Staff Say Dell's Return To Office Mandate is a Stealth Layoff (theregister.com) 165
Dell's "return to office" mandate has left employees confused about which offices they can use and the future of their jobs -- and concerned the initiative is a stealth layoff program that will disproportionately harm women at the IT giant. From a report: As El Reg broke this month, Dell told employees they each needed to choose between resuming a hybrid work schedule -- working from a corporate office part of the time -- or continue working remotely. Those who chose to remain as remote workers were effectively making a career-limiting decision.
The implications of choosing to work remotely, we're told, are: "1) no funding for team onsite meetings, even if a large portion of the team is flying in for the meeting from other Dell locations; 2) no career advancement; 3) no career movements; and 4) remote status will be considered when planning or organization changes -- AKA workforce reductions." Another employee said: "Choosing to be remote does indeed put career advancement at a standstill. If you choose to accept a promotion after going remote, that comes with the requirement of being in office 39 days out of the quarter" and you have to reclassify yourself as hybrid. The employee continued: "Even if you choose to make a lateral career move, the same expectation applies. In-role promotions are possible, but rare enough to not be a realistic option."
The implications of choosing to work remotely, we're told, are: "1) no funding for team onsite meetings, even if a large portion of the team is flying in for the meeting from other Dell locations; 2) no career advancement; 3) no career movements; and 4) remote status will be considered when planning or organization changes -- AKA workforce reductions." Another employee said: "Choosing to be remote does indeed put career advancement at a standstill. If you choose to accept a promotion after going remote, that comes with the requirement of being in office 39 days out of the quarter" and you have to reclassify yourself as hybrid. The employee continued: "Even if you choose to make a lateral career move, the same expectation applies. In-role promotions are possible, but rare enough to not be a realistic option."
Interesting middle position. (Score:2, Insightful)
By denying advancement rather than threatening termination they're firmly in the clear, legally speaking. I fail to see how "Stealth Layoff" applies. Layoff is a pretty specific term, both in colloquial usage and in legal terms. Prefixing it with "stealth" might as well nullify the term.
It it's encouraging resignations, well, sure. That makes sense I'm not objecting to the intent, but rather to the characterization.
Re:Interesting middle position. (Score:4)
That makes sense I'm not objecting to the intent, but rather to the characterization.
It's not a "stealth layoff". It's an ultimatum: either come to the office, or accept that you're in a career dead-end at Dell.
If Dell wants everyone working from an office, then they need to just say so outright: "Company policy is changing, and we'll require all employees to work at office locations. This is mandatory company policy starting on *insert date*". I get that they're trying to do kind of a stick and carrot thing here, but they need to just be blunt about it if this is what they want.
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It's also a wage reduction. Because of inflation, you need a raise every year, or your salary keeps decreasing.
Re: Interesting middle position. (Score:2)
Pay raises are different from promotions, most workers get so-called "cost of living" raises even if not promoted.
Re:Interesting middle position. (Score:4, Insightful)
If they had a mass layoff, they would need to tell the world via a WARN Act notification. They don't want any hit to their stock price from such an announcement. They absolutely want to make staying with Dell as unattractive as possible for current remote employees for whom it's likely impractical to move closer to the office now.
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Conventional wisdom on the internet is shareholders always respond positively to layoffs.
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They don't want any hit to their stock price from such an announcement.
Layoffs almost always boost stock prices. It shows that the company is cutting costs.
Re: Interesting middle position. (Score:2)
No one is losing their jobs, they have a clear choice they are being offered, return to at least a hybrid schedule (39 days in office/quarter), or remain working from home 5 days a week. They are letting employees know the 'cost' of refusing even the hybrid work arrangement... they are big boys and girls, they can make the choice that best suits their situation.
Re:Interesting middle position. (Score:5, Insightful)
That makes sense I'm not objecting to the intent, but rather to the characterization.
It's not a "stealth layoff". It's an ultimatum: either come to the office, or accept that you're in a career dead-end at Dell.
Seems like no one from Dell is saying the people demanding to work in some safe space are being fired. And yes, it is simple math that if you won't leave home to work, you are limiting yourself to only careers that you never have to go to an office.
