Apple Still Planning Return to In-Person Work in September, Despite Employee Complaints

[MacRumors]

Apple is not backing down on its plan to return to three days of in-person work a week starting in September, despite employees complaining about the new change.

Earlier this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook penned an internal letter to employees outlining the company's plan to return to in-person work three days a week in September. Apple, due to the global health crisis, has largely been working remotely over the past year, but companies are now starting to return to in-person work.

Following Cook's letter to staff, a group of Apple employees responded to the CEO with a letter of their own, complaining about the change. In their letter, employees said that without the flexibility of choosing between remote and in-person work, they feel they have to choose between "either a combination of our families, our well-being, and being empowered to do our best work, or being a part of Apple."

Apple has now responded to the complaints. In a video sent to staff, seen by The Verge, Apple's senior vice president of retail and people, Deirdre O'Brien, said that in-person work is "essential" to Apple products and company culture, and that it is key for product launches and development.

“We believe that in-person collaboration is essential to our culture and our future,” said Deirdre O'Brien, senior vice president of retail and people, in a video recording viewed by The Verge. “If we take a moment to reflect on our unbelievable product launches this past year, the products and the launch execution were built upon the base of years of work that we did when we were all together in-person.”

Apple is, however, going to offer some employees the flexibility of remote work. According to The Verge, employees will be allowed to work remotely, but that approval is "on a case-by-case basis with any new remote positions requiring executive approval."

Article Link: Apple Still Planning Return to In-Person Work in September, Despite Employee Complaints

 

[Serban55]

Very good, the employer decide what its best for its business, not the employee
Of course its good if you can land on middle ground where everyone can be satisfied enough

 

[HeavenDynamic]

Apple be like: "We didn't built this 5 billion dollars spaceship for you guys to just stay at home working naked"

 

[LFC2020]

Get back to work you slackers. 🤦‍♂️😂

 

[Alwis]

Very good, the employer decide what its best for its business, not the employee

Well it is still valid, what I told my employer some time ago: "You don't need to do this, but I do not need to work here either". So if you want't good and motivated employees you should listen to their wishes, at least to some extend.

 

[Serban55]

Well it is still valid, what I told my employer some time ago: "You don't need to do this, but I do not need to work here either". So if you want't good and motivated employees you should listen to their wishes, at least to some extend.

like i said "Of course its good if you can land on middle ground where everyone can be satisfied enough"

 

[Serban55]

Well it is still valid, what I told my employer some time ago: "You don't need to do this, but I do not need to work here either". So if you want't good and motivated employees you should listen to their wishes, at least to some extend.

you can quit of course and he can hire others...but when you give too much power to your employee is not good for your business
You granted his first big wish...he will ask for another..i even been asked to give 1 person 39% of my stocks for free or he leaves....Of course he left..again Apple is smart enough here

 

[boss.king]

I expect Apple will lose some very talented people over this.

 

[Alwis]

you can quit of course and he can hire others...but when you give too much power to your employee is not good for your business

I guess it depends on the type of work. You can always replace someone who only sweeps the yard, so to say. If you have highly specialized employees it is much harder and you should think twice about what you are doing. And it certainly depends on wether you think, that he demand of the Apple employees is reasonable.

But I think this is also a big cultural difference between the USA (and other countries) and Germany, where I am from.

 

[contacos]

At the company I work, they are making Tues - Thurs mandatory now but you can work from home Monday and Friday unless you have a home office contract like me anyway and the company is not really known to be friendly to its employers. I am surprised Apple is so strict

It really depends on your work. I am mostly managing other people and remind them to send me their work so I can easily do that from my iPhone while walking my dog.

 

[iPadified]

In person collaboration is good but 100% of the time? That will be a coffee club with very little done. A mix is likely best.

Some middle manager will disagree about working from whom because they are then becoming redundant.

 

[macintoshmac]

Apple be like: "We didn't built this 5 billion dollars spaceship for you guys to just stay at home working naked"

I was going to post exactly this. Thank you. You saved my effort. 🍻

 

[Shirasaki]

Seen lots of people showing no sympathy to those employees asking to work from home. Then, how about eased traffic? How about less crowded transport system? How about cutting down building rents? Apple is always going to be exception but WFH isn’t something that has to be avoided at all costs as soon as pandemic is over. And for apple kicking employees, I’m fairly confident they are capable of kicking anyone in a moments notice that is not the core dude (Tim Cook circle), and wont suffer much backlash from other employee.

 

[Alwis]

It really depends on your work.

