Apple’s attempts to get its employees back into the office are met with constant resistance from an organized group of employees, and at least one notable resignation has occurred for this reason.
The Verge reporter Zoe Schiffer tweeted on Saturday that Ian Goodfellow, director of machine learning at Apple, will be leaving the company. He cited a plan to return to the office as the reason for his departure. “I strongly believe that the best policy for my team would be more flexibility,”he said in a note to colleagues, according to Schiffer’s tweet.
Some employees are unhappy with the gradual return to the office. They joined forces in a group called Apple Together. The group recently published an open letter to the company’s management.
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 attempts to debunk the notion that being in the office together creates happy 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 other offices or departments) than in the office.
Apple Together celebrates the impact of commuting in high-traffic cities where Apple has offices, such as the Bay Area, Los Angeles or Austin, Texas, on employees’ privacy, energy, and availability at work. The group also points out that requiring employees to live within walking distance of offices limits which employees join the company.
And the letter ends by stating what its authors consider “the most important reason”why Apple should allow more flexible working conditions. It points out that Apple’s marketing messages position products such as the iPhone, iPad and Mac as ideal tools for remote work, even as Apple tells the employees who develop these products to return to the office.
The letter says that Apple’s marketing is hypocritical and notes that employees working to create these products will better understand the needs of customers if they live the same working lifestyle.
While Apple is slowly returning employees to the office culture, it is effectively using remote collaboration tools where it has no other choice.
For example, a Wall Street Journal article on how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed Apple’s operations in China describes how Apple has used technologies such as live streaming, video calling, and augmented reality to enable engineers in California to collaborate with colleagues in China during trips. restrictions. Previously, many of these interactions required international travel to meet in person.
Meanwhile, several other tech companies have adopted more lenient approaches 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 remain completely remote indefinitely if they choose to.
Apple is currently planning to move to an updated three-day-a-week policy on May 23rd.