Not everyone is a programmer that probably does better the less contact they have with others. Some work requires an in person presence. If you refuse to be some place in person, that is a job you will never have, and the same for in-company work that requires it.
The whole story seems more like Dell saying "You can refuse to come in, but that will have an effect on your career" - that's undeniable.
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That makes sense I'm not objecting to the intent, but rather to the characterization.
It's not a "stealth layoff". It's an ultimatum: either come to the office, or accept that you're in a career dead-end at Dell.
Seems like no one from Dell is saying the people demanding to work in some safe space are being fired. And yes, it is simple math that if you won't leave home to work, you are limiting yourself to only careers that you never have to go to an office.
Not everyone is a programmer that probably does better the less contact they have with others. Some work requires an in person presence. If you refuse to be some place in person, that is a job you will never have, and the same for in-company work that requires it.
The whole story seems more like Dell saying "You can refuse to come in, but that will have an effect on your career" - that's undeniable.
And yet these people seem to have been doing their jobs remotely just fine up until now. So what changed?
Re: Interesting middle position. (Score:2)
You literally made up the part about "being able to meet all the requirements of their jobs" - no where in the article I read was worker performance rating or productivity metrics presented to counter the employers desire to have workers return to the office, at least part-time.
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I would have thought that baby boomers are the employees most able and willing to return to office. Most of them built their lives around being in the office including owning homes nearby. It's younger people who planned around working from home perpetually who will have the hardest time returning. It's also young people for whom commuting costs make up a significant part of their pay.
There are all manner of people who would like to work only from home. Old, young, in between. I do half home, and half onsite. But The onsite work - has to be that way. So a work only from home person isn't qualified. Oh, and I'm a boomer.
I just wonder what the alternative plans are for the young people who planned on never leaving their apartment? And hey, we all have commute costs. Even the boomers.
But layoffs happen, and will the kids refuse to take any work that requires an in person presence? Thei
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Their boomer parents are getting old, soon to die, and probably can't support the kids any longer.
Then they'll finally make room in upper management for people with a clue. You know, people who don't consider it a "bad attitude" to prefer working from home because they don't care about having lunch with coworkers and don't care to be "friends" with people at work.
Re:You know just saying it's not the thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Then they'll finally make room in upper management for people with a clue. You know, people who don't consider it a "bad attitude" to prefer working from home because they don't care about having lunch with coworkers and don't care to be "friends" with people at work.
Preferences are fine, but they don't pay the bills. Work is doing what is asked of you in return for a paycheck.
If you are talented, you can always set your own working conditions and pay rate.
If you are average, you do the job and take the check that is offered -or don't: there are others who want the job.
You can "don't care" all you want ...but don't expect anyone else to care about you.
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I would have thought that baby boomers are the employees most able and willing to return to office.
Well, you thought wrong. Hi, boomer here. I totally lucked out in the 90s when my home situation changed drastically and my wife and I thought I'd have to quit my job and become the SAHD while she became the primary breadwinner. When I told my boss this, she urged me to keep working for the company from home... which I did, with her defending me against an old-school upper management that still clung to the "if I can't see you, I can't manage you" mindset. As my seniority built up, my remote status protecte
Re: You know just saying it's not the thing (Score:2)
It's also young people for whom commuting costs make up a significant part of their pay.
Why? Why would commuting costs be "a significant part of their pay"? Because their jobs are entry-level (presumably), and thus are lower-paid?
Someone with an office job at Dell, a job they could do remotely, is likely to be fairly well-compensated, and presumably can afford to live within reasonable commuting distance from their office.
Granted, Dell has a lot of workers in the Austin area, and housing costs in the Austin area are very high, but Dell pays well, so they just need to figure it out...
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The remote rules are a poison pill that Dell is counting on as motivation for the vast majority of its remote workers to give up and come back to the office. Saying it's "not a layoff" because they "technically" aren't letting the remote workers go, is kind of like saying that a company offering buyout packages to encourage people to retire, isn't really laying off people. The only difference here is that buyout packages offer a carrot, while Dell is prodding with a stick. Yeah, it's a layoff.
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They aren't releasing anybody, or even asking for voluntary exits. They aren't even engaging in constructive dismissal.
"You get to keep doing what you're doing" is not a layoff. I don't know how you can conclude that.
