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.

  • Buttons@programming.dev
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    4 months ago

    You can tell how important working from the office is by the fact that they can’t tell whether or not people are working from the office.

    Maybe people need to start talking about unionizing while in the office.

    • exanime@lemmy.today
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      4 months ago

      This is the right point to make… Instead of managing people by the work they do or the objectives they achieve, they are managing literally where their butts sit

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Nah, just quit en masse, especially the people who have the most experience there. Dell can’t do business if it doesn’t have people…

      • BaskinRobbins@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        Not sure why you’re getting down voted. This is exactly what happened at my last company during the RTO push, senior employees, including me, were leaving in droves and it got bad quickly. As a result the company upped their salaries and offered fully remote work instead of just hybrid to keep people around. The only way a company will listen is if you hit them in their wallets.

  • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    I really like my job but if they started monitoring my data like that I’d absolutely quit. There’s already a monitoring mechanism, it’s called your boss needing you to complete tasks on time. If you’re doing that, the only thing data monitoring does it falsely call out people who are doing their work.

    • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I will not work for a company that thinks it needs to babysit it’s employees. The idea that you have to constantly micromanage someone is ridiculous, if they’re that shit at their job, you let them go and get someone else for the role.

  • kennebel@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    “You must go in to the office, so that you can get on calls with your team or other teams, which are in the other global offices.” (rolling eyes)

    • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Where I work they are so fucking stupid they are making everyone go back to the office to ‘foster collaboration’ but all the seating is random - you sit somewhere new every day, first come first served. What useful tasks am I going to collaborate on with random people from all different parts of the company sitting around me each day? It shows that the executives are just fucking liars and aren’t willing to tell the truth, which is that they need people spending money in the cities to help with their portfolios. Or they are just doing what everyone else is doing. Or they’re just on a power trip. Or all of the above.

  • JIMMERZ@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    Just another huge ass company that values short term profits over its employees and customers. Probably won’t be buying any more of their products.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      They’re queuing people for “priority layoffs”. Also, more heavily automating worker productivity metrics.

      If you’re in the “bad” batch, there’s no reason you shouldn’t start looking for another job. Plenty of employers are offering remote work and if Dell doesn’t want you someone else will take you.

    • TOModera@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      So I’ve worked in business for 17ish years now, and the only consistent thing I can say about business leadership is they are there to have their egos stroked.

      They do not care about money or other people until they look bad, and even then they don’t do anything until someone threatens to take away the group of people forced to listen to them.

      Working from home hurts their ego. This method (RTO) doesn’t improve value and increases turnaround, which increases expenses if you are happy with the amount of people working for your company, as replacing people costs money.

      So either Dell still needs to get rid of people, or a bunch of old fucks need someone to suck up to them in person.