Dell brings sales teams back to offices five days a week

Dell Technologies is calling its salespeople back to the office five days a week starting next week.

"The expectation is that ALL global sales team members who can work from a Dell office be onsite five days a week, regardless of role," sales executives Bill Scannell and John Byrne wrote Thursday in a memo to Dell employees. "We know situations will arise when you need to work remotely. This is expected, but working remotely should be the exception rather than routine." The company previously asked employees to work in the office three days a week.  

The latest announcement follows a similar missive from Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy last week.

Like the Amazon memo, the new policy at Dell comes with carve-outs. Salespeople who can't go into an office "should prioritize time spent in person with customers," the note said. Those who are remote and can't go into an office "should continue to work remotely." The memo said remote workers will get more information "in the coming weeks."

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A previous memo, widely reported in February, told employees they would only be eligible for promotions if they showed up to the office. 

Dell alluded to internal productivity data supporting the latest changes. The company's data "showed that sales teams are more productive when onsite," Thursday's memo said.

The new policy is a substantial departure from founder and CEO Michael Dell's stance two years ago as the company emerged from the pandemic.  "At Dell, we found no meaningful differences for team members working remotely or office-based even before the pandemic forced everyone home," he wrote on LinkedIn in 2022. "Our business results show it's working for us, and I believe this model will eventually be embraced as the future of work."

This year, Dell has shifted its focus to selling more high-powered servers optimized for AI in addition to the PCs it's best known for. The company reorganized its sales division in August, cutting jobs and adding a new AI-focused team. Earlier this month, the company said it will continue to reduce headcount in order to control costs.