Dell

Dell’s Women in Technology and Strategic Giving programs connect women and girls to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) career opportunities. The company also provides accessible products for users with disabilities.

The company leads in advancing digital skills and school connectivity through various initiatives. For example, Dell’s Solar Learning Labs initiative focuses on removing barriers to technology access by providing solar-powered facilities for students to learn basic digital skills in several developing nations. The company also partners with Girls Who Code on an after-school programme in the US to help girls learn the concepts of programming languages.

Dell meets industry norms by having a security incident response team and multiple information security management certifications.

Dell demonstrates its support for the tech innovation ecosystem through initiatives that provide start-ups, entrepreneurs and non-profit organisations access to funding and mentoring. The company also demonstrates a commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The company discloses diversity information including its research and development (R&D) locations and the number of its women employees working in technical roles.

Dell can increase transparency by reporting metrics on its employment of people with disabilities. Furthermore, it can disclose how it distributes the value it creates among its stakeholders and assess its indirect economic impacts.

While Dell has programmes across different dimensions of digital skills, it has scope for greater transparency in reporting metrics and commissioning third-party assessments for these programmes. These assessments can help the company and its stakeholders better understand the programme impacts.

Dell has the opportunity to increase transparency by reporting the number of data breaches it experiences. The company should also make a high-level commitment to child online protection.

The company has an opportunity to strengthen its open and ethical innovation practices. This includes making a high-level commitment to open source initiatives and standards. While the company has a Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer, it does not disclose how it applies ethical considerations in its R&D, including its artificial intelligence (AI) activities.

Dell commits to respecting human rights and the ILO core labour rights. The company also has a grievance mechanism accessible to both workers and external stakeholders to raise human rights concerns and complaints. However, Dell does not disclose a process to identify, assess and take action on the salient human rights risks in its own operations and in its business relationships. Moreover, the company does not engage with stakeholders whose human rights could be impacted by its operations.

Dell publicly commits to respecting the health and safety of workers and places health and safety expectations on its business relationships. However, the company does not disclose a policy commitment stating that it does not require workers to work more than the regular and overtime hours. Nor does it explicitly state that it requires its business relationships to do the same.

Dell does not disclose the percentage of its workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements, and it provides no relevant evidence in relation to paying its workers a living wage. Dell does, however, publicly commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment and has time-bound targets on the subject. Furthermore, the company provides a breakdown of employees in different employee categories by gender and ethnicity. However, it has an opportunity to provide this information on more indicators of diversity, such as age group.

Dell has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and it includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business relationships. It also has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints on the topic. Dell also has a global tax strategy, but it does not disclose income tax payments in individual tax jurisdictions. Furthermore, the company discloses its approach to lobbying and political engagement and states that it does not make political contributions. However, Dell only discloses its lobbying expenditures for its US operations.

The below datasheet disaggregates scores within the three core social measurement areas and by specific indicators.