What you need to know
- An informal internal poll of Apple employees suggests some worry that people will leave over the new hybrid work model.
- Apple's model will require people work from an office three days per week.
An informal internal poll of Apple employees suggests that some of them are worried their colleagues will leave the company over its new hybrid work model. This comes as there appears to be growing unrest within the rank and file that they won't be allowed to work from home more than two days per week.
Employees reportedly ran a poll in a Slack channel, asking team members how they felt about the plan to return to office work. According to The Verge, people were overwhelmingly in favor of being able to work from home whenever they want to.
In the survey, which was sent out in early June, nearly 90 percent of respondents said they "strongly agree" with the statement "location-flexible working options are a very important issue to me." A total of 1,749 people answered the question. Employees defined "location-flexible" as the option to work from home indefinitely.
Apple's new hybrid model will allow people to work from home two days per week and up to two weeks per year, but employees are now worried that the lack of flexibility could be enough for their colleagues to move on — something that has to be a concern for Apple in a market where good engineers are highly sought after.
In response to the statement "I am worried that some of my colleagues will have to leave Apple due to LACK of location-flexible work options," 58.5 percent said they "strongly agree." A total of 1,743 people answered the question. A smaller portion — 36.7 percent — said they are worried they'll have to resign due to the lack of flexibility.
Apple of course has the stunning Apple Park for its team members to return to, but with people having worked remotely since early 2020 it's understandable that many might want to continue to do so.
It's also important to remember that Apple employs around 147,000 people and the number of respondents here was minuscule in comparison. We don't know for sure that the answers provided in this limited poll reflect the opinion of the greater Apple workforce. Apple is also testing a hybrid model for those who work in retail stores, too. Retail employees can't work from home full-time for obvious reasons.
This all threatens to overshadow the launch of iPhone 13 this September, of course. Anyone who can't wait until then should check out the best iPhone deals we could find online as well.
