7 ms·

Almost half of Dell's full-time US workforce has rejected the company's RTO push

49 points by ortusdux 2y ago

jauntywundrkind 2y ago
Interesting contrast to many companies, where there was some kind of RTO mandate. It's subtly interesting that Dell lets people stay remote, but promises them no advancement: > Those who chose remote are no longer eligible for promotion or able to change roles. In some ways it's kind of a mercy; you don't have to leave! But it also feels like a weird out, a way to escape having to fire people & maybe/probably end up paying for unemployment. It leaves it up to the employee to eventually quit out.
acedTrex 2y ago
Good for them. Heres to more worker solidarity.
- x3n0ph3n3 2y ago
  Did you read the article? It doesn't have anything to do with worker solidarity.
  - malfist 2y ago
    Collective action is solidarity
    - x3n0ph3n3 2y ago
      It's not collective action. It's a bunch of individuals who have decided that they don't care about promotions.
      - malfist 2y ago
        It's called undirected or unorganized collective action, but it's still collective action
  - yinser 2y ago
    Here’s a definition for you, it sounds like you need one: Solidarity, A bond of unity between individuals, united around a common goal or against a common enemy
x3n0ph3n3 2y ago
Most people in tech just switch jobs for a promotion, so not a huge surprise.
999900000999 2y ago
Somewhere behind the scenes I strongly suspect commercial real estate interests are doing their best to stop WFH. Trillions of dollars worth of commercial real estate would be worthless if WFH was the norm.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  The "commercial real estate conspiracy" angle always strikes me a little like the tail wagging the dog. The market cap of the set of all companies making the RTO/WFH decision must dwarf the market cap of Commercial Real Estate. Yet, somehow, Commercial Real Estate is pulling the strings and making the decisions? Not sure I buy it.
  - mulmen 2y ago
    Don’t these companies have investments in commercial real estate? I would expect Dell to own their HQ buildings.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      We can check their balance sheet. Dell doesn't even report "Land and Improvements" anymore. The last time they did in 2021, it accounted for ~3.8% of their total assets--a tiny drop in the bucket. Take Apple, who just built their spaceship campus: Land and Improvements is ~6.6% of their assets. Google, who own most of Mountain view are ~18% real estate. So, I suppose maybe that tail is wagging the dog... For some companies?
  - riahi 2y ago
    The argument I’ve seen is that management of these companies is heavily invested in commercial real estate themselves, so corporate management has a conflict of interest in RTO in that it benefits their personal investments rather than the company.
    - derf_ 2y ago
      Management is usually heavily compensated via the stock of the company they are managing, precisely to align incentives and overcome conflicts of interest like that.
gnu8 2y ago
Shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.
emestifs 2y ago
Surely a torrent of talent leaving is not good for shareholder value? Who killed shareholder value? Why would employees do this?
- wmf 2y ago
  It's a stealth layoff. They want to have fewer employees.
- barbazoo 2y ago
  They do this because "no one wants to work anymore" :) /s
- mulmen 2y ago
  The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain employed.
- LeifCarrotson 2y ago
  It looks good for shareholder value for this quarterly report, when you stop giving big raises (no promotions) and when mobile talent resigns (no need to pay severance) both reducing opex. The work they did in the previous quarter is being sold right now and driving revenue numbers up. It's the work that they won't do next quarter that won't hit shelves for even longer that will impact revenue eventually that they're missing out on, but that isn't measured in their financials.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- me_me_me 2y ago
  its not the first nor last time, a corporation will want to have a cake and eat it too... and get second free cake too
- rchaud 2y ago
  This is Dell we're talking about. They can always find a PE shop to take them private again like they did in 2013.
malfist 2y ago
My first job after college was at Dell and it was a hybrid role. Before long it was fully remote since they closed the office to save money. Dell had a long long history of being friendly to remote work. I'm not sure what they expected trying to reverse literally decades of policies.
- simoncion 2y ago
  > I'm not sure what they expected trying to reverse literally decades of policies. It might be that Mr. Dell and Dell's big investors are squeezing the last few dollars out of the company before they divest themselves from it.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nine_zeros 2y ago
For folks wondering who is pushing CRE interests in RTO - it is the board members and investment funds that invested in tech companies - they also invested in CRE back in the 2012-2019 period. When workers don't come back, it is hurting these same investment firms that own all these funds. But it only hurts a small percentage of their portfolio. They'd much rather you all millions of workers sacrifice their lives commuting than they lose 5% of their wealth.
deadghost 2y ago
I have a friend in his 40s and I asked him about his opinion on WFH. He doesn't like it. He prefers to go to an office and be around people. He also doesn't have much in the way of interests or hobbies. I suspect a lot of RTO decision makers fit a similar profile.
- banish-m4 2y ago
  Sad. I'm mid-40's and consider RTO to be an outdated waste of time and money for both the employees commuting and causing pollution and the company leasing office space for no purpose. Ironically, Dell's inside and outside sales staff have been WfH for 20+ years.
- greenchair 2y ago
  I feel sorry for the live to work people and it would be unfortunate if they were in the decision makers. But that does make sense because that's probably how they climbed the ladder into those positions.
alephnerd 2y ago
I work closely with some people who make these kinds of decisions and ime it's not commercial real estate (though I'm sure there might be isolated cases of this happening - Washington DC's city government is a notable example of this) Based on my network, their reasoning is a mix of: - communication breakdowns due to the difficulty of building an async communication model (remember that most people are not as text/writing and async driven as Internet commenters on a tech forum), and operational work like quarterly planning, QBRs, product line prioritizations, etc can be done much faster in person instead of over 10-15 Zoom calls over 3-5 weeks. - situations where remote workers are domiciled in a different location from where they were hired AND they didn't tell HR (this leaves companies legally liable for various tax, business incorporation, and safety regulations) - the occasional case where a major security incident occurs due to lack of in-person verification (eg. The recent North Korea remote worker scandal, the ongoing Snowflake breach) - Justify US headcount. One of the portfolio companies I was an observer for went public a couple years ago. When they switched to remote during the pandemic, they realized they could cut down their entire US engineering presence and overhire in Eastern Europe, Israel, and India and drastically reduce margins. Most larger institutional investors are clamoring for this now, and they have a point to a certain extent. IBM, Google, Crowdstrike, and Amazon have unofficially started this, and I'm not surprised if other companies are doing the same There are ways to change an organization to resolve these issues, but they are hard, expensive, and not scalable for large organizations.
- nunez 2y ago
  The last bullet point is what makes WFH so frustrating for me. It is BLINDLY OBVIOUS that shareholders will see WFH as evidence that work can be done in cheaper locations and will pressure execs to make it so. US Senior engineers who have been senior for a while are immune from this, since they already got theirs. Juniors? Good fucking luck I guess.
- acedTrex 2y ago
  If the only thing justifying US head count is the ability to go to an office then that US headcount was never secure anyway.
simoncion 2y ago
Meta discussion: It's interesting how very quickly this got buried. At the time of this writing, three hours after posting, I have to go back twenty-four pages to find it, in amongst things with 2/3rds to almost 1/10th the points, posted one, two, five days ago. I actually expected that it got flagged, and was surprised to see that it hadn't.
greenchair 2y ago
"Every mom that I talk to at Dell says that they are looking for other jobs because they need the remote work," said one employee. I actually wonder if this is a significant factor. I work with some new moms and they are definitely dropping the ball all over the place while trying to watch over the new kid. Sensitive subject too so hard to even acknowledge or do anything about for their managers I would imagine.

