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Apple Staff Complain About Plans for Return to Office Work in Letter to Tim Cook
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I found a vague reference to that, in the BI article about Apple "not backing down" but it's just this:
I don't know the management structure of Apple but if its anything like most large companies that sounds like a non-starter for all but a very small number of employees.
If so, that just means Apple sees a lot fewer of these people as being irreplaceable than many here have been arguing.
Or perhaps it means that Apple values the feedback of it's employees more than some here have been arguing?
I didn't read the whole article, but I definitely didn't see any mention of "a round of firings" or retaliatory "fire all who signed the letter" in the bits I did read.
I'm not suggesting that requiring executive approval is necessarily a great result, but I could be wrong about it being a barrier and maybe, a lot of people have reasonably direct lines of communication to an exec. Or maybe the wording is weird in the article and BI is blowing up the 'double down' story for the clicks, and its just "ask your manager, ultimate approval rests with execs".
But even worst case scenario if Tim Cook has to personally approve each case and he only does that on the third Thursday of June after a full moon, it's still an improvement over the previous situation, an implicit acknowledgement that status quo won't last indefinitely, and who knows how it'll progress beyond that. Practically no companies anywhere supported <insert modern working paradigm> until they did, and in essentially zero cases would all companies adapt at once and in the same manner.
You just argued that the revised policy is likely a “non-starter for all but a very small number of employees,” but now you’re arguing that it shows Apple “values the feedback of it's employees more than some here have been arguing”?
Which is it? Can’t really be both.
I did explain this, but let me try again.
The "exec approval" policy sounds like it's unnecessarily restrictive in terms of getting approval. It may not be but it sounds that way.
But the fact that it exists at all, is evidence Apple can and does respond to employee feedback, and adapt, slowly.
Small steps is better than no steps.
Is there a "all working conditions are set in stone after September" edict I didn't see either?
The employees are all due back in September, aren’t they? We’ll start to get a sense then how many additional workers will be allowed to WFH 100% of the time and how many decided to leave Apple.
A lot of the people who claim to want WFH really have moved away and want to work remotely. Hard to imagine they’ll move back to the Bay Area in September, only to quit in November.
I mean that’s kind of irrelevant to the point I was making. Apple has adapted twice from pre-pandemic conditions. I don’t think they’ve done enough yet but something is better than nothing, and none of the somethings they’ve done yet have been “retaliation” as many in this thread suggested was appropriate.
but even to address your points - how do you expect to know any details about apples staffing situation like that? Is there a monthly public staff list media release I also don’t see?
The same way we know about the employees’ complaints. You think there might be a mass revolt or exodus that will be kept secret?
I’d imagine that those who are adamant about working remotely are/have already made their requests, and will either remain remote or find alternatives before the return to office date. I don’t expect to hear anything specifically about it except maybe the occasional link to social media or what have you, if someone notices a specific person appears to be working elsewhere and digs into it.
Thousands of Apple employees are supposedly really unhappy and the topic is being covered all over the tech media, but you’re expecting no further reports on the issue?
We know about it because of one leaked letter.
I wouldn’t expect a mass/group exit that’s similarly reported, no.
Apple Looks Beyond Silicon Valley to Improve Recruitment and Retention
Apple is "ramping up efforts to decentralize out of Silicon Valley," following difficulties recruiting and retaining talent at its Apple Park...
www.macrumors.com
For everyone arguing that there’s a “line of people” waiting to take these people’s jobs and that Apple will have no problem replacing those who want to work from home. While the article talks more specifically about how expensive Silicon Valley is, it just shows that name recognition doesn’t mean what it used to. Just because it’s Apple, doesn’t mean they are immune to what the job market is demanding.
This is idea might seem crazy, but how about instead of focusing who is at their desk for 8 hours, management focuses on quality of work? If the quality of work for any given employee suffers when working from home (not available when needed during the day, work not getting done on time) then that employee gets let go…problem solved!
If an employee can manage to get all their work done and be available when needed while also going to the grocery/gym/ or whatever else, then what’s it matter? It sounds like this is more a problem with bad management, not knowing how to judge quality of work. If this is the case, then those managers need to be replaced with someone who can manage in a more modern work environment.
This is much easier to do after managers are already familiar with the workers in question.
As a general matter, it’s much easier to assess 20 baseball players on the same field than 20 baseball players working out on 20 different fields.
Is it though? I played and coached baseball my whole life, and it’s pretty safe to say if I can look at the stat sheet and see the player on field 3 batted .150 with 200 strike outs, then we can probably cut him without missing much.
At the end of the day, quality of work is the main thing that matters. If the manager can only judge an employees worth by how long he sits at a desk continually, then they aren’t a good manager. I’d argue, that if done correctly, allowing people to work from home could result in a more efficient work force. If an employee isn’t getting their work done, fire them. If a manager isn’t able to judge talent without seeing them physically sitting in a chair, then fire them. After a while, you’ll end up with quality employees and managers and the “slackers” will drop off.
Yes. Who compiled the stats for you on the 20 players on 20 different fields? That doesn’t happen magically, just as worker assessments don’t.
A baseball players job doesn’t result in them creating a physical/digital product or feature, so you’re example isn’t exactly apples to apples. Any given project or task is going to have requirements that need to be met, typically within some sort of timeline. That’s a low bar for a manager to be able to “manage”, if they can’t figure out whether the project was completed and completed on time, then im not sure they should be managing.
We can keep going in circles all day, but it’s easier to manage people and productivity under one roof than it is under 20 roofs or 200 roofs. That’s just the way it is, no matter how much the WFH people insist otherwise.
Yes, you’re correct is is easier for bad managers to manager in person, never disputed that.
still haven’t explained to me how it’s “easier” to manage under one roof, unless a large part of your metric of success is how long someone sits at a desk. We’ve both agreed that results are the main thing that matters… so how is a manager unable to judge this accordingly (regardless of the employees location), unless they are bad managers?