Dell Employee Morale Hits Depths as Return to Office Policy Bites

Employees at Dell are accusing management of ignoring their discontent after an annual survey revealed deep dissatisfaction across the company.

The “Tell Dell” questionnaire has been circulated for eight years now but this year, it was a chance for employees to give their views on the computing giant’s increasingly brutal return to office (RTO) policy. Their response was a firm thumbs down.

The backlash follows months of Dell attempting to coax employees back to the office, trying everything from tracking workers to threatening to withhold promotions.

Widespread Anger at Dell’s RTO Policy

The results of the annual survey were shared with Business Insider. Around 98,000 employees are reported to have taken part and a key metric was the employee net promoter score (eNPS). This is how employees would rate Dell as a place to work if asked for a recommendation.

The score is created by taking the percentage of “detractors” away from the percentage of “promoters”. This year, it dropped double digits from 62 to 48. A breakdown revealed that the global marketing team had a 68% drop and there were even teams whose eNPS now sit at a chilling zero.

Worst still is the accusation that the survey results are being glossed over. “It’s as if every leader was given the OK to ignore it,” one Dell employee told Business Insider. This is in stark contrast to previous years in which concerns were reported company-wide and management responded with action plans. In a statement to the news site, a Dell spokesperson played down the results, declaring that the eNPS is “just one question in a robust survey that gives us a current snapshot of employee sentiment.”

Dell Culture Compromised

Rebellion has been brewing since the computing giant reversed its remote working policy just over a year ago. An internal memo mandated that all employees living within an hour of a Dell hub had to be at their desk three days a week. This is despite CEO Michael Dell stating on LinkedIn that companies with ‘forced hours in an office’ were ‘doing it wrong’.

The move immediately caused anger among employees and recriminations flew that this was a ‘soft layoff’ measure – a pill hard to swallow after the widespread lay-offs the company made in February last year. This view was given weight as another leaked internal memo – in February of this year – was shared with The Register. It targeted hybrid workers for a compulsory three day return – irrespective of their distance from an office – and made it clear that non-compliance would be “career-limiting”.

RTO Fosters a Surveillance Society

As if this wasn’t enough, a company whistle-blower revealed to The Register in May that Dell had started using a color-coding system to track employee attendance. For persistent offenders, this could mean a red flag by their name.

But, in a trend echoed across the tech world, employees are ignoring the threats and unabashedly continue to work from home. Business Insider reported last month on data that revealed nearly half of Dell’s full-time US workforce has rejected the RTO mandate.

Dell’s increasingly draconian response is mirrored across all sectors. Elon Musk was one of the first to demand his employees at both X and Tesla get back to their desks. Apple waivered after it faced pushback; but CEO Tim Cook ultimately doubled down on the RTO policy, insisting it was necessary for collaboration.

Companies are now baring their teeth to enforce their mandates. Amazon is the latest company to use surveillance in a bid to outfox employees who “coffee badge” or come to the office to show their face and grab a coffee before exiting. Employees continue to fight back either by ignoring the consequences or, in the case of SAP, openly stating that they feel “betrayed” by their employer. Flexibility remains a key want, says PwC’s Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey 2024, which was published last month. Will those employers who ignore this be faced with mass disobedience or, worse, mass quitting?