Dell wanted everyone back in the office 5 days a week. Employees say it’s been open to interpretation.

After years of ramping up its RTO push, Dell called all its employees living near an office back to their desks full time starting March 3, saying it expected employees to do “a regular working day in the office” with “flexibility as needed.”

Three months in, 10 Dell employees based in offices across the US have told BI that — in addition to challenges with RTO mandates like overcrowded offices and parking lots — the degree of enforcement so far has depended on the role and the manager. Some employees said they are in eight hours a day, while one employee described “badging” in and leaving soon after.

That’s causing “lots of in-office politics,” a Dell program manager said. They said they had worked from home for several days with “no problems” since March 3, while a teammate who did the same was “talked to.” They said this fueled “gossip” about who is in eight hours a day and who isn’t. The differing treatment was creating a “busy-body type environment” where “people on-site fight amongst each other based on who comes in and who doesn’t,” they added.

“So much of this is dependent on leaders,” the program manager said, adding that it felt “haphazard.”

A Dell spokesperson told BI the company’s “expectations for our team members have not changed.”

“They are expected to work a regular working day in the office, but have flexibility as needed,” the spokesperson said. “Also, team members in global roles may need to take late evening calls and can adjust their in-office hours accordingly.”

An internal FAQ obtained by BI, last updated on May 29, shared examples of when employees may be permitted to work from home, with approval from a leader. These included a temporary medical condition, needing to provide care on a temporary basis, or adjusting in-office hours to avoid peak traffic.

Of the five employees who told BI they sometimes worked from home, none said they were doing so for any of the reasons listed in the FAQ.

‘No one has corrected me yet’

“I personally have not been adhering to eight hours a day,” said one employee at company headquarters in Round Rock, Texas. “I am aware I may be breaking the rules, but no one has corrected me yet.”

“My team is in the office five days a week, but I work about four hours and finish the day from home,” said an employee in Oklahoma City.

An employee in tech support at Round Rock told BI they’d intentionally been coming in less since March 3 on “pure principle.” They said they felt the new policy made them feel “treated like a child.”

When the policy was announced in January, a Dell spokesperson told BI it would mean “more in-person connections to drive market leadership.”

Vivek Mohindra, Dell’s senior vice president of corporate strategy, previously told BI that having staff in the office brought “huge benefits,” including “learning from each other, training, and mentorship.”

The tech support worker said they come into the office for a few hours if there are in-person meetings. Otherwise, they’re “just badging and then leaving,” they said.

Others at Round Rock do the same, the employee said, adding they saw colleagues “do a little lap” and walk out to the parking lot — “less than five minutes in and out.”

Some of the other employees BI spoke with said their managers were interpreting the mandate to mean five full days in the office.

Three said that since March 3, they had been expected to spend full days in the office. A fourth said their manager was initially flexible but was later asked to justify why some team members were not consistently in five days a week. The leader has to submit justification for employees to work away from the office and create an action plan for anyone falling short of the five days, they said.

Two other employees said the sales team, which has had a five-day RTO since September, had been particularly strict about enforcing a full working day.

Confusion

When Dell announced the five-day RTO, it said flexibility in the workday would be agreed upon with managers. Continued noncompliance with the order “may result in disciplinary action,” according to the FAQ BI obtained.

Three employees said they were unaware that a full day was the official requirement when asked by BI if they were in the office eight hours each day.

An April email from a senior executive, which BI has seen, seemed to capture the uncertainty around what was required.

James Christmas, the vice president of customer success, global services support, and deployment, informed some staff in the company’s client solutions group to “maintain a consistent presence in the office, with a minimum of four hours daily.”

A tech support worker who received the email told BI their team had been coming to the office for eight-hour days since early March, so the four-hour guidance surprised them. “I was told there was no WFH, and my manager was told the same thing,” they added.

A Dell spokesperson declined to comment about Christmas’ email.

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