Especially when that ”feedback” comes in the form of a public letter, one business day before your company’s most important event of the year, accusing your gay, far-left CEO of being anti-diversity and anti-inclusivity.
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Apple Staff Complain About Plans for Return to Office Work in Letter to Tim Cook
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Especially when that ”feedback” comes in the form of a public letter, one business day before your company’s most important event of the year, accusing your gay, far-left CEO of being anti-diversity and anti-inclusivity.
Company leaders having the power to enforce what they think is best, is not the same as knowing with certainty what actually works best in practice.
Otherwise, a company and its leaders would never make a bad decision on anything, ever.
What the letter writers, and some posters here are suggesting—including myself—is that Tim Cook/Apple may have made a flawed decision that deserves another look. Not that he doesn’t have the decision making power to require whatever he wants.
…but by already characterizing the employee request(s) as mere “perks”, and tying the mindset of people who advocate for WFH as “just not wanting to go into the office”, you’re already dismissing that there are advantages to the company and productivity—not just to the self-interested worker, that Tim Cook and company leaders may be missing.
Posters in this thread won’t even allow for the possibility that company leaders/Tim Cook could be wrong about what is best.
This issue totally aside, I suppose posters with that mindset 100% love and support every decision Apple has ever made, because everyone in the chain of command decided “what is best” for a product/service, and they couldn’t be misinformed when making those decisions.
I’m looking at the letter now…can you point to those lines, or are they only on your copy of the letter?
Company leaders don’t have to prove to employees that their decision is fully backed up with facts though. They don’t have to prove that working in the office is more or less productive than allowing these same employees to work permanently from home. Sometimes decisions are made to suit the business and the person paid a lot of money to take accountability for the departments failings. Apple may be wrong in this instance, but they made a decision that can be rightfully questioned and rightfully answered in brief.
All of it matters, and all should be taken into account.
If you’re a company leader and not looking at employee churn, or the average tenure of your employees, or seeing a drop in applications for open positions, or feedback from current employees or in exit interviews about any of those things…then I still maintain you’re a bad leader.
Or should/do companies just decide on one salary, vacation, benefit structure, carve it into stone tablets, and maintain it into perpetuity?
Sure, the power-insecure, stubborn leaders with the “I’m doing you a favor by letting you work for me, you serve at my discretion and be careful about challenging me on anything at the risk of your livelihood”-mindsets won’t welcome the feedback because of their professional (and most likely personal) flaws, but they’d be smart to listen and consider it.
I guess I missed the part in this thread where we’re directly questioning company leaders and asking said leaders to provide factual proof.
What’s Tim Cook’s MacRumors username?
You clearly have because it has been mentioned about companies providing data to back up the difference in productivity levels between home and office.
Ok on that opinion. And certainly you choose your company as your company chooses you. Both views have to match. If one can’t retain talented employees it’s on management to fix the issue.
It’s up to management and HR. But can you name multiple fortune companies that substantially altered salary structure based on feedback that salary/bonus was too low?
We’ll that’s in your opinion. You are welcome or not to work for a CEO with that mindset.
Not necessarily as justification to their own employees. As something to create metrics around and weigh heavily when making their decisions—which we cannot be certain happened in this case. I would posit that the majority (over 50%) of leaders don’t have any metrics on the impact of the difference on those things specifically.
If a company leaders do that, and productivity and profitability and other KPIs did increase during a shift to WFH, why wouldn’t they want to keep it?
Is your argument solely that bosses make decisions for companies and have the power to do so? On that, I happily concede and agree.
Not really. What you quoted is a reply to this:
The company cannot judge anything. It's still employees - fallible humans who have to "judge" things.
My point is that the nuance you love to point at any opportunity is ignored when you make claims like this:
Your whole argument about grudgingly admitting "it works for some" feels kind of hollow when you're essentially applauding a move that paints somewhere in the order of 12000 staff with a single brush, and you have the gall to call the offer "very generous".
You keep banging on about "it doesn't work for everyone". Not everyone knows how to drive a car with any competence, that's why some people are allowed to and some aren't.
Using your logic (i.e. "approving" of Apple's approach) here that a blanket "2 days per work is fine for practically everyone" to define driving rules, no one would be allowed to drive more than 10km from their home, but everyone would be allowed to drive, regardless of capability.
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I know it works for some as I have been working remotely on and off for many years now. I’m not ‘grudgingly’ admitting anything as I know full well some can work from joke fine and others simply don’t have the discipline. There is no blanket approach and I haven’t suggested there is. It’s dependant on the company and their experience with how their employees work and behave. You may have worked from home with little physical contact with your colleagues for a decade and a half but not everybody works like that and even if they work in similar roles. It’s a subjective decision based on management using their best judgement
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Yes, they mean the people, I'm aware of that. I find it's helpful to remind people that "the company" is just people, because some here seem to have this obsessive view that because "Apple did it", it must be the correct thing to do.
And not every decision is going to be correct or what's best for the company.
