Apple employees won’t now return to the office until next year.
As Bloomberg reports, a memo sent to staff this week tipped a January start date—four months later than Apple originally planned. The company will provide a month’s notice before folks are required to re-enter campus.
CEO Tim Cook in June proposed an early-September end to Apple’s work from home policy, intending for personnel to return to campus three days a week—Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays—with the option of remote work on Wednesdays and Fridays. The company’s hybrid approach, however, was not enough for some staff members, who campaigned for a pair of amendments allowing people to work from home full-time for one year and with “no promise to be extended.”
Thanks to the global pandemic, many firms have discovered the perks of at-home employment and are already building it into their operations. Apple, for instance, is now offering up to two weeks of remote work per year—”to be closer to family and loved ones, find a change of scenery, manage unexpected travel, or a different reason all your own,” a June memo said.
Apple does not currently require vaccinations or testing, though it has reportedly begun asking some employees to take at-home COVID-19 tests twice a week in response to the rise of the most contagious COVID-19 Delta variant. Facebook and Amazon have also delayed employees’ return to the office until January 2022 at the earliest; meanwhile, Google, Netflix, and Facebook are requiring all workers to be fully vaccinated before coming back to campus—where face coverings are compulsory, regardless of vaccination status.
