At least 50% of Dell to work from home post-COVID

At least 50% of Dell Technologies’ workforce will continue working remotely even after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Amid Midha, president for Asia Pacific and Japan. 

“Even when we have opened the site, our team members are telling us that they would like to have the choice of how and where they work,” he said during a recent briefing. 

Before the pandemic, 30% of the technology company’s workforce had already been working remotely. This number ballooned to 90% over the course of one weekend in March.

These decisions are informed by the Inversed Risk Matrix, an internal tool that calculates risk scores across the 188 countries that Dell Technologies is present in. The matrix analyzes data, such as the number of infections, from credible medical sources like the World Health Organization.

“Whether it’s at the headquarters level or all the way down to the country level, we’re all looking at the same data, using the same tools, with a backbone of hard data science and medical intelligence, ensuring that our decisions are consistent, data-driven, and informed,” said John Scimone, senior vice-president and chief security officer.

The Inversed Risk Matrix is coupled with the return-to-site strategy, a conservative approach that prioritizes employee health and safety. It considers factors such as facility capacity, local government regulations, the most productive work arrangement for a role, and potential remote work challenges like poor Internet connectivity.

As for ensuring the safety of their facilities, Dell Technologies has been taking measures such as deep cleaning, distancing employees’ desks, and applying an average of 30% employee capacity.

The company has been offering remote work as an option for employees since 2013. According to Dell’s findings, this has helped save around 42 million kWh of energy since the aforementioned year. It has also benefited them financially, producing $39.5 million in savings since the fiscal year of 2014.

In May, the company declared a $702 million operating income for the first quarter of 2020, a 28% increase year on year. They then retrenched an undisclosed number of employees after two months, which the company attributed to reorganization and not the pandemic.  — Mariel Alison L. Aguinaldo