That is exactly my experience, there are some things better done on person and some things much better done at home, for these tasks my productivity at home is mich higher and I am much more satisfied. Therefore I think, this should not be a company wide policy but decided within the individual teams, depending on their current needs.

I always have the impression, that people who prefer to come to the office 5 days a week are bored at home and need someone to speak to, just to pass the day

On the other hand, if the employer thinks people at home are not working he has some major problems. First the supervisor should know what people are doing, without counting the heads every morning. Second, when the employer does not trust the people with their working hours, why should he trust them with doing their job properly. And of course, why should I trust someone who does not trust me.

 

[Blackstick]

Apple does have some roles that are impossible to do from home. Such as those involving the precise machining of aluminum prototypes, working on upcoming hardware and the like, but if they think their support agents, some of their software developers, payroll/finance/accounting and others in positions that revolve around Webex and web portals need to be on site; they’re just admitting “yes we’re control freaks, we spent $5B on the campus so we intend to fill it.”

They have some talent with highly specific skill sets who are frankly a nightmare to replace, and if Adobe or Google or Microsoft or a dozen other valley companies match their salary and benefits and allow them to work from their house in Campbell or Easter Island or Tokyo, they’ll leave Apple over it.

Our offices are reopening today with voluntary attendance. Of the 1900 people staffed to HQ, only 200 have indicated they’ll be back this morning. We expect the # will grow, but I’m the only one vaccinated on my team of 6 architects and analysts, so nobody is in a hurry here.

Apple has always been more “in person” than most tech companies… time will tell if they can get back to that paradigm or if they’re forever changed.

My company of 15,000 was 40% permanently at home/virtual prior to Covid. We expect it to be 65% permanent virtual after and the remaining 30% to work partially from office, some days at home. And the 5% to be permanent office (warehouse/facilities/reception mostly)

 

[Jarman74]

“We believe that in-person collaboration is essential to our culture and our future,” said Deirdre O'Brien, senior vice president of retail and people, in a video recording viewed by The Verge. “If we take a moment to reflect on our unbelievable product launches this past year, the products and the launch execution were built upon the base of years of work that we did when we were all together in-person.”

While that might be true, it's not like you gave your employees any other option - they worked in person because they had no other choice.

So while I feel three days a week of in-person work are a good middle ground, if you really believe that in-person work is needed you should clearly state why you think so without any "culture and future" BS talk and just because "we've always been working in person."

 

[m4mario]

How underwhelming this WWDC was is proof that working from home for too long, while might help some employees work better, it won’t work in a company like Apple, which aims to build something that’s “more than just the some of it’s parts”.

PS: When it comes to developer tools, this WWDC was great. But thats because it was all about polishing what was already built. Truly the vision and design ground work for what was done this year, was done years earlier.

 

[s4d1k]

If you think that the top engineers at Apple don’t have several great options, you’re wrong. If they are not happy, they will leave. Replacing them won’t be easy.

 

[hippyeverafter]

Get back to work you slackers. 🤦‍♂️😂

Hear, Hear. Well said sir.

 

[ducknalddon]

I expect Apple will lose some very talented people over this.

I suspect the very talented have different rules to the majority.

 

[W2u7Yw4HaD]

I expect Apple will lose some very talented people over this.

Yup, and those companies which allow the flexibility will pick them up..

Companies just don't get that people (for the most part) would rather be with their families than in a 5 billion dollar building with a long commute perhaps...

They put out some great products while working from home.. Heck, Pixar made the new Luca film entirely from home and the film is very good..

 

[swingerofbirch]

No company has a brighter future than one where the employees meet in person after expressly saying they don't want to.

 

[Blackstick]

If you think that the top engineers at Apple don’t have several great options, you’re wrong. If they are not happy, they will leave. Replacing them won’t be easy.

This is the answer. A lot of folks on this thread are likely easily replaced and approach their jobs that way. I’m in this boat, there’s plenty of JamfPro administrators out there, it’s not hard to learn Tanium, BigFix or SCCM either.

If you have a knowledge set that realistically less than a few dozen engineers on the planet have, there’s any number of tech companies that’ll match your salary and benefits and couldn’t care less where you work from. They’ll fly you in on biz class for any critical in person meeting.

To the average cog in the engine, they don’t see how this is possible, but Apple has a considerable amount of individual contributors with this leverage over them. Time will tell how it pans out.

 

[lambertjohn]

I expect Apple will lose some very talented people over this.

Let them. Then they'll just go hire more talented people. Plenty of them out there who would be so grateful to have a job at Apple. Me included.

 

[RadioHedgeFund]

The average company has less office space to rent and therefore has an incentive to reduce time there; Apple spent billions on a giant glass flying saucer and wants it used!