Apple CEO Tim Cook circulated a memo to the entire company urging employees to return to the office in September. Working from home is still possible for some, but then a maximum of two days a week. For Cook, working from home can’t compete with personal collaboration.
Apple employees will be required to sit at their desks in the office at least three days a week starting in September. Some of them will be allowed to work from home for the remaining two days. For teams where personal interaction is important, employees are required to come to the office for four or five days. Employees can apply to work from home for two weeks a year, but their manager will have to approve it first.
The conservative tech giant Cupertino is clearly not much in favor of working from home. Cook believes the shift to remote work has gone smoothly due to the coronavirus pandemic, but by itself it is not a sufficient substitute for in-person contact. He wrote in the note: “We have been able to achieve a lot, although many of us have been separated, but the truth is that over the past year one fundamental thing has been missing: each other”, the edge I can see. “Video calls have definitely reduced the distance between us, but there are things they simply cannot reproduce.”
“I know I’m not alone in missing the hustle and bustle, energy, creativity, collaboration in our face-to-face meetings, and the sense of belonging we all built,” he added.
However, Apple has not fared badly during the pandemic. The company achieved a 50 percent increase in global sales, mainly due to higher iPhone sales.
Other tech giants seem to be more open to remote work earlier. Facebook announced last year that employees can work from home full-time with the approval of their manager. Twitter clarified a similar policy in May last year. But Google then announced that it, like Apple, wanted to get more people into the office three days a week.
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