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They aren't even engaging in constructive dismissal.
I think a lawyer could make a good argument that this is constructive dismissal:
"1) no funding for team onsite meetings, even if a large portion of the team is flying in for the meeting from other Dell locations; "
They are clearly downgrading the employees who choose to be remote.
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A lawyer can always make an argument, but could they win with it? My understanding is that constructive dismissal occurs when the employer changes the "powers or duties" of an employee.
If it landed in court, my completely unprofessional suspicion is that the claim of constructive dismissal would likely fail - especially if the person was hired pre-pandemic, and the work was performed in the office at that time. Somebody hired since then might have a better shot, since work from home was the conditions durin
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A lawyer can always make an argument, but could they win with it? My understanding is that constructive dismissal occurs when the employer changes the "powers or duties" of an employee.
The employer has changed the "duties": attending meetings, by removing the "attending offsite meetings" part of their duties. But this is likely an area of state law, so it may depend on the actual state in which they "work" (might be their former office address, might be their home address).
There is an article that discusses California law here:
https://www.rutan.com/wp-conte... [rutan.com]
and one about Florida law here:
https://www.mavricklaw.com/blo... [mavricklaw.com]
I think that the criteria for constructive dismissal in the two sta
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They objectively have less money at their job now than before. Dell was the entity that did this. This is a punishment to "keep doing what you're doing" and thus is an incentive to leave. Thus, a 'stealth layoff' as it is called.
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No company owes annual salary increases, unless they are explicitly guaranteed in the employment contract. Objectively the employee has the same money at their job as before. The purchasing power of money is a different matter, and that's arguably more subjective.
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or even asking for voluntary exits
I disagree. When you change the rules, the employment agreement, in a way that you *know* will cause some of your employees to leave voluntarily, you are in effect asking for voluntary exits.
You get to keep doing what you're doing
This is disingenuous. Most employees expect to have opportunities to advance, if they do their jobs well. Dell is taking this opportunity away. That's not actually maintaining the status quo, it is making it worse.
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If they changed the employment agreement, I absolutely agree with you. But what the employee "expects" in the future isn't binding on the employer. At all.
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There are lots of aspects of a person's employment that are not "binding." That does not mean those aspects aren't "expected." Binding is a legal concept, expectations are understandings. Sure, if you look only at legal requirements, Dell is no doubt complying with those. But there are lots of ways of pushing people towards the exists, that don't involve violating legally binding agreements.
This conversion isn't even about binding agreements. It's about how Dell is treating its remote workforce, and how tha
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I think perhaps you misunderstand me. I don't condone what they're doing - not at all. I only objected to the characterization of what they are doing as "layoffs".
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We can agree to disagree then. Layoffs can be achieved in many ways. In this case, they are creating a work environment that is objectively worse for some of their staff, an act that will inevitably push some of them out. They have to know that will be the result, and if they don't, it's only because they are incompetent. In my book, that's a layoff.
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Layoff is being dismissed from your job. This isn't being dismissed. Precision of language!
No one is losing their job here. They are welcome to keeping working from home but now they are being told directly that they shouldn't expect promotions and also are more likely to actually be laid off in the future if it comes to that.
The smart ones should just starting looking for a new job now. The lazier ones will just keep on coasting.
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The headline was "stealth layoff." Words matter. The "stealth" adjective indicates that it's not an *actual* layoff, no one is being dismissed. "Stealth" means that it's a way of persuading employees to leave, without actually dismissing them. The result is that headcount will be reduced, in either case.
You are right about the smart vs. lazy ones. And that's how it always happens. When working conditions deteriorate (as is happening here), the good ones always leave first.
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Your questions are valid, but off-topic. You don't "deserve" or "expect" a job, and you do have to "agree" to the company's rules.
Those facts in no way change the reality that Dell is changing things in a way that they know, or should know, will result in some people leaving. And that makes it a "stealth" layoff.
Re:Interesting middle position. (Score:5, Insightful)
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So if you are late in your career and don't care about further advancement, you can keep working from home. Almost like a benefit to seniority. If you are early in your career, it is a good incentive to look for a better job.
Good point. This is likely to have the opposite outcome to the one they hoped for: younger employees will leave, while older employees will stay.
