The office is here to stay.
Teams provides the means for instant and real time human interaction even though the participants are down the hall or on different continents in different time zones
So he’ll also be ending all emails between associates as well then? In person meetings for every single thing, just like the good old days? Right Michael?
Also a recently-minted ‘acceptable’ way to downsize a work force.
Claiming a time saving with ‘direct interaction’ doesn’t recognize all the same OLD factors of meeting scheduling that apply.
If Mr Dell CEO is only using email to communicate with his team(s), then he’s not the right guy for the job.
Agree....We have a No Need To Respond....nntr...memo in our family emails...They can indeed go on and on....
From the article:
“Those who are “remote and live a long distance from a Dell office,” will stay remote.”
That statement is going to be a major hassle for bosses trying to determine the definition of “long distance”.
“What we’re finding is that for all the technology in the world, nothing is faster than the speed of human interaction,” wrote Dell, claiming that a “thirty second conversation can replace an email back-and-forth that goes on for hours or even days.”
I fully agree. Also, face to face conversation stops the people, who have a propensity to hit ‘reply to all’, when they send an email.
Some white collar employees think they’re better than the rest of us. I don’t believe for a second they get more done at home.
Add Michael Dell to the growing list of CEOs whose credibility as a business leader has been completely destroyed.
”What we're finding is that for all the technology in the world, nothing is faster than the speed of human interaction,” wrote Dell, claiming that a “thirty second conversation can replace an email back-and-forth that goes on for hours or even days.”
You should have said this loud and clear in March 2020. Instead, you were fully complicit in an outrageous and abusive overreach of power when you allowed some government bureaucrat @sshole to designate these employees as ”non-essential” and forced them to work from home in the first place.
One obvious downside on the rigid insistence of an office only organization is that you automatically restrict yourself to a talent pool in a limited geographic area and those willing to relocate. May not be an issue for some types of businesses, but can put others at a serious disadvantage.
I have the advantage of not having to work, just for clarification.
We have a ticketing system. Too often, people write cryptic requests because “we already talked about this” but they didn’t talk to the person working on the request. This is a constant complaint. Also, a functional person will know a problem is coming but only react when it happens, often demanding solutions that take large amount of time that I don’t have because I am part-time.
None of this would be solved by being in the office. It would be solved by using proper communication.
He is right but the solution is a mix of technology and in-person. The solution definitely is NOT to go back to endless in person meetings, which are the biggest waste of time in the history of office work.
If I was a Dell employee I think I'd show up my first day in a horse and buggy.
And, email is a fine means of communication for a good percentage of work-related communication.
In the case of a company that produces physical hardware, however, a stronger case can be made.
If you work remotely, your job can generally be done in Ukraine for about a 1/10th the cost.
I have a neighbor that manages teams around the world.
“What we’re finding is that for all the technology in the world, nothing is faster than the speed of human interaction,” wrote Dell, claiming that a “thirty second conversation can replace an email back-and-forth that goes on for hours or even days.”
As an old fart that was recently pushed out of the working world, emails and chats have destroyed productivity. Decisions get drawn out over the entire day if not longer. Back in the day you would use the phone and have your answer. With email, this gets prolonged as the email chain goes back and forth with stupid questions and roadblocks that consume hours of time waiting for responses. Emails also encourage stupid questions that, if the sender had to pick up a phone, they would never ask.
In my past it was not unusual to have 150-200 email chains a day. This alone creates an environment of playing office vs doing your job. I would have to work with the younger folks and teach them how to manage this world. When they first start the job, at the end of the day, they would say they were extremely busy all day, yet they had not completed their actual work. They were simply answering their emails.
But I am just a grumpy old man.
any jobs that can be effectively done remotely are jobs AI will do in the future.
and if not AI... cheap 3rd world labor (ie: H1B)
The solution is don't use email--use Skype/Teams/another messaging product. Those are faster than having to get up from your desk and walking around.
Or just use your phone.
This smells like a control freak looking for an excuse, and doesn't want to use the whole "We are paying for office space so we're gonna use it" reason--which is a valid reason.
*****
So you're punished if you live close to the office.....makes zero sense.
If 30 seconds faceTOface can replace a series of asynchronous documents — Dell employees are apparently dullards.
Both approaches have their strengths and place. Only idiots or religious zealots think otherwise.
Dell bosses are simply using this to purge. rightly so. But, don’t say stoopid crappola.