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It’s a good question - and my guess would be that the executives (rightly) think Apple has been extremely successful at executing their product roadmaps over th
by atty 5y ago
It’s a good question - and my guess would be that the executives (rightly) think Apple has been extremely successful at executing their product roadmaps over the last 15 years or so, based on a company culture where one of the core tenants was a lot of face-to-face collaboration, and they don’t want to disrupt that machine more than Covid already has.
But I’ve been working for awhile now for a faaaar older and much larger company than Apple (in terms of employee count and revenue), that not only handled the abrupt work-from-home change last year well, but by many metrics, is actually outperforming pre-pandemic metrics in many areas. And our supply chains and manufacturing processes are significantly more complicated than Apple’s. So I’d argue that if a dinosaur of a company can manage to suddenly create a ton of remote jobs and make it work, the only reason I can think of for Apple to not make it work is that they didn’t seriously try.
- borski 5y agoYour last sentence jumps to a conclusion without a logical path to getting there. Apple likely did analysis and has reasons. Perhaps they were less effective during the pandemic due to remote. Perhaps they did surveys and a majority of the company (silent nonetheless) wants back into the offices; remember, so many folks who have kids, SOs at home, or just not enough space for an office - these folks miss offices like crazy. There are a lot of possible reasons this choice was made. Being ignorant of the business’ needs is likely not among them.
- atty 5y agoI completely agree and respect the fact that there are many people who strongly prefer to be in an office 5 days a week. And I don’t think Apple should close their offices - far from it. Offering remote positions does not preclude in-person positions at all. And yes, for Apple even more than most companies, we have very little idea of what happened inside the company. But if they are so inflexible that the last year ended up being a complete disaster internally, I’d think that would be a huge signal that something about the company culture is in need of a serious change anyways, wouldn’t you agree? Any company that wants to survive more than the next 20 years has to have some flexibility built into it at the foundations.
- borski 5y agoAnd they are being flexible :) 2 days of remote work per week is way more than the 0 that used to exist. I think people need to remember this is going to take time to slide into, and that WFH being a default option (because many people won't change from the default, due to inertia) isn't actually great either. This is going to take time. You can force that for yourself, by quitting, but forcing it on every company is a battle you aren't going to win. That is going to take time and concerted effort to show that WFH isn't a detriment long-term. This is especially true since the pandemic has left a lot of managers and employees basically hating WFH, because this is what they think it means. I say this, incidentally, while having direct reports of both kinds; some who loved WFH, and some who can't wait to get back into the office. They are all incredible, and I'd like to keep them. :) Our company is luckily being flexible, and allowing folks to pick, but the default is 3 days in the office. Anything else has to be manager-approved, but shouldn't be difficult (1-2 days, vs 5 days; the latter gets you a perma-desk, the former is hoteling). And management is terrified of this arrangement; it's going to take time.
- atty 5y agoThat’s interesting. At my job I’m low enough on the totem pole that I don’t get time with executives more than like once a quarter. But from what I can tell, both the executive team and my direct supervisors, are very supportive, and in many cases excited, of offering more remote and hybrid jobs. I think the executive team sees it as a way to both make the company more flexible in general, and to make the company more attractive to potential candidates.
- aerosmile 5y ago> they didn’t seriously try It would be interesting to hear from someone who works at Apple how far they went in trying to make it happen. My guess is that Apple doesn't do anything half-assed, and if there was a way to save hundreds of millions of dollars, they would have done it. I welcome your call for non-anecdotal evidence - here's one: the vast majority of companies are returning to the office. I don't think it would be fair to call all the executives of all those companies irresponsible and negligent. Again, the cheaper thing to do would have been not to come back to the office, so the negative impact of WFH must have been substantial.
- atty 5y agoI’d argue that any data collected during the last year (including the data I presented about my current employer, of course) is not actually a very valid measurement. I fully suspect all companies (including my employer) that try to support fully remote jobs to re-assess in another 2-3 years time, when life does not have the massive confounding factor of a global pandemic. And perhaps we will find that fully remote employees or teams significantly over- or under-perform individuals who go into the office. So while we don’t really have good data on if remote work is good or bad right now (we certainly know it’s not terrible - most tech businesses thrived last year), companies that decide to not start supporting it at least partially are taking a very real loss (reduced talent pool), for a perceived benefit that may or may not actually be there, that we just can’t measure yet.