A group of employees from Apple is not very happy with Tim Cook’s “work from office at least three days a week” email. They’ve responded with an internal letter to the CEO.
According to the staff, the remote work frequency should be for individual teams to decide. A “one-size-fits-all policy” will not help. The employees also express that they were left to feel “actively ignored” on the remote work issue during these times. Some workers even changed jobs as a result.
Excerpts of the Letter from Unhappy Apple Employees
- According to Apple employees, there has been a lack of internal messaging “acknowledging that there are directly contradictory feelings amongst us” in regard to remote work “feels dismissive and invalidating.”
- They further added that “It feels like there is a disconnect between how the executive team thinks about remote / location-flexible work and the lived experiences of many of Apple’s employees.”
- They also expressed how they feel about work-life balance. “Many of us feel we 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. This is a decision many would prefer not to have to make.”
- Apple employees also talked about their challenges in a work-from-office setting. “For many of us at Apple, we have succeeded not despite working from home, but in large part because of being able to work outside the office. The last year has felt like we have truly been able to do the best work of our lives for the first time, unconstrained by the challenges that daily commutes to offices and in-person co-located offices themselves inevitably impose; all while still being able to take better care of ourselves and the people around us.”
The Management at Apple Thinks Differently
Apple has been a believer of face-to-face interactions and collaborations when it comes to business. Co-founder Steve Jobs was of the thought that well-designed office spaces are responsible for some of the most fruitful interactions between employees. The conversations are more casual and can help bring novel solutions to the table.
Apple hasn’t entirely dismissed remote work. In fact, the employees will be given the option of working entirely remotely for up to two weeks a year subject to approval of this arrangement by their respective managers.
About 80 Apple employees wrote and edited the letter to Tim Cook. According to The Verge, the discussion started in a Slack channel that has about 2,800 members who support remote work.
Subscribe to Think Remote for the latest news, tips and stories from the remote work world.