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So if you are late in your career and don't care about further advancement, you can keep working from home. Almost like a benefit to seniority. If you are early in your career, it is a good incentive to look for a better job.
Good point. This is likely to have the opposite outcome to the one they hoped for: younger employees will leave, while older employees will stay.
Yeah, no - about that thing. I'm back at work now and doing it as a Boomer because the young people couldn't handle it. Hopefully a new generation of people will be less pre-installed with stress.
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So if you are late in your career and don't care about further advancement, you can keep working from home. Almost like a benefit to seniority. If you are early in your career, it is a good incentive to look for a better job. Basically it sucks most for the people who have significant time invested there and hope to stay on. I'm sure the company will benefit from the morale boost it provides to them LOL.
Well, most people who are late in their career are likely to be in management positions. Or travel might be simply part of the job.
My previous work, that I retired from, I travelled, did research, performed experiments wrote papers, and dealt with sensitive matter. Good job, paid well, lots of perks. But not one thing could be done from home. I liked it other than the last person they put me under as my supervisor. So I retired. At my take-home pay.
Present post retirement work, I do half from home and h
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Well, most people who are late in their career are likely to be in management positions.
I can't speak to most people, I have no idea who they are. I was not interested in management myself though I could have gone there. I'd rather play with enterprise grade tech than worry about budgets and tenders and contracts and HR. Absolutely the last thing I would want was my bosses job.
While there are people who can possibly do everything from home, I only caution that they are limiting their options, and if there was one thing I learned over my career, is that if a person limits their options, they limit their success.
I'm also mostly retired. My job also required hands on configuration and installation of network equipment. It also had a lot of management and administration of said networks that could be done remotely, including
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Just like those friendly men in the “sanitation” business when they say it would be a shame if something bad happened to your store.
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Just want to point out a simple google search would have given you this information.
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Not everyone wants advancement. In fact, I've worked for companies where they had to drag people kicking and screaming into management. The engineer's pay was excellent (I often earned more than my boss). And we got to mess around with cool technology. And I didn't have to put up with so much office political bullshit.
Also, see The Dilbert Principle [wikipedia.org].
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Not everyone wants advancement. In fact, I've worked for companies where they had to drag people kicking and screaming into management.
Every tech company I've worked at (and I'm old) has had parallel tracks for engineering and management. Equal seniority, equal pay. No good reason to go into management.
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Every engineering company I've worked at (and I'm old) has had engineers as management, (except for the HR/legal department of one of the larger firms).
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Prefixing it with "stealth" might as well nullify the term. It it's encouraging resignations, well, sure.
You do you know that the reason to do this is to avoid meeting their legal obligations when they do layoffs, right? I mean you're hinting at it here.
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By denying advancement rather than threatening termination they're firmly in the clear, legally speaking. I fail to see how "Stealth Layoff" applies. Layoff is a pretty specific term, both in colloquial usage and in legal terms. Prefixing it with "stealth" might as well nullify the term.
Did you read the summary where it said"4) remote status will be considered when planning or organization changes -- AKA workforce reductions". From the employee's interpretation, going remote is telling HR that they are priority for layoffs. But generally if you are in a job that tells you that you cannot advance OR move, that means you have to quit to get a better job. Remote == dead-end job at Dell. Dell may not need to layoff workers per say; they just need to make the situation unacceptable to workers
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I did read the summary. I even read the article. I don't even like what they're doing. I only dislike the phrase "Stealth Layoff". And it's not the word "stealth", it's the word "layoff". A layoff generally isn't voluntary, and usually comes with a package. You certainly don't get to ignore a layoff and continue working in the same role with the same responsibilities as you had all along.
You can assign a lot of labels to this situation, but I just think "layoff" is a mistake.
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. I only dislike the phrase "Stealth Layoff". And it's not the word "stealth", it's the word "layoff". A layoff generally isn't voluntary, and usually comes with a package. You certainly don't get to ignore a layoff and continue working in the same role with the same responsibilities as you had all along.
