Apple Employees Asked to Return to Offices for Three Days a Week Starting in September

[I7guy]

[…]. Because covid has proven many coporate jobs can be done effectively remotely, companies will give that option.[…]

“Because COVID has proven some corporate jobs can get done remotely, companies will give that option.”

For many corporate jobs being in the office is the way to get jobs done effectively. It depends on the job and the company. I’m sure Apple HR understands the situation 100%.

 

[beatrixwillius]

5 years ago the mother got cancer. It would have been totally impossible to manage everything with 5 days in the office. 3 days in the office and 2 days at home where I could do all doctor visits during the day was okay. I did the home office inofficially. My boss told me one week that I couldn't do homeoffice anymore. Over the weekend I decided to take the severance package that was offered during that time.

 

[Fomalhaut]

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on May 28 updated its guidance related to COVID-19, vaccines and the workplace. As part of the guidance, the EEOC said federal Equal Employment Opportunity laws don’t prevent employers from requiring workers physically entering the workplace to get vaccinated against COVID-19, as long as employers comply with other laws such as the American with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Sounds reasonable and balanced. You're not forcing people to get vaccinated universally or if there are mitigating health reasons. If you really can't live with being vaccinated for some religious reason, and can't negotiate to work remotely, then you'll have to look for alternative employment.

 

[Fomalhaut]

What is? People literally spending 4-5 hours per day in various kitchens drinking coffee, talking to their co-workers about their hobbies and other non-work related things? And no, I’m not exaggerating.

A little bit of personal banter about non-work subjects has a positive effect in creating team cohesion, as do social events during or after work, but I would agree that 4-5 hours is excessive. Work is not a social club!

I have slightly modified my view after working remotely for over a year.

At first it was hard to get organized and motivated, and avoid distractions.

Then I settled into a rhythm.

Then I realized that remote communication for many things (I work in IT application / infrastructure design & operations) is not ideal and that you miss lots of team synergy from having other people working around you.

I think a hybrid work model 2+3 (office/remote) or 3+2 is probably most effective. You can schedule team catchups, workshops, presentations etc in the office, but have other days for deep focus at home (assuming you have a quiet workspace).

 

[Fomalhaut]

yes, I would. lmao. Anyone who complains about working there is beyond spoiled rotten.

I think you misunderstand the difference between a nice physical working space and the actual experience of working in a high-pressure tech company.

I worked at Amazon Web Services and all the free beer taps in every kitchen, unlimited snacks, generous salary and lots of financial perks, did not compensate for the stress of the actual work.

Bean bags, beer, and break-out games rooms sound like a super relaxed working environment, but they are in fact just to keep employees sane when they are working long hours under pressure.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Apple ( and others, Google, Microsoft, Amazon ) would be a great place to learn when starting out, until you realize that work life balance is important.

There's a reason why their campus's (spelling?) are so nice, with lots of amenities: they want their employees to stay working for longer.

I value work-life balance. While I enjoy my job, I also value life outside the workplace.



If HR did an about turn at our company, a lot of people would be leaving; they would not trust the company anymore, and that's something that people value: the trust. People resigning is both expensive and disruptive for the company. At the moment, here where I am, it's difficult to hire people, a lot of companies are looking, and can't fill vacant positions, it's quite competitive despite the pandemic.

Yep, I worked at Amazon, and it was probably the toughest job I ever had from a mental health perspective - a lot of pressure, and very competitive. Work-life balance went out of the window because you always had work pressure, and people would expect you to be available at any time of day...

 

[Fomalhaut]

Yeah I have a great job at a great immediately recognized company, but I’d crawl my way across a bed of white hot coals to do my job at the FANGs.

Careful what you wish for...it's not all it's cracked up to be.

Think about what you value in life....is it money, status, doing something interesting, having fun, working with people you like, spending time with your family, friends or community?

After a certain point, the money and status become meaningless, and even poisonous, if you have to sacrifice the other things that are important to you....

 

[Fomalhaut]

Congrats. I own my own business and work outside in the heat 9-5 6 days a week. I don’t sit in a chair all day at home and call it hard working

Oh boy...your blue collar is showing....

 

[Fomalhaut]

But see, you’re forgetting how much leverage tech employees have.

The job market for most engineers and scientists in this industry is extremely competitive (for finding talent). Many people here assume there are not many remote jobs available. But there are!

My company has fully embraced remote as the new mode of operation and we are far from the only ones. For any disgruntled Apple employees, we are hiring, and pay similarly to Apple. You’ve got lots of opportunities out there that you don’t need to compromise your lifestyle.

