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How Apple Gets At-Home Workers To Work
- w1ntermute 13y agoNotice how the hub cities are all small to mid-size with low costs of living. There are none in California or New York. This probably makes paying the workers only $9-12/hour much more viable than in parts of the country with higher costs of living. Essentially, they've "outsourced" to the less-expensive parts of the US, rather than to India or the Philippines.
- saryant 13y agoJetBlue pioneered this strategy years ago with their reservations line. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-593026.html http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-593026.html
- seanmcdirmid 13y agoIt is a good idea neh? There is plenty of affordable labor to soak up in our own backyard.
- mahyarm 13y agoMy great-uncle said the USA was a rich country with a poor country inside of it.
- __david__ 13y agoI get the impression Apple's at-home workers discussed in this article aren't engineers or otherwise involved with core product development? The weird training and mock customer calls tells me it's customer support, or something similar. In which case the comparison to Yahoo's recent closing of its work at home program doesn't really seem apt (since, as I understand it, Yahoo's was mostly engineers).
- xoail 13y agoExactly. It's like comparing apples to oranges. I can imagine the scrutiny when it comes to support reps working from home. But when it comes to engineers, it's a total different ball game. I hope they change the title to "How Apple manages at home Support Reps"
- vacri 13y agoOne certified Apple trainer told me that managers closely scrutinize every call This will be a myth, otherwise you're paying a manager's rate plus a low-level employee's rate for every call. It's likely what they tell the employees to put the fear of god into them. My money is on Apple recording every call and having the managers listen into the odd one here and there, and if there are specific issues on a past call, the recording is there... just like any other large call centre.
- doorhammer 13y agoIf you really really wanted to you could specially train someone to monitor calls for specific issues and that one person could potentially listen to every call three or four reps make. You'd have them listen to all of the calls at twice the speed and use playback software that cuts out any silence (if you're looking for dead air, that's easy enough to do with most call-analysis software without listening yourself). That's basically just me spitballing the closest thing I could imagine to that, and I doubt they're doing either. I wouldn't be surprised if they do run a whole lot more quality assurance checks on new reps than tenured ones, but that'd be pretty normal.
- cloudwalking 13y agoI know much smaller sales-based companies (aka SEO) who hire someone to do exactly what you describe.
- robryan 13y agoAlso there is much more chance a bad call will get listened to because it is more likely the customer will complain.
- jmcdonald-ut 13y agoI worked at eBay customer service back in the day, and this was exactly how it worked. In fact, they had automated call statistics not surprisingly. If you had calls within the average handle time (AHT), and high satisfaction and resolution scores you were mostly ignored. Managers pick a random call or two from the team, screen it, and move on. If you're struggling they're likely to listen to your calls and give you advice. If you're doing well, they tend to pull a call and analyze it in a group meeting for others to pick up your tricks. The managers at eBay at least (and Apple I suspect) are only concerned about their overall team statistics. Many managers think fear works to improve stats.
- linuxhansl 13y agoMaybe it's just me, but such a training would just push me to quit. I work from home once a week and it is the only day where I get a good amount of coding done, because of fewer interruptions. It takes certain kinds to work from home. I do not think I could work from home every day, it would be too hard to motivate myself; but who knows, I haven't tried.
- mikeash 13y agoThe training is for people who will be taking support phone calls. Apple mostly does not allow engineers to work remotely. Of course, that means that the article has little relevance for us, unless we're going to be hiring phone support people who will work from home....
- 6d0debc071 13y agoThe first few days talking about company culture. Bleh. Kill me now.
- tvtime15 13y agoI'd be interested in seeing data from other large tech employers regarding productivity and ROI (on both the training required and the work that could be/is done at home). Author should've been more clear between engineers and support reps.
- visarga 13y agoBy the way, I see Coursera more like a nursery for future employees than an online university. If they coupled employment with high MOOC competency, maybe that would motivate people. That would solve their problem with monetizing and motivating students to take it seriously.
- wedesoft 13y agoI'm not convinced that people will be more productive like this, but it will certainly make sure they keep moving their mouse cursor.
- the906 13y agoYeah the story definitely isn't core-apple. The people I knew in design and engineering who worked at home while at Apple were not watched at all really...