You don't work for Dell. Staff at Dell consider this a "stealth layoff" due to the conditions imposed. In their minds, they either have to quit or accept conditions that may not be tenable. I know people at Dell and the one thing that is not being reported is many of them were physically remote long before the pandemic. Being forced back into the office when they live a long way from any office and given no budget to travel to an office becomes an issue. That couple with the fact that though Dell mandate t
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4) remote status will be considered when planning or organization changes
Right, which is why it's not "stealth". It's right there for the public, and investors to read.
Employers don't owe you severance because you disagree. It'd be perfectly legal to just terminate the people that refused to come into the office. Plenty of tech companies did this. They didn't announce the details, but when your employer requires you to come into the office 3 days a week, and you refuse, you'd better believe it's not going to be "that's okay we were just asking nicely".
By allowing them to remain
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Right, which is why it's not "stealth". It's right there for the public, and investors to read.
It's considered "stealth" as Dell is trying to reduce their personnel without alerting anyone of what they are doing.
Employers don't owe you severance because you disagree. It'd be perfectly legal to just terminate the people that refused to come into the office. Plenty of tech companies did this. They didn't announce the details, but when your employer requires you to come into the office 3 days a week, and you refuse, you'd better believe it's not going to be "that's okay we were just asking nicely".
Termination of large number of employees because they disagree with a change in work policy would probably be news. I would think Dell would like to keep this quiet.
By allowing them to remain on, for some time, it's giving them the opportunity to look for work locally while keeping their job at Dell. Or decide to move, their choice. Why is this bad?
The article says this affect 65% of their work force. I think this is a way for Dell to pressure employees to quietly quit without having to pay them severance. Again, "stealth"
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It's considered "stealth" as Dell is trying to reduce their personnel without alerting anyone of what they are doing.
Well no, it's the opposite of that. This is their public statement to employees:
The implications of choosing to work remotely, we're told, are ... 4) remote status will be considered when planning or organization changes -- AKA workforce reductions
I would think Dell would like to keep this quiet.
But they didn't.
The article says this affect 65% of their work force. I think this is a way for Dell to pressure employees to quietly quit without having to pay them severance.
Maybe they just want people to be in the office. Most companies require employees to be in the office a regularly (not necessarily ever day). Sounds like they let things get out of hand during covid and they are trying to make a correction.
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By denying advancement rather than threatening termination they're firmly in the clear, legally speaking.
They are legally in the clear regardless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Now I've got two things I'm confused about. I don't know why they're calling it a "Stealth Layoff", and I don't understand your response.
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Look up the legal term "constructive".
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I'm very familiar with it. It was a topic covered in my university extension course on law. And this does not qualify.
Re: Interesting middle position. (Score:2)
Re: Interesting middle position. (Score:2)
What is a "layoff"? It's when one or more people are terminated, lose their jobs.
What does "stealth" mean? It means the thing is not detected.
How could a "layoff" be stealth"?
It can't, coworkers would notice their fellow workers leaving the workplace.
This policy does not force anyone to leave the company, no one is being terminated.
The company is reassuring those employees that refuse to work out of a corporate facility 39 days a quarter (that's about 3 days/week) that they can keep their jobs, but it will
Selective Stealth Layoff (Score:5, Insightful)
It will only get rid of the people that actually get things done and don't spend all of their time/effort on office politics.
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Dell's competition would prefer if you didn't let Dell know about this. ;)
Start A Company (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone who wants to continue working remotely needs to come together and form small companies. Yes, this is a wand-waving proclamation, but acknowledging the need (and being able to say it out loud) is a necessary step. No employer is going to treat you right unless that employer is you.
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Where it is a practical option, this will happen and ultimately displace the companies that refuse to adapt.
After all, the new companies will have similar IT costs and drastically lower infrastructure costs. That's a significant competitive advantage.
Re: Start A Company (Score:2)
So a competitor can beat Dell by not owning/leasing office buildings to house its employees? That's the answer?
So where are they going to get the capital? (Score:2)
It's like that comment somebody made where somebody said Jeff bezos started Amazon out of his garage and what's your excuse and somebody replied, I don't have a garage.
When yo
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Or have family give you $250,000 to get things rolling [cnbc.com].
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Sure let me go out to the money tree to start my business.
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Voluntary attrition is usually cheaper than forced (Score:2)
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Just the opposite in the long run.
