Apple Employees Reportedly Petitioning Against Plan to Return to Office 3x Per Week

[Expos of 1969]

At an office, it is your space, you can shut the door, and you can ask an intruder to leave. I cannot see the logic of fewer distractions at home. I think that’s just what people say because they don’t consider their family a distraction when, from the employers point of view, they are.

It would be beneficial for you to investigate the work and office realities outside your personal bubble. In London and many other locations, for right or wrong, companies decided many years ago to move to the open office concept. You have row upon row of people a couple of feet apart working at computers. No dividers between them. These are not low level junior employees only. Managers and directors share this toxic environment for reasons of collaboration and idea sharing if you believe the company spin. No mention of cost savings.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

Get back to work. Simple as.

Because when they are working from home, they aren't working?

 

[gund1234]

Explains why Apple haven’t produced any new products for a couple of years

Are you expecting a revolutionary product every 2 years ?
Apple has been releasing upgrades to every product line since pandamic began.
And Apple's revenue has been going up every Qtr.

 

[d686546s]

It’s true. We got things done, harder over zoom, during the pandemic. If productivity is measured in getting things done, then yes I agree.

I can see how a Fortune 500 company who has a history of collaboration wants a RTO.

Like I said, there's absolutely things that work better in person, but I'm not completely convinced that the only good way to collaborate is in the office, nor that every collaboration requires physical proximity.

Our experience over the last two years has been that some things even work better over Teams, but it requires people to rethink how to do things, but there's no one size fits all solution.

Short term rapid response work involving multiple people at pace was a nightmare over Teams and if I had such a team I actually would try to get them back into the same space as quickly as possible. But collaboration can also be substantive long term projects with chunky individual deliverables that require frequent and thoughtful interaction and these may actually work better if you don't have someone dancing up to your desk every 2 minutes to discuss whatever just popped into their head.

In my experience people are usually quite receptive when there are good reasons to be in the office and several of my coworkers go in on their own initiative when that's the case. What seems to work less is when you want to get people in, for the sake of coming in, under some vague "collaboration" reason.

 

[gund1234]

lol they are just lazy. am never had working from home i went 5 days a week

It all depends on supply and demand, if workerers think they can get what they want then they will demand it.
If they don't like it they will find another job.
It is strange how people think.
Capitalism supply/demand only works one way ? not both ways ?
There are jobs that people have to be on site, like Tesla (manufacturing is happening in the factories here in US) so i would rather be at the factory, but at Apple manufacturing is not happening here it is happening in China, weather a person goes to office or not they have to work with China team from 5 PM to 9 PM every day.

 

[avz]

Get back to work. Simple as.

Jump up and down and then wait for further instructions. Simple as.

 

[gund1234]

Many of these employees seem to think they can't be replaced and that Apple has no choice but to give in to their demands. I hate to break it to them, but they are replaceable and if they don't want to go back to the office for 3 days a week then they should consider looking for work elsewhere.

Let market decide, this is capitalist country, supply/demand rules.
and Supply/demand rules.
USCIS is still not issung new H1B Visa, so there is shortage of skilled workers in US.
Time to sqeeze every penny from corporations who wants people to work 12 hours/day.

 

[hans1972]

I would have a sold a family member into slavery to avoid 100% working from home.

 

[gund1234]

This is the perfect time Apple to clean house and get folks who want a job and are willing to work 3 days a week isn't going to kill them working from home means no supervision and the tendency to slack off more.

Responsible employees will work from anywhere.
and i am sure Apple is thinking about it, but the risks are high.
Apple may loose talent if they force too much.

 

[d686546s]

It would be beneficial for you to investigate the work and office realities outside your personal bubble. In London and many other locations, for right or wrong, companies decided many years ago to move to the open office concept. You have row upon row of people a couple of feet apart working at computers. No dividers between them. These are not low level junior employees only. Managers and directors share this toxic environment for reasons of collaboration and idea sharing if you believe the company spin. No mention of cost savings.

As a fellow Londoner this rings way too true. Almost no breakout space, every conversation at a desk disturbs at least three other people (more now with all the calls going on) and little to no conference rooms available.

I love my noise cancelling headphones and so do the majority of my coworkers. They are many things, but creating a creative collaboration they do not.

 

[Expos of 1969]

I would have a sold a family member into slavery to avoid 100% working from home.

Funny enough, your family members said they would sell you to the company if it guaranteed you worked 80% at the office

 

[gund1234]

This is what happens in a culture where no one is ever told “no”. If they ever are, they can’t handle it and cry and stomp their feet like a 5 year old. You are adults people!! Act like it. Pathetic.

Working in any tech compnay is not that easy, we have been told no every day and working in any manufacturing company is 12/14 hour/day job.
Have to work with China team every day from 5 PM to 9 PM.
All these tech companies are still hiring if you are interested.

 

[IbisDoc]

Yes, but if there are good arguments as of why, the boss should take them into consideration. Sometimes the office's working environment leads to actual less productivity than what a home-office can deliver for some situations.

In our case, actually collaboration is much better when working from home, since each small group that collaborates is isolated in its own remote collaboration channel, whereas in the office with the open-office layout we have the overlapping discussions tend to become quite loud and distracting.

