Dell is the latest company to go all-in on a 5-day return to office

The return-to-office (RTO) push at companies such as Amazon and AT&T—which both required employees to be back in the office full-time this month—has been met with discontent and frustration from much of their workforces. Some Amazon employees have said they are looking for new jobs, if they haven’t left already, while people at both companies have reportedly struggled to even find an open desk.

But other leaders are not letting the prospect of low morale or limited workspace derail their plans to return to the office full time in 2025. According to a memo obtained by Business Insider, the latest addition to the mix is Dell, which had already tested the waters with an RTO policy that applied to just a handful of departments. As of September, employees on the sales team and across a subset of other roles (including leadership positions) were asked to return to the office.

Starting in March, however, Dell also will be “retiring the hybrid policy” and expect most employees to be in the office five days a week. The new mandate will apply to all employees who live within about an hour commute of a Dell office—regardless of whether they currently have a remote or hybrid arrangement. (A Dell spokesperson did not clarify whether employees who live farther would have to request an exemption or would automatically be allowed to continue working remotely.)

According to Business Insider, employees who remained remote would not be put up for promotion without explicit approval from three senior leaders. This seems to be a slight shift from a policy Dell already had in place that rendered fully remote employees ineligible for promotion.

“What we’re finding is that for all the technology in the world, nothing is faster than the speed of human interaction,” CEO Michael Dell wrote in the memo. “A 30-second conversation can replace an email back-and-forth that goes on for hours or even days.” In a statement to Fast Company, a Dell spokesperson added, “We continually evolve our business so we’re set up to deliver the best innovation, value, and service to our customers and partners. That includes more in-person connections to drive market leadership.”

In his memo, the CEO noted that across departments that had started coming into the office, “we have seen these areas come alive with new speed, energy, and passion.” Other CEOs and business leaders have used similar rationale to justify bringing workers back to the office at least three days a week, with a growing number of companies ramping up to five days.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy echoed that sentiment when he announced that starting in 2025, the RTO policy would require employees to come into the office daily, rather than just three days a week. “When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant,” he wrote in a memo. “If anything, the last 15 months we’ve been back in the office at least three days a week has strengthened our conviction about the benefits.”

Like Jassy, Michael Dell had previously expressed his support for remote work. As recently as late 2022, Dell had openly said, “From my experience, if you are counting on forced hours spent in a traditional office to create collaboration and provide a feeling of belonging within your organization, you’re doing it wrong.” But as corporate America has shown over the past few years, he’s not the first business leader to make such a drastic reversal on remote work—and certainly won’t be the last.

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