Those that leave voluntarily are the ones that have sellable skills and are motivated. Those that stay are the Wally's(see Dilbert) of the world. They want to get by. What are you left with?
Old Remote Workers (Score:2)
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We sent out surveys about who wanted to come back to the office and determined if we needed to keep all of our buildings and stuff like that and mostly we got rid of the buildings (or trying to.)
I get the feeling that a lot of tech businesses are on such shaky financial ground that letting go of real estate holdings is a serious risk to stability. Though I imagine a commercial real estate crash happening anyway sooner or later. Probably not Dell's reasoning - but they also wouldn't want to sell off buildings and re-buy years down the road.
Cool (Score:2)
I feel like you can now identify a shady company by their work/employment practices.
Bad companies would prefer to retain idiots who will sit in offices and do no work and take promotions, than workers who get their jobs done.
Good companies will give you the tools you need to succeed, let you work in the way that's best for you, then get the hell out of your way.
Non-Stealth Layoff (Score:4, Informative)
I'll note that this came out at the same time as Dell was doing a round of non-stealth layoffs. A friend of mine was just laid off this week (I think today was his last day). I'm not sure how many are impacted, but I was laid off three weeks ago. I expect they'll do an internal announcement in a few weeks saying that they're done.
So it's only natural that employees would look at other actions at the same time as further cost-cutting attempts.
That said, it's been company policy for the last year that everyone who lives within an hour's commute (one-way) of a Dell office is expected to work in the office three days a week. (The policy was widely ignored, and at least in my area, there simply weren't enough cubes available if everyone really followed the policy. And the cafeteria wasn't even open on Fridays.) But in any case, everyone had been expecting them to get more serious about being on site, so it wasn't a surprise.
As to my particular case, I can't comment on severance or my thoughts as to the business wisdom of the layoffs or the new policy, other than to say that I was treated fairly, and I wish my remaining (former) coworkers the best of luck.
Be careful ... (Score:2)
Not All That Stealth (Score:2)
I wouldn't call this very stealth. Dell has basically said, "come into the office or don't expect career advancement for remote work". I'm sure there are some exceptions to that (such as outside sales). Regardless, it's clear that the pendulum has swung in favor of the employer. As much as that annoys me, it's been a good run for tech sector employees. A solid decade of employers wooing talent with perks, flexible schedules and high pay. But that was never sustainable long-term. There has to be an equalizin
Quit? (Score:2)
Seems simple to me.
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Maybe TFA thinks women have a harder time moving or that they are somehow less capable of dealing with the demands of being a working adult? Seems a bit sexist if you ask me.
Sure moving is a colossal PITA but its a pretty normal thing to move when you get a new job.
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Because men do not have children or childcare expenses?
Of course they do. But the claim is that this affects women worse. Especially the single mothers, who can use WFH time to babysit their children. I'm saying the quiet part out loud there, We can always discuss if that is the proper thing to do as opposed to work. As I recall from child rearing, the little ones keep you running. Not hard work, but constant.
Most men that have the children living in their homes are still married to a woman. And most women get custody 65% of the time - of the children in di
Re: Meteor to strike earth, women most affected (Score:2)
Not all single-parent families are headed up by women.
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Re: Meteor to strike earth, women most affected (Score:2)
And those moms could choose to remain working from home, earning the same wage, having the same medical coverage, and still juggle the responsibilities of their jobs and families - they just won't advance in their careers, and they likely will only receive cost of living wage increases in their dead-end jobs...
Re: Meteor to strike earth, women most affected (Score:2)
Those women have a choice, that better than most single-parent families do...
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It's a shot across the bow - look up "Disparate Impact Test".
And, yeah, they must have more single moms than single dads who are doing remote and just barely making it work but could not afford a daycare slot.
Many daycares charge by the slot - no discount for 37 days a quarter.
Whether that human reality will have any impact on the situation remains to be seen.
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Many daycares charge by the slot - no discount for 37 days a quarter.
Which is totally understandable from the point of view of the daycare's cost structure.
When my daughter was very young, this was something we had to deal with. My wife is a nurse, and one of the great things about nursing is it's easy to work as much or as little as you want - and my wife didn't want to be full time back when the kid was little. But, for the first couple of years, we had to rely on "informal" daycare situations where (mostly) stay-at-home moms were willing to take in a few other kids during
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It's a shot across the bow - look up "Disparate Impact Test".
