Apple Employees Launch Petition To Fight Apple's Return-To-Office Plans
Apple employees on Monday launched a petition to resist the company’s return-to-office plans, which would see workers in the office at least three days a week beginning in September.
The group, uniting under the banner “Apple Together,” asserts that employees have demonstrated an ability to do “exceptional work” over the last 2+ years, regardless of their office environment.
As such, the employees are asking Apple to allow individuals to work directly with their immediate managers to determine their team’s optimal work arrangement.
Those schedules, they write, shouldn’t require the approval of high-level executives or force employees to provide private information.
“Those asking for more flexible arrangements have many compelling reasons and circumstances: from disabilities (visible or not); family care; safety, health, and environmental concerns; financial considerations; to just plain being happier and more productive,” the petition reads.
“The one thing we all have in common is wanting to do the best work of our lives for a company whose official stance is to do what’s right rather than what’s easy.”
In June, Apple CEO Tim Cook told employees in a companywide email they’d be expected to resume in-person work on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, with the option of up to two remote weeks per year.
The company softened that plan, however, amid pushback, proposing workers come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with one additional in-person day scheduled on the team level.
Apple lags behind its tech peers in accommodating remote workers, arguably to its detriment.
In May, Ian Goodfellow, an Apple executive overseeing the company’s machine learning program, left for Google, telling staff in a note that his team needed more remote work flexibility.
While Google has a slightly less restrictive hybrid work policy than Apple, others, like Twitter and Facebook, have embraced working from home as the office of the future for those who prefer it.
A survey of more than 160 major employers by the Partnership for New York City in May found that just 8% of Manhattan office workers were in the office full-time. The survey found 78% of employers planned to adopt a hybrid office model post-pandemic, up from just 6% before COVID-19.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
