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Dell responds to return-to-office resistance with VPN, badge tracking, and color-coding of employees (arstechnica.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 119 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Probably because I didn't say "unionize."

A union isn't going to fix a broken company culture, it's just going to get more bargaining power for employees. The union won't change priorities for the executive team to prioritize cyber security, customer-friendly products, and it probably won't change company policy around badging. It might get more WFH, but if the executive team is hell-bent on tracking its users, the union will probably shift focus to better benefits (oh, you want to screw us over more? Pay more!).

So no, I don't think it's worth trying to unionize and fix the company from within. Quit and take all of that institutional knowledge with you to hit them where it counts: the stock price.