And, yeah, they must have more single moms than single dads who are doing remote and just barely making it work but could not afford a daycare slot.
Many daycares charge by the slot - no discount for 37 days a quarter.
Whether that human reality will have any impact on the situation remains to be seen.
A single mom has a tough task in front of her. The stats are not good on the outcome for single moms or their children. The best way to fix that is education so that women do not become single moms.
Re: *Giant Eyeroll* (Score:2)
So Dell has to let workers work from home because some workers had so many children that they can't afford daycare? Why does the employee's choices about having children become Dell's problem?
If the worker is so vital to Dell that it would hurt the corporation to lose the worker, I'm pretty certain such an important worker is paid enough to arrange day care for their children. (There is a point when it's better financially for a family if one of the parents stays home with the kids, where one parents income
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Majority of people in the world are hardest hit! Don't know why we call them the minorities when they're not.
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They don't care. Any building with a badge reader counts. It doesn't matter where in the country its located.
OK, so it is not about in person collaboration, since you have no idea who else will be there when you are. So what is the point again?
Re: Well... (Score:2)
Their inability to take attendance every day throughout the day doesn't mean they don't want workers to stick around and work together.
Since universities don't take attendance in class, does that mean they don't want students to go to lectures?
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Way back in university I actually had to go where the lectures were, not just any campus facility, and as a result worked with the same groups of people all the time. I suppose if I could have gone to my lectures in any faculty I would have made even more friends and found even more parties, so from that perspective I guess it was my loss.
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I don't think that three days a week is unreasonable
I don't think anyone is claiming that it's "unreasonable." What they are saying is that it's a layoff through (negative) motivation. YOU might not mind working in the office three days a week. Many people are in different circumstances from you, and have reason to strongly prefer, or even need, full-time remote work.
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I don't think that three days a week is unreasonable
I don't think anyone is claiming that it's "unreasonable." What they are saying is that it's a layoff through (negative) motivation. YOU might not mind working in the office three days a week. Many people are in different circumstances from you, and have reason to strongly prefer, or even need, full-time remote work.
During downturns, we might have something like a 10 percent reduction in pay. Some people were laid off anyhow.
Was that 10 percent pay reduction for the rest of us also a layoff?
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Was that 10 percent pay reduction for the rest of us also a layoff?
Absolutely, yes, in the sense that a non-zero portion of those who got the 10% pay reduction, will leave as a direct result of that pay cut. The company has to know that this will result, and has to anticipate, or even hope, that some will in fact leave over the pay cut.
I did this myself a year ago, when my mortgage company laid off a significant portion of their employees, and gave the rest a 20% pay cut. I left for better pay.
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So you were not, in fact, laid off. You made the active choice to find a better job. Had you been laid off, you would not have been given a choice.
It's amazing how many posts we have between the three of us over semantics.
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Hence the adjective "stealth" that you see in the headline. This adjective indicates that it's not an *actual* layoff, no one is being dismissed. But the effect is the same, headcount will inevitably be reduced, and morale will suffer.
Re: Well... (Score:2)
And they are welcome to find a job that better suits their wants & needs - if they want their career to advance and they can't or choose not to work in a company office, then maybe dell isn't the place for them. When they were hired they either were told their job was to report in-office every work day, or if they were hired during lockdowns, were told the situation was temporary - how do I know this? Because no one in the article said "Dell lied to us, said jobs were permanently 'work from home'!"
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Hard to sub-lease a building when everyone else is in the same boat. We were trying to sublease one just before covid shudown started, and there's been zero interest in it.
Down the road is a large complex, very nice looking, excellent location, and it's been empty for at least 4 years, but I suspect the owner just refuses to lower the lease prices. The county expanded into several empty formerly-Cisco buildings, because tenants dried up.
Google moved into another building at the *same* *time* they were hav
Re: Well... (Score:2)
Or Google thinks the buses are a nice perk, and it's easier than processing countless reimbursement requests from workers traveling between offices. Also, being on a private bus, the employees would be more likely to continue working or discussing business with coworkers than they might be on a city light rail train.