Dell tightens office attendance rules as sales staff told to be onsite full-time

Dell has issued a tougher return-to-office directive for its North American sales workforce, making it clear that flexible interpretations of its five-day office policy are no longer acceptable. A new internal memo sent by the company’s top sales leadership sets explicit expectations around daily office hours and signals a shift towards stricter enforcement.

The memo was sent by Jackie Miller, vice president of North American Commercial Sales, and addressed to onsite-classified sales employees. In it, Dell states that effective immediately, all such employees are required to work from the office five days a week for a minimum of eight hours per day. The policy applies to staff based at Dell’s major sales hubs in Round Rock in Texas, Nashville in Tennessee, and Oklahoma City.

The message follows internal checks that revealed widespread non-compliance with the company’s return-to-office mandate, which was first announced earlier this year. According to reports, Dell leadership conducted site visits and end-of-day walkthroughs that showed many employees badge-swiping in the morning and leaving well before the end of the workday. In some cases, staff were arriving late or leaving mid-afternoon, despite being classified as onsite workers.

Dell had already instructed its sales teams to return to the office five days a week starting in September 2024. However, the earlier guidance did not clearly define daily working hours, leaving room for interpretation by individual managers. The new memo removes that ambiguity by introducing a specific eight-hour requirement, closing what had become a growing gap between official policy and everyday practice.