3 days a week .. This is how Apple plans to return its employees to the offices

Apple has told employees that they are expected to return to their offices three days a week starting Sept. 5, according to internal emails seen by The Verge.

The news was first reported by Bloomberg.

All employees are expected to attend Tuesday and Thursday of each week, in addition to a third day, which is determined based on individual teams, and employees have the option to work remotely twice a week.

Tim Cook, CEO, and Craig Federey, senior vice president of software engineering, sent memos to employees, the text of which was published by The Verge.

Tim Cook's message

“Our Hybrid Work Program delay has been a great opportunity to meet and reconnect with our teams and meet new colleagues in person,” said Apple CEO Cook. “This has been a transformation for so many of us because we have managed to change case rates in many parts of the world, so thank you for your teamwork and professionalism. As we continue to move forward."

“When we announced the pilot a year ago, we said it would be a learning experience for all of us. We committed ourselves to adapting along the way to create a resilient environment that enables our teams to thrive. Based on the feedback and insights we received from you and your manager, we are making the following adjustment:

Teams participating in the pilot program will come to the office 3 days each week with Tuesdays and Thursdays as designated days across the company, but now the third day you come in will be decided by your team.

Each team will work on deciding what day is right for them, and you'll hear from your leaders soon.

As before, many employees will have the option to work remotely for two days a week.

Depending on your role, you will also have the option to work remotely for up to 4 weeks per year.

Apple CEO Tim Cook (Reuters)

Note from Craig Federer

In response to Tim's letter, Craig Federey, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, began his letter by thanking the staff and appreciating their efforts and commitment.

In his message, he stressed the date of returning to the offices and the beginning of the hybrid work system, and he said, "After years of forgetfulness (and some false beginnings), the coming fifth of September represents the real start of launching our hybrid work system in the Santa Clary Valley, and I personally cannot wait to try it out. Having all of us in the office together again."

Federry explained the new way of working, and said, "It includes working 3 days in the office, and everyone comes to the office on Tuesday and Thursday, in addition to an additional day in the office of each team's choice, with priority for this day to cooperate with your direct colleagues at work."

Over the next week, Federei asked employees to send in their suggestions for a suitable third day to work with their teams in the office.

He stressed that this next phase is a beta phase, and that the company will learn a lot in the coming months about the system that is best for everyone.

falter start

It is noteworthy that this is not the first time that Apple has announced a request to return to the office, as in June 2021, it said that it plans to return for 3 days a week in September of that year, but it only retracted due to the high cases of Corona, Some employees were later told to report to the offices one or two days a week.

The company's faltering return reflects the difficulty it and other major companies in Silicon Valley faced with the decision to return to work from offices after the end of the Corona pandemic, as companies faced pressure from many employees to maintain the remote work system, or risk losing important talent.

After Apple last year announced a plan to return to the office, Ian Goodfellow, the company's director of machine learning, left for Alphabet, where he said in a farewell email that he was against the policy.

Since then, Google's parent company has started requiring most of the company's employees to go to the office 3 days a week.

Mark Zuckerberg told his team at parent company Meta that he encourages remote work.

Among those who have encouraged the decision are Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, who will move to London, and Nick Clegg, Meta's head of global affairs, who will split his time between the UK and California.

Amazon told its employees in October that personal work policies would be set at the team leader's level, saying it would not set any mandatory daily requirements.

However, it stipulated that employees must be able to work in their offices for at least one day.