Seriously? Certainly not in the San Francisco peninsula where Apple's headquarters complex is located.
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Apple Employees Asked to Return to Offices for Three Days a Week Starting in September
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Seriously? Certainly not in the San Francisco peninsula where Apple's headquarters complex is located.
I’m surprised at many of the responses here. In the U.K. many sectors now see a good remote policy as table stakes for attracting talent.
If you are in a job where you aren’t micro-managed and left to be productive on your own terms why would it matter where you are? Let people work where suits them best. They will either produce quality work or not.
I’m preferring working from home: better equipment, greater comfort, easier to concentrate and I think for some jobs collaboration face to face is overvalued. I’m a developer. I can deal with code commits and zoom calls whether sat in an office or at home office. The face to face stuff is vanishingly rare.
If you are in a job where you aren’t micro-managed and left to be productive on your own terms why would it matter where you are? Let people work where suits them best. They will either produce quality work or not.
I’m preferring working from home: better equipment, greater comfort, easier to concentrate and I think for some jobs collaboration face to face is overvalued. I’m a developer. I can deal with code commits and zoom calls whether sat in an office or at home office. The face to face stuff is vanishingly rare.
office 3 days and home 4 days sounds ideal to me. I would also want to only go in Tues-Thurs.
edit: before the dislike brigade takes over… I rather work remote with the OPTION to go in if I want to. if I *have* to go in, I would rather it be 3 days in a row.
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Exactly. My wife is a teacher and many of her co-workers were terrified to go back to school last quarter, but of course happy to frequent grocery and hardware stores where employees have been working in the public space the whole time. Now of course, they're suddenly heroes.
Get back to work, people. Your free ride is over.
that's what you've been doing for the last 15 months?
Oh no, now they can't trade stocks and work at the same time!
To tell you guys the truth, I don't want to go home again after so much time working from home during this pandemic. At my job we will be working on hybrid schedule as well and I could not be happier. Every close person I know including me got vaccinated, so this is the best thing could happen. hehe YEY!
Makes sense for a company like Apple, which relies heavily on close collaboration between various departments for its products. Most companies are not built to succeed with the decentralised employee structure found when work is done at home, and Apple isn't one of them either.
I am also not convinced that WFH is all it's cracked up to be. I am still a firm believer of face to face communication, and I find that for many people, there are just too many distractions at home. As a teacher, I too enjoy being able to wake up later, not needing to commute to work (though I live like 15 minutes walk from school), and being able to zoom on my iMac (some of my colleagues are already facing screen burnout issues on their work laptops from excessive zooming). But home-based learning hasn't really been all that effective for the students, and I am under no illusion that I will have a fair amount of catching up to do when we go back to school.
But I still find it easier to meet up with my superiors in school to discuss workplans and ideas, which I find to be easier than trying to coordinate things over zoom or FaceTime (which I did too, but by then, the agenda was already like 90% done and we were just touching up the final details).
To the people who feel that they are getting alone fine WFH'ing, I would say to look at the overall bigger picture. It's not just about how much code you can churn out when left to your own devices. It's about a decline in the product innovation process, brought about by a decline in team communication and idea exchange, which may in turn lead to subpar products and services. In the end, it's the company and the consumer who suffers ultimately.
Such a phenomenon will probably take a few years to manifest; the ramifications won't be apparent right away, but that doesn't mean harm hasn't already been done. Just like when you get sweet drinks, you don't start getting diabetes right away. And some even claim that the immediate sugar rush helped them clock better timings in their runs.
I believe that in time and with hindsight, this whole work from home phenomenon will end up proving to be a head fake that was more about combatting the pandemic than it is about a dramatic revolution in the way the corporate world does business.
I am also not convinced that WFH is all it's cracked up to be. I am still a firm believer of face to face communication, and I find that for many people, there are just too many distractions at home. As a teacher, I too enjoy being able to wake up later, not needing to commute to work (though I live like 15 minutes walk from school), and being able to zoom on my iMac (some of my colleagues are already facing screen burnout issues on their work laptops from excessive zooming). But home-based learning hasn't really been all that effective for the students, and I am under no illusion that I will have a fair amount of catching up to do when we go back to school.