I'm seeing more tech job ads with "remote working available" listed as a benefit or differentiator. I really think that a lot of tech staff will expect it these days, or at least an option to do some remote working.

 

[Zeke92]

Don't worry. It's great that Apple is transitioning occupancy rather than making a mandatory 5 days a week starting now/soon. Makes a lot of sense. And Apple certainly has no desire to sell their headquarters complex.

I suspect it will be five days a week starting in January. Life goes on.

Most tech companies are implementing hybrid models in perpetuity and I think Apple is as well. The hybrid model is an admission that there are a lot of positives to working from home while still allowing people to come into the office to build “community” No company worth a salt will demand 5 days a week if they want any employees.

 

[Apple4everr]

We won’t be returning to the office, because half our team is interstate. The landscape of working remotely has completely changed in Australia

 

[Zeke92]

People who don’t commute to/from work in the Bay Area needs to experience what it is like before talking.

I highly doubt much of the tech talent needs to be in the office. I didn’t. In person 1-2x a week to maintain team cohesion is reasonable but 3-4x is on the higher end.

As others have echoed, Google and Apple can’t and won’t leave their campuses to be openly remote bc of the $ dumped into it. But it’s not the only reason. Imagine the jobs and local spending the city gets upon the return. The politicians had a hand in this.

I wouldn’t work for a co that required more than 2-3x per week. WFH has enriched my life in so many ways.

My health has improved so much from WFH. It’s amazing as a single person. I’m so productive. I can cook my own food. I can use my own bathroom. I can listen to my own music. It’s amazing.

 

[bsolar]

It’s funny how ppl claim they are much more productive working from home…keep telling yourself that after you attend your one 30 minute meeting in the morning and then binge watch Netflix all day and occasionally tap your keyboard for “presence”

If an employee lacks work ethic it's pretty irrelevant whether they are working remotely or at the office, especially in positions which require significant conceptual skills. Productivity for employees with good work ethic on the other side can indeed profit a lot from working remotely.

Furthermore, to be able to get away with doing very little instead of working it means everyone depending on that employee's productive output don't expect better or don't raise the issue when said output is lacking. It's an unrealistic scenario unless the workplace itself is already degenerate: at that point working remotely or not is not the main issue anyway.

 

[Zeke92]

Nobody has learned that working from home is “much more” productive, because it simply isn’t true, generally speaking.

The decision to get people back to the office isn’t to justify the cost of the office — it is necessary for productivity and well being. The reason it is necessary is for the same reason a person’s dependence on the web or apps for social interaction would quickly lead to loneliness and depression. Working from home is a short term solution.

This is literally just your opinion. Most people’s productivity is the same while WFH. While cutting down the absolute misery of commuting and discomfort of the office space. WFH should be the standard with the option to come when you want to or for tasks in which face to face is better. Good employees will come into the office when it’s conducive to work.

 

[bsolar]

For many corporate jobs being in the office is the way to get jobs done effectively. It depends on the job and the company. I’m sure Apple HR understands the situation 100%.

For many activities before COVID effectively working remotely was considered simply not feasible... until COVID arrived and forced everyone to try it or close shop. For many activities it proved that effectively performing them remotely was actually feasible, shattering many ingrained preconceptions.

It's true that some activities do profit from being in-office, but they are a lot fewer than originally thought. Furthermore, often the issue is more outdated processes or technological infrastructure than something inherent in the activity itself.

 

[Fomalhaut]

My health has improved so much from WFH. It’s amazing as a single person. I’m so productive. I can cook my own food. I can use my own bathroom. I can listen to my own music. It’s amazing.

I've put on weight though...I used to cycle 20km most days, and then walk around the office or the city, and I really notice not doing that now. I try to do some exercise during the day, but often just end up sitting at the desk for 10 hours a day, which is not super healthy.

There are definitely pluses to WFH though. fewer distractions / noises from other people (but far easier to get distracted by other things at home, the Internet (ahem...macrumors.com) ), and fewer costs associated with travel, work clothes, eating out etc., not to mention the time savings.

A day or two in the office to keep work and social interactions going, and have face-to-face meetings with colleagues and customers seems to be the way to go for me.

 

[Zeke92]

Productivity goes up because when you finish your work from home, you have options other than staring at a fluorescent light and watching the clock.

#1 More sleep.
#2 Less travel.
#3 Save Money
#4 Fresh Food - Control the fridge
#5 Control the thermostat (comfort)
#6 Control the hygiene (no public restroom).

