified team members (or those willing to become hybrid, field, or onsite) are likely to have an advantage (compared to remote classified team members not willing to become hybrid) in organizational planning exercises given Dell's desire for more in-person connection."

@1imx+1qQAjByV THANK YOU for posting this clarification, these are key details and I agree with your assessment.

There's a big difference, on paper at least, between "may be denied" (as you wrote) and "will be denied" or "ineligible to request remote status" or whatever.

But in practice, my guess is the same as what you said, that manager discretion will apply. I don't expect most managers to be super lenient unfortunately though.

The "three year thing" is not false. The exact wording of it from the FAQ that will be available on Monday is:

Remote classification "opt-in" requests may be denied based on the following criteria:

Know Your Talent (KYT) call: Talent Concerns may be denied
Less than 3 years tenure with the company
The majority (>50%) individual's team is co-located at a single Dell site

So, while it appears that it may be discretionary (up to your manager), it is absolutely not false.

I wonder how many people will choose remote? I know I will!

I can confirm the 3 year thing is false

I do think this is one of the biggest colossal mistakes made here. If the intent is more connection, what sense does it make to send in someone to an office with no connections to be on zoom with a team that is connected or dispersed. This is common sense, definitely overlooked, and likely to really send good talent elsewhere. Meanwhile, risking potential less talented ‘but connected’. Such a huge miss……….

Y’all come in and can call folks in Nashville, OKC, Round Rock, Boston, Dallas, and Miami offices while you’re in an Arizona office! Awesome idea!

“Come to the office and join a remote meeting here with your team that are also joining from an office that you aren’t in”

GREAT IDEA……

i wonder will LTI and annual merit increase be rationed for remotes also? the other thing i didn't miss about the office everyday is catching everyone elses colds and bugs regularly

I don’t get the part that if 50% of your team is in one office you can’t be remote… so everyone who moved away from their team’s home office approved during COVID are punished because others didn’t move? They have to move or quit?

I heard that the leader has the ‘option’ to decline a request for remote only. In order to be able to decline a request, the individual would have to fall into one or more of the 3 categories.

I don't get the 3 year thing. What if you are 100 miles from an office and only in dell two years? Wht happens then

I still don't understand where they expect people to come back to? There are countless offices around the country that they never re-opened. Looking at the facilities list, I'm spotting many metro areas that once had an office that no longer do...so we our careers are SOL because this? It makes zero sense and completely illogical.