[IT] Apple employees demand more flexibility from company as three-day office return looms

Some Apple employees are pushing back on the tech giant's return to office pilot program, which will soon require most of its corporate workers to be in the office at least three days per week.

The employees, organizing under a newly-formed group known as Apple Together that advocates for workers' well-being and rights, are petitioning leadership for more flexibility.

They're also calling out a disconnect between the company's external marketing to customers that its products allow people to

"work from anywhere"

and its internal messaging to staffers. "How can we understand what problems of remote work need solving in our products, if we don't live it?" reads an open letter addressed to company leadership and published Friday on Apple Together's website.

"We are not asking for everyone to be forced to work from home," the letter continues.

"We are asking to decide for ourselves, together with our teams and direct manager, what kind of work arrangement works best for each one of us, be that in an office, work from home, or a hybrid approach."

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter and did not respond to an earlier request for comment on its return-to-work plans.

Apple's hybrid return pilot initially drew backlash in June 2021 after it was outlined to staffers, but Apple, like most companies, pushed back the rollout as a result of new Covid-19 variants in the fall and winter.

Following the delays, Apple began its phased approach to getting workers back into the office, beginning with once a week at the beginning of April before upping to twice a week more recently. The company outlined its most recent timeline for employees in an email, the text of which was published by The Verge.

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Friday's letter, which calls the pilot a "step back in flexibility for many of our teams," comes in anticipation of the last phase of Apple's pilot, which is slated to go into effect at the end of May, where workers will be expected in the office on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

authorship : https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/29/tech/apple-together-return-to-office-pushback/index.html