Dell drew attention last year when it changed its tune and ended generous company policies, frustrating some employees nationwide.
In February, Dell CEO Michael Dell sent an email to employees warning them that starting in March 2025, they would be required to work in the office five days a week due to the rapid pace of innovation in the technology industry. Previously, Dell required employees to work in the office only three days a week.
“The pace of innovation has never been faster, and to stay ahead, the speed of our business must continue to increase,” Dell wrote in the memo. “We have found that for all the technology in the world, nothing beats the speed of human interaction. A thirty-second conversation can replace back-and-forth emails that last hours or even days.”
He also said that after ordering several teams to return to the office five days a week in 2024, the company noticed that these employees “came to life with new speed, energy and enthusiasm.”
Shortly after the change took effect, Dell employees claimed that the new office directives were being implemented inconsistently, leading to “a lot of office politics.” Despite the new rules, some employees are even choosing to leave their desks early to work from home.
Over the past few years, ignoring return-to-office (RTO) requirements has become a common trend in corporate America as more companies scale back remote work. A 2024 Resume Builder survey even found that leaving get off work early was the most common way employees rebelled against these policies.
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About one fifth Employees did not follow the company’s RTO policy, and some forged ID cards and left the office early.
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Most employees want to stay in the office three days or less weekly.
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If companies start cracking down on RTO compliance, 20% of employees said they were likely to quit, while another 33% Might follow suit.
Source: Resume Builder
“While many companies adopted more flexible work-from-home policies during the pandemic, many are now changing course and asking employees to return to the office to reinvent long-term work patterns,” Stacie Haller, chief career counselor at Resume Builder, said in a statement.
“However, for many employees, remote working has become a non-negotiable part of their professional lives,” she added. “When the company tried to reinstate in-office requirements, it was met with pushback from employees.”
Dell CEO Michael Dell recently ordered employees to return to work full-time.NurPhoto/Getty Images
As Dell faces employee pushback over its new office policies, the company is reportedly cracking down on the practice.
According to a recent report by Business Insider, Dell’s Vice President of Commercial Sales for North America, Jackie Miller, recently sent an email to enterprise sales employees stating that disregard of the company’s RTO policy will not be tolerated.
“Effective immediately, all field category sales team members are expected to work five days a week for a minimum of eight hours a day in the RR, NV and OKC offices,” Miller said in a Nov. 5 email.
“RR, NV and OKC” refers to Dell’s headquarters in Round Rock, Texas, and offices in Nashville and Oklahoma City.
She also said “recent site visits” and “end-of-day drills” conducted by team leaders revealed that employees were not following the company’s new office policies.
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“I want to reinforce our expectations for field offices,” she said. “Maintaining a strong office presence is critical to promoting collaboration, communication and productivity and is company policy.”
Miller reminded employees in the email to use their personal business allowance or vacation time to get out of the office.
In response to the email, two Dell employees told Insider that this is the first time managers have enforced the RTO policy since it was first implemented for sales teams in September 2024.
Despite the new policy, employees with children were reportedly allowed to leave the office early to pick up their children from school.
A sales employee said: “Many parents were previously told that they could leave to pick up their school-age children at around 2 p.m. and finish the day at home.”
After Miller’s email was sent, team leaders allegedly clarified to employees that they were not allowed to leave their desks early to pick up their children from school.
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Dell’s return to full-time in-person work mirrors that of technology industry rivals such as Amazon, Samsung and AT&T, which have asked employees to return to the office five days a week.
A FlexJobs survey last year showed that many Americans across the country were unhappy with the elimination of remote work, with some even claiming they would quit their jobs in response to the enforcement of RTO policies.
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About 53% of U.S. employees say they or someone they know has been asked to return to the office in the past year Significant increase from 23% 2024.
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also, 76% of workers said they would look for new jobs if remote work was eliminated.
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return, 69% Number of workers Will accept a salary cut for remote workone 11% Increase from 2024.
Source: FlexJobs
“Trends such as low resignation rates and ’embracing work’ may indicate employees are staying put, but that doesn’t mean employees aren’t quietly considering a career change,” Toni Frana, career expert at FlexJobs, said in a statement.
“As our latest report shows, it comes down to what employees are willing to accept before deciding to make the jump, and most are drawing the line at remote work,” she said.
Office traffic remains below pre-pandemic levels but is slowly recovering as more U.S. employers change their stance on remote work.
More labor:
A recent data analysis report by Placer.ai shows that the average number of people in offices across the country per working day in November 2025 dropped by 32.9% compared with November 2019, setting a post-epidemic record.
“National office occupancy rates in November 2025 were the highest for a November since 2019, with average visits per workday at a five-year high,” Shira Petrack, head of content at Placer.ai, wrote in the report.
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This article was originally published by TheStreet on January 6, 2026, and first appeared in the Employment section. Click here to add TheStreet as your preferred source.
