Forcing people who would prefer to work from home is mostly to the benefit of those that thrive in a social environment. Extraverts that have benefited from the status quo will largely want to return to it, regardless of any particular employee’s inclinations to stay working from home.
I don’t think “leaving it up to the employee” is necessarily the best option, either. You’re creating problems potentially in either circumstance.
For a corporation as large as Apple it seems foolish to make a policy like this company-wide when it’s pretty clear that individual teams should probably make this decision as a group.
Also to collect the information regarding how the lack of remote work factors in to hiring/churn to then further allow those teams to make decisions
Yes some people need the office to socialize, but I personally have probably a few too many hobbies and probably an oversized Dunbar number. I really don't need office culture "perks" playtime.
I strongly feel that hobbies and community are the answer, not onsite white collar office work, lol.
As long as majority of employers demand in-office presence, we don't really have a choice with this power dynamic cos we have bills to pay...
That's not what's happening though. Apple was requiring all employees to be back three days a week. There's a reason people are getting vocal about this stuff. A lot of people hate working in the office and don't need to and this is a one time opportunity for them. It took a worldwide pandemic to finally show a lot of bosses that "it's not possible to do this job remotely" is largely bullshit. If people relent and go back against their will, it could be difficult to make the shift again.
If wfh is better and companies like Apple aren’t adapting they’ll see it in their stock price because they aren’t as efficient as their competitors, more people will quit and we’ll see new startups doing similar things named after other fruit.
3x2 means they can test both hypothesis and will know which is better after the pandemic. So that’s a big improvement over the company when I was there. Where only those who proved themselves got to wfh (I did at times and I have friends who have been able to for years)
The bulk of the engineers are in unremarkable office parks around the valley.
On whatever day of the week one cares to look, Apple’s market value crosses 2 trillion dollars. As of January this year, Apple has nearly 200 billion cash on hand. [0] I won’t even bother to cite how long it takes Apple to earn 5 billion in profit, but I’m guessing much less than the 15 months since lockdown began in Mar 2020.
In other words, 5 billion sunk cost is probably not the reason Apple brass continues to be conservative about WFH with respect to their corporate peers.
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/27/apple-q1-cash-hoard-heres-ho...