Managers are not infallible. You do know this, right?
No, it's their boss who decides what is or isn't allowed. Just because a manager decides something does not mean that it is what's best for the company.
Management completely mess things up because they thought it was best and leaving the people who do the actual work to clean up the mess is a ridiculously common occurrence.
Management staff included.
I don't know what world some of you work in, but some of us (even when not owning our own companies) have worked for managers that value the input of their staff. Sure, if you ask for a million dollars a year to mop up sick at a kindergarten you're not likely to get it, but if you provide actionable feedback that can improve employee conditions without having an overall negative impact on the company, good managers will be all ears.
Have you never heard the phrase "happy workers are good workers"?
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Unfortunately for lower members of staff the management are in a position to makes decisions right or wrong and have the power to make them a reality.
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I was wondering the same thing, what world do some work in? Multinational conglomerates with tens of thousands of employees or small start ups? Regulated industries? Software, tech? It makes a huge difference.
Good managers don’t have to kow-tow to employee demands. That’s a strawman. That’s different than saying the pulse of the company shouldn’t be known. But if it’s my way or the highway, then bye bye.
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No, they don't have to. They're probably going to find it a lot harder to compete for talented staff as time goes on if they want to stick to their antiquated concepts and not even bother to defend the reasoning though.
A manager, that responds to someone who asks why they are required to do something, with "because I said so", is a terrible excuse for a manager.
.... The entire thread is about Apple's lack of full-time remote working - Even those whose job does not require in-person presence, are required in the office 3 days a week minimum. How is that not a blanket approach?
Ah, I can hear you now: But how do weknow these people don't require in-person presence? Because those who require in-person presence are going back to the office 4 or 5 days a week:
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They have the authority to make decisions and enforce them.
That doesn't make the reasoning for their decisions "reality".
You may not be keen on managers but they and the concept of people going into a workplace to work are not things that are likely going to disappear any time soon IMO. Employees with attitudes exist and sometimes managers have to remind them things are done because ‘they said so’. I’ve been in many situations where I’ve had to manage factory staff that hate you because you work in an office and question every directive. You can explain as politely as you like but sometimes people just need to be told to do something and stop questioning it. It’s not an ideal situation but if you are managing someone who lacks respect, it’s difficult to communicate in any other way but to be stern.
I think Apple have been more than reasonable here and if they said ‘we want to have people in the office for 3 days a week because we want that’, that’s good enough in my view. They are paying the wages and if they suddenly struggle to attract potential employees to their brand and £2.9bn HQ, then maybe they’ll review their approach?
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Much like it doesn’t make those who disagree with those said divisions the ‘reality’ either. Subjectivity and the difference of opinion come into play.
How can you make this “more than reasonable” value judgement?
That’s the whole purpose of this discussion that a few keep missing or purposely glossing over.
The idea that some people, with no first-hand experience, no context other than “Apple employees wrote a letter”, can assertively conclude that “Apple is being more than reasonable”, “lazy employees are being whiny” and “Apple quality has dropped due to WFH” without circular reasoning or evidence other than—seemingly—“Apple said so” and “I/most people don’t even get that” is very, very strange and unfounded.
And not forgetting those people who assume the employees who wrote the letter were as productive at home as they were in the office without a shadow of doubt.
My ‘more than reasonable’ comment is generic and not analysing Apple solely. In a world where COVID still exists and companies are trying their best to get some normality back with measures to bring employees back to the workplace, I think a hybrid proposal offers the best of both. It will surely improve communications and encourage cross-departmental bonds when workers have that presence. Employees wouldn’t necessarily make a video call to someone they don’t work directly with for a chat or had met before and having these connections often break down barriers and encourage a good working atmosphere.
I fully support the option to work from home some of the time and also attend the workplace.
The entire point is that management has said they want employees back in the office three days a week. Whether it’s factual data or the CEO gut feeling tgst is the rule. If Apple is open to further discussions on an individual basis…more power to them. Else it’s the employee decision on whether to stay or leave.
Bur MR posters sure can chime in with their take on this.
I’m not “keen” on people who can’t do their jobs and/or impede my ability to do mine.
Who suggested that managers would cease to exist or offices would no long be required at all?
I have said several times that remote working requires managers to actually understand what their charges do, because they’ll need to monitor actual output to get a meaningful measurement of productivity.
if that sounds too hard perhaps they can go find a job elsewhere in a cubicle farm watching over the office dwellers, strictly timing bathroom breaks and sexually harassing the secretary.
What do you mean if? That is basically what they said.
There’s always someone willing to do a job. That doesn’t mean the company is able to compete for the best candidates.
You mean the one that employees have hated from the moment it opened, because management in their private offices decided collaboration requires all open plan work spaces in spite of multiple studies showing that it reduces productivity?
Why exactly is the cost of the building an employees concern?
Well one would hope they actually measure productivity and that carries more weight than “gut feelings”, but that didn’t seem to be the case when they went all-in with their $5B monument to open plan working spaces, did it?
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