49 points by ortusdux 2y ago

Interesting contrast to many companies, where there was some kind of RTO mandate. It's subtly interesting that Dell lets people stay remote, but promises them no advancement: > Those who chose remote are no longer eligible for promotion or able to change roles. In some ways it's kind of a mercy; you don't have to leave! But it also feels like a weird out, a way to escape having to fire people & maybe/probably end up paying for unemployment. It leaves it up to the employee to eventually quit out.

acedTrex 2y ago

Good for them. Heres to more worker solidarity.

x3n0ph3n3 2y ago
Did you read the article? It doesn't have anything to do with worker solidarity.
- malfist 2y ago
  Collective action is solidarity
  - x3n0ph3n3 2y ago
    It's not collective action. It's a bunch of individuals who have decided that they don't care about promotions.
    - malfist 2y ago
      It's called undirected or unorganized collective action, but it's still collective action
- yinser 2y ago
  Here’s a definition for you, it sounds like you need one: Solidarity, A bond of unity between individuals, united around a common goal or against a common enemy

x3n0ph3n3 2y ago

Most people in tech just switch jobs for a promotion, so not a huge surprise.

999900000999 2y ago

Somewhere behind the scenes I strongly suspect commercial real estate interests are doing their best to stop WFH. Trillions of dollars worth of commercial real estate would be worthless if WFH was the norm.

ryandrake 2y ago
The "commercial real estate conspiracy" angle always strikes me a little like the tail wagging the dog. The market cap of the set of all companies making the RTO/WFH decision must dwarf the market cap of Commercial Real Estate. Yet, somehow, Commercial Real Estate is pulling the strings and making the decisions? Not sure I buy it.
- mulmen 2y ago
  Don’t these companies have investments in commercial real estate? I would expect Dell to own their HQ buildings.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    We can check their balance sheet. Dell doesn't even report "Land and Improvements" anymore. The last time they did in 2021, it accounted for ~3.8% of their total assets--a tiny drop in the bucket. Take Apple, who just built their spaceship campus: Land and Improvements is ~6.6% of their assets. Google, who own most of Mountain view are ~18% real estate. So, I suppose maybe that tail is wagging the dog... For some companies?
- riahi 2y ago
  The argument I’ve seen is that management of these companies is heavily invested in commercial real estate themselves, so corporate management has a conflict of interest in RTO in that it benefits their personal investments rather than the company.
  - derf_ 2y ago
    Management is usually heavily compensated via the stock of the company they are managing, precisely to align incentives and overcome conflicts of interest like that.

