Apple executive hands in notice amid return to office policy
An Apple executive has handed in his notice after the firm demanded that employees return to the office at least three days a week.
Apple’s director of machine learning Ian Goodfellow told staff he would be leaving the tech giant after workers were informed by their bosses that they needed to regularly work in the Silicon Valley headquarters.
According to reports from the tech website The Verge, Goodfellow said: “I believe strongly that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team.”
The policy in question is the requirement that staff must come into the office Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 23 May, with the remaining working hours from home.
Whilst this sounds pretty typical for workplaces across the UK, the policy stands in contrast to the likes of Google and Meta, who have given employees complete flexibility with where they can work.
The rationale behind the move is Apple chief Tim Cook’s preference for in-person working.
“For all that we’ve been able to achieve while many of us have been separated, the truth is that there has been something essential missing from this past year: each other,” he said in a note to staff in 2021.
“Video conference calling has narrowed the distance between us, to be sure, but there are things it simply cannot replicate.”
However, it’s not just Goodfellow that is turning his back on the Big Tech firm.
A survey by Blind of Apple, a small social network, showed that more than half Apple employees interviewed were actively looking for another job, outside the company.
The reason most staff wanted to leave is specifically linked to the requirement to return to the office, Yahoo Finance reported.
Some staff that were surveyed by Blind of Apple indicated a fear of getting Covid is holding them back, while others pointed out a toxic company culture, and a lack of a decent work-life balance.
Another one wrote in a post on the Blind site that Apple’s senior managers are simply “tone deaf, as usual.”