Apple is not backing down on its plan to return to three days of in-person work a week starting in September, despite employees complaining about the new change.
Earlier this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook penned an internal letter to employees outlining the company's plan to return to in-person work three days a week in September. Apple, due to the global health crisis, has largely been working remotely over the past year, but companies are now starting to return to in-person work.
Following Cook's letter to staff, a group of Apple employees responded to the CEO with a letter of their own, complaining about the change. In their letter, employees said that without the flexibility of choosing between remote and in-person work, they feel they have to choose between "either a combination of our families, our well-being, and being empowered to do our best work, or being a part of Apple."
Apple has now responded to the complaints. In a video sent to staff, seen by The Verge, Apple's senior vice president of retail and people, Deirdre O'Brien, said that in-person work is "essential" to Apple products and company culture, and that it is key for product launches and development.
“We believe that in-person collaboration is essential to our culture and our future,” said Deirdre O'Brien, senior vice president of retail and people, in a video recording viewed by The Verge. “If we take a moment to reflect on our unbelievable product launches this past year, the products and the launch execution were built upon the base of years of work that we did when we were all together in-person.”
Apple is, however, going to offer some employees the flexibility of remote work. According to The Verge, employees will be allowed to work remotely, but that approval is "on a case-by-case basis with any new remote positions requiring executive approval."
Top Rated Comments
Our people requested less restrictive vacation time, we got unlimited PTO.
We requested a better 401k, now the company matches 45% up from 15%.
New moms wanted more time with the baby, they went from 6 weeks to 20 weeks and new dads went from 1 week to 4 weeks.
The company now picks up the healthcare premiums for the entire immediate family, not just the one employee.
The old days of “you’re the employee, you’re not supposed to get anything more than a paycheck!” have ended.
Prior to the pandemic, we were 40% working from home, it’ll be about 65% permanently at home at the end of this.
If you take care of your employees, they’ll take care of your customers, who will take care of your shareholders. That’s our founder’s quote. He started the place with 4 people and sold it with 6,000. Now we’re merged to 15,000.
Of course its good if you can land on middle ground where everyone can be satisfied enough