But I still find it easier to meet up with my superiors in school to discuss workplans and ideas, which I find to be easier than trying to coordinate things over zoom or FaceTime (which I did too, but by then, the agenda was already like 90% done and we were just touching up the final details).
To the people who feel that they are getting alone fine WFH'ing, I would say to look at the overall bigger picture. It's not just about how much code you can churn out when left to your own devices. It's about a decline in the product innovation process, brought about by a decline in team communication and idea exchange, which may in turn lead to subpar products and services. In the end, it's the company and the consumer who suffers ultimately.
Such a phenomenon will probably take a few years to manifest; the ramifications won't be apparent right away, but that doesn't mean harm hasn't already been done. Just like when you get sweet drinks, you don't start getting diabetes right away. And some even claim that the immediate sugar rush helped them clock better timings in their runs.
I believe that in time and with hindsight, this whole work from home phenomenon will end up proving to be a head fake that was more about combatting the pandemic than it is about a dramatic revolution in the way the corporate world does business.
Many companies are moving to 3-days. It's the future!
I hate you people.
Only a small percentage of all Apple employees in Silicon Valley are based in the main campus. Apple currently leases many campuses and tens, maybe hundreds of buildings all around Cupertino, Sunnyvale, San Francisco and the rest of SV. The last thing they will ever do will be to sell Apple Park or Infinite Loop.
lol at the thumbs downs and people angry at your post. wth are they thinking? everything is opening up
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.
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.
Why not? Stop thinking things need to be the way they were. When there is a labor shortage and you are looking for primo talent, then yes, these are benefits worth exploring offering
That's actually not bad. If my place asks us to return I wouldn't mind a similar hybrid approach.
My work (government) is having us start back working in the office 2-3 days a week and 2-3 days at home. This will be the long term arrangement and I am happy with it.
My brother, who is an engineer for a chip maker, will be required to resume 5 days a week like prior to the pandemic. Nothing learned apparently. I expect people to leave
My brother, who is an engineer for a chip maker, will be required to resume 5 days a week like prior to the pandemic. Nothing learned apparently. I expect people to leave
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.
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.
How about this incentive — they get to have a job. You’re entitled to nothing.
It’s funny how ppl claim they are much more productive working in the office…keep telling yourself that after you checked your email in the morning and then browse the web, watch Youtube and talk to your co-workers, drinking coffee all day and occasionally check your computer, type a few words to make it seem you make progress with your work.
Believe it or not, productivity can be measured. Depending on your job, for some people it’s gone up massively. This shows how often people take coffee breaks and chat with their coworkers without being productive.
and then you experience a labor shortage
How about this incentive for employers....you want workers, treat them better. They are entitled to nothing
I will say that this is also a very short-sighted and narrow view of productivity.
I know I have been
-no more constant interruptions from coworkers
-back to back to back to back meetings via zoom, etc. In the past meetings were not scheduled that way
- I work longer hrs due to my office being "right there"
Don't think your behavior when you worked at home applies to others.
There are benefits to working at home but I also see where the challenges lie. I appreciate companies that recognize this and have adopted a hybrid approach vs going 100% what it was
It’s interesting to read the perks people are getting to either continue working from home…or the incentives they’re getting to come back to work.
Meanwhile, we went through a merger…and after working in person the whole pandemic (even doing EXTRA hours)…we got a pay-cut. It was a small cut, but still a cut nonetheless.
Now that my little rant is over…Apple’s plan of three days a week is pretty reasonable. That seems to be the theme among all the office-workers in my family. Many of them are going back to in-person for 2-3 days a week while others are going back for 5. (though much earlier than September. Some are back already, some are going this month. All will be back to some amount of in-person by the end of July).
Meanwhile, we went through a merger…and after working in person the whole pandemic (even doing EXTRA hours)…we got a pay-cut. It was a small cut, but still a cut nonetheless.
Now that my little rant is over…Apple’s plan of three days a week is pretty reasonable. That seems to be the theme among all the office-workers in my family. Many of them are going back to in-person for 2-3 days a week while others are going back for 5. (though much earlier than September. Some are back already, some are going this month. All will be back to some amount of in-person by the end of July).
Yeah would hate to be companies who invested in large commercial office spaces. Zoom isn’t ideal but the overhead is essentially non-existent keeping people home working for the most part. The fact these executives are not in person already when the pandemic is over in the US is a bit ridiculous.