gnu8 2y ago

Shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.

emestifs 2y ago

Surely a torrent of talent leaving is not good for shareholder value? Who killed shareholder value? Why would employees do this?

wmf 2y ago
It's a stealth layoff. They want to have fewer employees.
barbazoo 2y ago
They do this because "no one wants to work anymore" :) /s
mulmen 2y ago
The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain employed.
LeifCarrotson 2y ago
It looks good for shareholder value for this quarterly report, when you stop giving big raises (no promotions) and when mobile talent resigns (no need to pay severance) both reducing opex. The work they did in the previous quarter is being sold right now and driving revenue numbers up. It's the work that they won't do next quarter that won't hit shelves for even longer that will impact revenue eventually that they're missing out on, but that isn't measured in their financials.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
me_me_me 2y ago
its not the first nor last time, a corporation will want to have a cake and eat it too... and get second free cake too
rchaud 2y ago
This is Dell we're talking about. They can always find a PE shop to take them private again like they did in 2013.

malfist 2y ago

My first job after college was at Dell and it was a hybrid role. Before long it was fully remote since they closed the office to save money. Dell had a long long history of being friendly to remote work. I'm not sure what they expected trying to reverse literally decades of policies.

simoncion 2y ago
> I'm not sure what they expected trying to reverse literally decades of policies. It might be that Mr. Dell and Dell's big investors are squeezing the last few dollars out of the company before they divest themselves from it.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

nine_zeros 2y ago

For folks wondering who is pushing CRE interests in RTO - it is the board members and investment funds that invested in tech companies - they also invested in CRE back in the 2012-2019 period. When workers don't come back, it is hurting these same investment firms that own all these funds. But it only hurts a small percentage of their portfolio. They'd much rather you all millions of workers sacrifice their lives commuting than they lose 5% of their wealth.

deadghost 2y ago

I have a friend in his 40s and I asked him about his opinion on WFH. He doesn't like it. He prefers to go to an office and be around people. He also doesn't have much in the way of interests or hobbies. I suspect a lot of RTO decision makers fit a similar profile.

banish-m4 2y ago
Sad. I'm mid-40's and consider RTO to be an outdated waste of time and money for both the employees commuting and causing pollution and the company leasing office space for no purpose. Ironically, Dell's inside and outside sales staff have been WfH for 20+ years.
greenchair 2y ago
I feel sorry for the live to work people and it would be unfortunate if they were in the decision makers. But that does make sense because that's probably how they climbed the ladder into those positions.

alephnerd 2y ago

I work closely with some people who make these kinds of decisions and ime it's not commercial real estate (though I'm sure there might be isolated cases of this happening - Washington DC's city government is a notable example of this) Based on my network, their reasoning is a mix of: - communication breakdowns due to the difficulty of building an async communication model (remember that most people are not as text/writing and async driven as Internet commenters on a tech forum), and operational work like quarterly planning, QBRs, product line prioritizations, etc can be done much faster in person instead of over 10-15 Zoom calls over 3-5 weeks. - situations where remote workers are domiciled in a different location from where they were hired AND they didn't tell HR (this leaves companies legally liable for various tax, business incorporation, and safety regulations) - the occasional case where a major security incident occurs due to lack of in-person verification (eg. The recent North Korea remote worker scandal, the ongoing Snowflake breach) - Justify US headcount. One of the portfolio companies I was an observer for went public a couple years ago. When they switched to remote during the pandemic, they realized they could cut down their entire US engineering presence and overhire in Eastern Europe, Israel, and India and drastically reduce margins. Most larger institutional investors are clamoring for this now, and they have a point to a certain extent. IBM, Google, Crowdstrike, and Amazon have unofficially started this, and I'm not surprised if other companies are doing the same There are ways to change an organization to resolve these issues, but they are hard, expensive, and not scalable for large organizations.

nunez 2y ago
The last bullet point is what makes WFH so frustrating for me. It is BLINDLY OBVIOUS that shareholders will see WFH as evidence that work can be done in cheaper locations and will pressure execs to make it so. US Senior engineers who have been senior for a while are immune from this, since they already got theirs. Juniors? Good fucking luck I guess.
acedTrex 2y ago
If the only thing justifying US head count is the ability to go to an office then that US headcount was never secure anyway.

simoncion 2y ago

Meta discussion: It's interesting how very quickly this got buried. At the time of this writing, three hours after posting, I have to go back twenty-four pages to find it, in amongst things with 2/3rds to almost 1/10th the points, posted one, two, five days ago. I actually expected that it got flagged, and was surprised to see that it hadn't.

greenchair 2y ago

"Every mom that I talk to at Dell says that they are looking for other jobs because they need the remote work," said one employee. I actually wonder if this is a significant factor. I work with some new moms and they are definitely dropping the ball all over the place while trying to watch over the new kid. Sensitive subject too so hard to even acknowledge or do anything about for their managers I would imagine.