Apple’s attempts to get its employees back into the office are met with constant resistance from an organized group of employees, and there has been at least one notable resignation on the matter.
Verge reporter Zoe Schiffer hilro On Saturday, Ian Goodfellow, Apple’s director of machine learning, will leave the company. He cited a plan to return to the office as the reason for his departure. “I strongly believe that more flexibility would be the best policy for my team,” he said in a note to colleagues, according to Schaeffer’s tweet.
Current policies sometimes differ by team and role, but in general, Apple already requires employees to visit the office one or two days a week. Starting May 23, many Apple employees will be required to go to the office at least three days a week.
Some employees are unhappy with the gradual return to the office. They coordinated their efforts in a group called Apple Together. group recently Publish an open letter Addressed to the management of the company.
Apple Together lists several reasons why they think Apple’s return to the office doesn’t make sense for the company and its employees. The group tries to debunk the idea that being in the office together provides unexpected moments of collaboration and creativity. The group says the company is already isolated, so collaboration with colleagues is more manageable when working from home (where it’s sometimes easier to arrange video calls to offices or other departments) than in the office.
Apple Together explores the impact of commuting in crowded cities where Apple has offices, such as the Bay Area, Los Angeles, or Austin, Texas, on employees’ privacy, energy, and willingness to work. The group also notes that the requirement that employees live down the road from the office limits the types of employees who join the company.
The letter ends with a reference to what its authors consider the “most important reason” for Apple to allow more flexible working conditions. She notes that Apple’s marketing messages position products like the iPhone, iPad and Mac as ideal tools for remote work, even as Apple encourages employees who develop these products to return to the office.
The letter notes that Apple’s marketing is a hypocritical tactic and suggests that employees working to create these products will better understand customer needs if they adopt the same work lifestyle.
While Apple is slowly returning employees to the office culture, it is using remote collaboration tools so effectively that it has no other choice.
For example, Article in the Wall Street Journal Speaking about how the COVID-19 pandemic is changing Apple’s operations in China, he explains how Apple is using technologies such as live streaming, video calls and augmented reality to enable engineers in California to collaborate with colleagues in China amid travel restrictions. Previously, many of these interactions required international travel to meet in person.
Meanwhile, many other tech companies are taking a more lenient approach to remote work. Microsoft still encourages some employees to come to the office, but this is on a case-by-case basis. Others, such as Dropbox, Twitter and Lyft, have announced that most employees can be out completely indefinitely if they so choose.
Apple is currently planning to move to its updated three-day-a-week policy on May 23rd.
