Half of Dell employees to work remotely even after pandemic

Bengaluru: More than 50% of employees at Dell Technologies will continue to work remotely even after the covid-19 pandemic ends, Amit Midha, president, Asia Pacific and Japan said on Friday.

The situation in India is similar to the global trends and Dell will adhere to the specific regulations for each country. In mid-March, 90% of Dell’s global workforce was working from home. In India, the number was close to 100%.

The company has created a real-time data driven dashboard known as the ‘Inversed Risk Matrix’ that helps it assess the situation and make appropriate decisions on returning to office, or site, as Dell calls it. The matrix uses data from credible sources such as Johns Hopkins, Centers for Disease Control, and World Health Organization.

“Our data scientists in collaboration with medical professionals built the tool to help us make sense of all the health data to make informed decisions that put the health and safety of our team members and communities first,” said John Scimone, chief security officer, Dell Technologies.

The data is automatically refreshed and checked multiple times a day. The tool is not just helping employees return to site safely, but also to safely remain in the offices and make other decisions about travel and events, Midha said.

Dell is taking a “conservative and phased” approach of returning to site. The company said it will prioritise based on those team members who can be more productive on-site or have challenges working from home.

Dell said the productivity of their employees has not been adversely impacted due to remote working. In fact, employees are “more productive” with the flexible mode of working, Midha said.

In their 'Connected Workplace' model, employees collaborate in a highly mobile and flexible work environment that enables them to be more productive and motivated at work with their customers, partners and team members.

Much before the current pandemic, Dell launched the ‘Connected Workplace’ initiative in 2009 that uses technology to provide flexibility to support the jobs and lifestyles of its staff. ‘Connected Workplace’ is based on the premise that work should be linked to outcomes and not anchored to a specific place or time.

Dell said it is conscious of the fact that remote working leads to newer challenges in terms of cyber security threats. “We are training our employees to work safely in the new remote environment,” Scimone said.