Not to mention I have been such a big part of my 3 small kids lives. I can flex out and drive one to ABA therapy, or another to speech therapy. Help with home schooling. My cell phone is on me and the e-mails will be there in 15 minutes when I get back. I can have lunch with my family daily. I have lost weight, lowered blood pressure. It took us 6 months, but my government agency absolutely perfected working from home. We've done it all from hire to retire, train to discipline.

It's like a dystopian future thinking about 5:30-6:00a.m. alarm clocks. That means earlier bed time, more caffeine needed. 2 hours in the car. Gas is $4 a gallon. Oh man, need to iron the work clothes. That takes time too. If it can be done remotely by any means, that should be the default. It should need to be absolutely verifiably essential to make someone risk their lives on the interstate for the privilege of an office full of random interruptions.

You laid it out perfectly

 

[himanshumodi]

Lol 😆 ! Apple paid billions for that campus and now Timmy is forcing his minions to do his bidding! Get back to work plebs! I must micromanage you to death!

hey Timmy, you want your time as ceo to end soon? Force them to come to the office and watch how many people quit.

Don't imagine that Apple will be the only company that will want people to work from office again. Yes, some companies might offer "wfh" as a perk, but I suspect such companies and roles will be in the minority. Not everyone is an individual contributor, developer supreme, who works as a lone wolf, emerging from shadows with his perfectly crafted deliverable. Transition to large scale WFH setup will require a complete redefinition of how "work" gets conducted, social interactions etc.

 

[Pezimak]

I'm glad our company is more flexible.

Productivity hasn't fallen, in fact, it's risen.

The company has seen benefits from people working from home, so we are being given a choice on how much we actually want to spend in the office vs working from home. The company and us, the employees, have adapted working remotely. Of course there are some who want to go back into the office part time, or fulltime, and that's completely OK. HR / Management treat employees as adults, not as children who can't be trusted to work away from an office desk.

This should be the approach taken, offer people a choice. Home working isn't a new concept, it's just been limited in those who could participate. But we have now seen thanks to the internet, many can work from home. It's all about that life and work balance at the end of the day. You can mow your lawn or do your washing in your lunch break, instead of the evening as an example.
Treat people with respect, offer them a choice. Be flexible.

 

[Bryan839]

The amount of moaning on this thread is laughable, I have not had the luxury of working from home during the pandemic, and think that its great businesses are now asking for office colleagues to get back to work rather than lounge about at home, and if they don't like going back to how things were before, then they can just leave!

 

[Boris Bronson]

What is wrong about that if the work still gets done? If my boss tells me to focus on making a presentation by Friday but I finish it on Tuesday already, I am not gonna feel bad about it. I am not getting paid by output. Some people would take until Monday the following week, I am just faster. Sometimes I go on a walk with my dog for 2 hours in the middle of the day but I am still available on slack if people have questions. It’s not like I need to be glued to the desk to get things done. Emails can also be written easily as I am having a long lunch. It just depends on your own productivity level. Some people leave their desk and suddenly forget the whole working world around them. I am still available on my phone, so no big deal. I went to Spain for a week and my boss still told me great work at the end of the week as I was getting things done that he asked me to, even though it took me 2 instead of 40 hours that week (of course that isn’t the norm). Can’t be that bad as I received a nice big raise during pandemic times 😅

and then there are those people that sit in front of their desk for 2 hours, thinking about how to phrase an email

Europe is so much more enlightened. The impression in the Anglicised world is that if you don’t have blood coming out of your eyes at 5pm then you cannot possibly have done a proper day’s work.

Related: the English-speaking world also has the absolute worst management culture. MBA, transferable skills, all that (crap) jazz.

If employees are shirking in any environment, you deal with them under existing legislation. Merely making them work at corporate HQ does not absolve that manager of their responsibility. In those cases it is the manager effectively destroying the firm.

 

[drlamb]

It depends on the person. For me and many others, working from home is incredibly draining. I really need that separation between my work and home lives.

I fully agree. I struggled with WFH until I moved into a space with a separate office. Now there's a clear boundary between work/home/play and I love it. I'd find a new job over working in the office again.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

I remember hearing about telecommuting as far back as 1987.

My employer has had a distributed workforce operating out of their homes since before Mark Twain wrote “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”.

 

[Tonewheel]

Back to the office, slackers.

 

[Tonewheel]

Lol 😆 ! Apple paid billions for that campus and now Timmy is forcing his minions to do his bidding! Get back to work plebs! I must micromanage you to death!

hey Timmy, you want your time as ceo to end soon? Force them to come to the office and watch how many people quit.

Nonsense. This was bound to happen, and will happen, and people will head back to the office. Work from home? Many relish the ability to blow off the “work” part.