That's exactly what dell wants, it's a way to do layoffs without the bad PR and without having to pay the benefits (or whatever they are called). They know full well a good chunk of people working at home don't want to go back to the office and will hunt for another job instead.
Sure but doesn't mean you can't be applying and interviewing on their dime. This bullshit isn't anything new and only leads to the company retaining the blow average employees. If you can leave and get a raise in the process you should.
The sad thing is a lot of companies are doing the same thing...
I'm job hunting rn and most of it is hybrid or in office. I am not saying all of them are I seen a few that are remote but they feel sorta rare at least for the jobs I'm looking at (graphics programming, games and GPU stuff).
Most of them seem to mandate a fixed number of days in office. Some even say specifically certain days. I dunno... currently software job market feels pretty fucked up rn, but I been getting some good interviews so hopefully it all works out.
For WFH something I might be able to do is recently I was diagnosed autistic and my diagnosis documentation lists WFH as a workplace accommodation.. so I could pull that card but I for sure am not gana bring that up till I have actually accepted an offer and have started working for a bit of time. And even then I am not sure how it will play if I tell them that, how it will effect things or how they treat me. It's all kinda fucky.
I went from fully remote to hybrid (2 days in office) and it's not bad. Got a $30k raise for the trouble, and the job security is much better because the pool of local candidates is much smaller than a remote employee who can hire from anywhere.