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.
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.