A star employee excels in the workplace. When most people, especially employers, think of star employees with bright futures, “I perform better when I pretend to work at home” doesn’t come to mind.

 

[spazzcat]

Many of these employees seem to think they can't be replaced and that Apple has no choice but to give in to their demands. I hate to break it to them, but they are replaceable and if they don't want to go back to the office for 3 days a week then they should consider looking for work elsewhere.

You sound like you have no idea how much time and money it takes to find and onboard new highly skilled employees; there is a reason turnover is tracked in most large companies. The best way to lose skilled employees is to tell them it's this way or the highway because they will take the highway almost every time...

 

[spazzcat]

This is what happens in a culture where no one is ever told “no”. If they ever are, they can’t handle it and cry and stomp their feet like a 5 year old. You are adults people!! Act like it. Pathetic.

It sounds like you are the one having a hard time here... I no longer wanted to waste time in an office and found an employer that met my demands.

 

[spazzcat]

View attachment 2045974

A star employee excels in the workplace. When most people, especially employers, think of star employees with bright futures, “I perform better when I pretend to work at home” doesn’t come to mind.

Tell me how I do this pretend-to-work stuff. I have deadlines and meetings, and if I miss those, I will seek new employment.

 

[Expos of 1969]

As a fellow Londoner this rings way too true. Almost no breakout space, every conversation at a desk disturbs at least three other people (more now with all the calls going on) and little to no conference rooms available.

I love my noise cancelling headphones and so do the majority of my coworkers. They are many things, but creating a creative collaboration they do not.

For work I went to a meeting at a architecture company in London. Very nice office but very open. I was impressed when the boss told me that they were happy to provide kitchen facilities such as coffee makers and fridges. But they refused to provide microwave ovens, the main reason so people could not heat spicy noodle dishes brought from home or from Tesco. It is ridiculous that one person is permitted to heat a noodle dish and then the smell permeates the whole office. What is it with Brits that very few are content with a cold tasty sandwich for lunch? The bigger issue is that people should not be eating at their work station and they should have a physical and mental break which means out of the office.

When I was a manager in London I had staff who were too lazy to get up early enough to have breakfast at home and found nothing wrong with having cereal and toast at their desk upon arriving at the office. On work time of course.

 

[hans1972]

(Ex-) Apple tech employees are extremely well placed in the labour market. They'll get plenty good offers from other companies that aren't located in overpriced crime and junkie infested Bay Area. Apple has zero leverage over these people.

So why even petition? Apple's leadership wants a hybrid solution. These employees should get one of those good offers from another company and quit Apple.

 

[bsolar]

A star employee excels in the workplace. When most people, especially employers, think of star employees with bright futures, “I perform better when I pretend to work at home” doesn’t come to mind.

I think the main issue of this line of thinking is the assumption that "working at home" fundamentally means "working alone". I work at home often and I am 90% of the time collaborating with someone else remotely. There is no way for me to "pretend" working, since the other party would notice immediately something is not right.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Honestly, I'm all up for coming back to work 3x per week. This is a fair deal.

Exactly.

This whole petition and demanding sounds like people got super lazy and want this forever. They're forgetting these benefits only came about during The Pandemic - a temporary issue/solution. I'd like to see Apple push their managers to proper scale, weight and measure their employees productivity while WFH and then see what turns up.

Many like myself had rotation and still do, but I'm all for coming back to the office.
I like to keep work and personal life separate. There are some sensitivities that needs to be considered as well:
those at Apple WFH - are their properly insured for corporate material theft?

 

[hans1972]

It still makes sense for employees of the company to provide feedback and for the company to listen to feedback about the rules they want to enact though.

They have been doing this for a long time now. At some time they just have to realise they'll be more happy with another company.

 

[hans1972]

You're more than welcome to disagree, but that does not change the reality. If you are highly specialized in your field (especially in the tech sector), you hold significant sway. I'm speaking from experience. My job recalled me back to the office five months ago. My letter of resignation came the next day. Guess what? They walked that back real quick.

But these people aren't resigning. They're arguing.

 

[Expos of 1969]

But these people aren't resigning. They're arguing.

That is fine. At some point they will either be given an ultimatum or Apple will compromise. It is just a dance until it reaches that point.

 

[IbisDoc]

View attachment 2045974

Tell me how I do this pretend-to-work stuff. I have deadlines and meetings, and if I miss those, I will seek new employment.

This response is exactly the point. In a post-covid work from home world, people consider themselves star employees simply because they don’t miss zoom meetings and they meet employer deadlines.

 

[gund1234]

Most of the people commenting here never worked for a tech company in manufacturing in Bay Area.
They don't understand the situation.
This is negotiation between Apple and it's employees.
Let Apple and it's employees decide what is good for both of them.
this decision will be made on supply and demand of talented employees.
Capitalism, supply/demand works both ways.
If Apple thinks that they can replace employees then they won't budge.
If Apple thinks that they will be loosing talent then they will budge.
No need to call employees lazy.
Corporation have been increasing work load since pandamic began stating that there is shortage of employees.
I am doing 3 people's job since pandemic began, because there is "shortage of employees".