Editor's note: This story first appeared in the Austin Business Journal. It’s republished here in an abbreviated format. Click here to see the full story [subscriber content].
To envision what returning to work at physical offices during might look like, one could consider the approaches being taken by two of the most iconic technology companies from the Austin area: Dell Technologies Inc. and National Instruments Corp.
Round Rock-based Dell (NYSE: DELL), perhaps unsurprisingly, has tackled working within this new Covid-19 world by using data, said Mark Pringle, the global company’s senior vice president in charge of health, safety, facilities and environment worldwide. Dell is a diversified tech company, supplying businesses with computers and services, but also offering specialized machines such as Alienware computers for video games.
“We have paired the data with our vision for what a resilient workforce will look like on the other side of this pandemic,” Pringle said in an email, a strategy that has emerged from Dell’s work culture that “is outcomes based, not anchored to a specific place or time.”
That means an ever-evolving concept of “ways of working — planning for high levels of engagement and productivity no matter where our team members are based — whether it be ensuring we have the right infrastructure in place, providing the right collaboration tools, or finding new ways to maintain our culture remotely,” he said.
Austin-based National Instruments (Nasdaq: NATI) intends to “continue to maintain our work from home status,” said Cate Prescott, vice president of global human resources, in an email. “In fact, we will not require any of our Austin-based employees to return to our campus for the remainder of 2020 if they feel safer working from home and their job function allows it.”
Prescott said she and CEO Eric Starkloff "have been in regular communication with members of the Austin business community to share information and tentative plans."
National Instruments, which makes testing equipment for engineers around the world, including those producing semiconductors and medical devices, has freely offered its system template “to small businesses and nonprofits, so we can all learn together and keep our community safe,” she said. It employs about 2,200 in the Austin area and more than 7,300 total, as of Dec. 31, 2019, according to a regulatory filing.m
Gov. Greg Abbott allowed offices to reopen in Texas on May 18. But that doesn't mean companies are rushing back, especially tech companies that might find working from home just as easy. When, and how, these companies, which employ tens of thousands of Central Texans, do make it back to the workplace has big implications for everything from worker health and safety as well as the wider economy, as sectors such as commercial real estate are heavily invested in the tech office boom.
Austin Business Journal reached out to 27 tech companies based in or with offices in Central Texas to learn how they are planning to return to workplaces. Those companies range in size from thousands of area employees, such as Dell, National Instruments and Cirrus Logic Inc., to startups with dozens of workers, like Medici Technologies LLC and Self Financial Inc.
The response from those businesses reveal a diversity of designs.
