After years of encouraging remote work, Dell Technologies is joining a chorus of global tech giants in their push to get employees to return to physical offices.
The Round Rock, Texas-based company told some of its employees that they must show up to a corporate hub at least 39 days a quarter, a mandate that shakes out to roughly three days a week, a Dell spokesperson confirmed to CoStar News. The new in-person requirement will apply to workers who have been operating on a hybrid policy, which the computer hardware company has gradually revised over the past couple of years.
"We believe in-person connections paired with a flexible approach are critical to drive innovation and value differentiation," the Dell spokesperson said in a statement.
The revised policy marks a sharp turn for Dell, which had previously said about two-thirds of its workforce could continue working from home until the pandemic ended, and even then would only be required to show up to an office for one or two days per week. Starting last year, however, the company began walking that leniency back with a previous mandate requiring all employees living within an hour of a Dell office to come in at least three days per week.
Now, that has been widened to include all employees, regardless of where they live or how long it will take for them to commute to a physical workspace.
The move underscores employers' growing confidence in their ability to enforce stricter rules surrounding in-person requirements, a shift widely expected to help boost daily attendance rates at office properties that have been sitting largely vacant since the early days of the pandemic. The tech giant joins other companies such as IBM, Kroger, Amazon and AT&T in stepping up in-person requirements that go as far as asking workers to relocate in order to live closer to an office.
Dell, which employs more than 125,000 workers, occupies about 9.5 million square feet of office space around the world, according to CoStar data.
'Please Come Back'
Dell's escalated mandate is the latest in a slew of similar policies implemented by companies pushing to enforce stricter in-office schedules. UPS, Disney, Amazon, Bank of America, Meta and others have recently ramped up efforts to get workers back to physical office space, deploying a mix of strategies that include attendance-tracking apps, asking employees to relocate, and threats to link in-person time with annual performance reviews.
The return-to-office push has even expanded far beyond the United States as beauty conglomerate L'Oreal and SAP, Europe's largest software firm, have recently implemented their own stricter attendance requirements.
"I know so many employees of so many other companies than L'Oreal that have been working from home for months, that have absolutely no attachment, no passion, no creativity," L'Oreal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month. "One of the reasons that we hit the ground running after COVID is that we did not do like many tech companies and say everybody works from home all the time and now are saying, 'Oh my God, that was a mistake, please come back.'"
L'Oreal was among the first global employers to call workers back to the office after lockdowns in 2020. The company is now asking them to work from an office for at least two Fridays each month in an effort to boost attendance toward the end of the week. That policy is in addition to the mandate requiring at least three in-person days each week.
By and large, most return-to-office mandates have avoided a complete boomerang back to pre-pandemic schedules that require five days of in-person work a week or demands for demands for employees to relocate to be closer to physical offices. A tight labor market, ongoing pandemic concerns and an aversion by some people to working in an office led many employers to offer some flexibility for many employees, meaning some new hires over the past couple of years are based far away from a company outpost.
However, that flexibility is growing more scarce as the job market cools, providing companies with more leverage to implement firmer in-office policies and make better use of their real estate.
What's more, widespread layoffs have added more pressure for employees to show up to an office more regularly. Some companies have said attendance rates will be tethered to performance reviews, pay increases or factored into job-elimination decisions. Some workplace advocates have said escalated return-to-office mandates act as layoffs in disguise since some employees, especially if they are being asked to relocate and uproot families, decide to leave on their own.
Dell did not respond to additional questions about potential layoffs or the potential impact of its revised in-office policy. The company last year laid off about 6,000 people, or roughly 5% of its workforce.