Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want

It's funny how these big companies try so hard to make their office space as "cool" as possible and think employees enjoy them but the moment they are given the choice to work remotely almost nobody wants to go back to office, at least not on a daily basis..

It&#x27;s going to be a problem hard to resolved. It can be seen as a perk for a company to offer the possibility of remote work like bonuses or free coffee. The thing is, some people actually hate telework and would rather impose everyone to be present because this is how they feel the most efficient or because it is just how they like to work.<p>So contrary to the traditional employer&#x2F;employees balance of power, there is also a employees&#x2F;employees thing going on here.<p>Considering those who can telework full time without any limitations (say software engineer for example) what is the ratio of those who want to telework fulltime, part-time or not at all. It&#x27;s hard to trust polls on this because they are usually driven by employers who have an agenda anyway.

I feel like the horse has left the barn. So many people at my firm have permanently moved to Montana, Houston, Arizona. No decrease in productivity. It&#x27;s going to be really hard for management to entice them back to the office, if ever.<p>Also noticing all the recruiters who contact me these days lead with remote or % wfh.

ITT: lots of people without kids, who appear to have a very very different relationship to in-office than anyone in my own circles, who do have kids.<p>No one I know with kids wants to give up flexible WFH. Not one.<p>No mystery why. Every minute commuting is a minute away from your already extremely limited family time. Every day without flexibility is a PITA wrt any of the myriad quiet duties parents have to move their kids around all day, which have now returned with their own vengeance because of the pandemic suppression of carpooling and public transit as viable options for many, particularly those with kids under 12, none of whom are yet fully protected, and won&#x27;t be for weeks.

Apple has a new wfh policy, the spaceship HQ in cupertino has been renamed &quot;home&quot;. All employees are free to work from &quot;home&quot; anytime they want and as long as they want. &#x2F;s

What would they do with a $5 billion empty building?<p>Things have shifted now, and employers need to realise that they need to offer remote to bag the best engineers.<p>I certainly never want a long commute again.

Back-to-the-office movement continues to be spurred by those whose employment depends on productivity theatre, and those who are dissatisfied with their home life and use the office as an escape. Very sad we can&#x27;t compromise with an agreement where the productive remote folks can show up to the office when absolutely needed, without some arbitrary x days &#x2F; week requirement. Hopefully this continues the brain drain out of companies that can&#x27;t get with it due to their large RE holdings &amp; extensive use of PMs.

Started remote a few months before the pandemic. Also started out my career in tech working remotely. In my current situation, I don&#x27;t imagine ever returning and feel grateful for the opportunity to wrest back more control over my life and circumstances that would usually have been dictated to suit my employer. For me, remote work gives me _far_ more time, energy etc to invest in myself and family which is why I work in the first place. Not only that, but the chance to work for an employer in a remote capacity greatly diminishes the urge I have felt to go the consultancy route etc.<p>There are a lot of habits and work processes instilled in us from having to report to hq every day but for a lot of people we are already emerging on the other side of replacing those arcane processes with modern internet native approaches. This will force a lot of change on people in terms of how we socialize and it is a major change, with major upside imo.

Apple is a company that values loyalty in its employees. This is just a good way for them to weed out some of the disloyal.<p>At the end of the day, there are so many people who want to work for Apple that I don&#x27;t think it will be a big problem for them.

Unless you have a very desirable and unique skill set I think it&#x27;s naive to think you&#x27;re going to eventually win, they didn&#x27;t build that gigantic HQ for it to remain empty and the waste of money that is your empty desk in the donut will be pinned on you not sitting at it not them for building it.<p>Not saying I agree with it, but I think this is one area of Apples culture that is going to go against the tide.

Long term, I&#x27;d expect non-remote companies to outperform remote-only companies. On-site work leads to more chance encounters, more creativity, in addition to tighter feedback loops.<p>I&#x27;m the founder of a remote-only startup (from before covid, 8+ years), and every once in a few months, we get together for a couple weeks to do some collaborative work, and the teams productivity is an order of magnitude higher, even though we don&#x27;t overwork. Initially I attributed this to the different state of mind that we bring in those two weeks, but eventually I realized in a well functioning team, excitement just rubs of each other.<p>We&#x27;ll continue being remote as a lifestyle choice, but I firmly believe that if we were together in the same room, and spent even half the time at work, we&#x27;d be more productive.<p>Additionally I believe remote is better suited for senior devs, with 10+ years of experience and generally have their lives together. I sincerely believe that juniors, especially those just out of college will hurt their trajectory, as they&#x27;ll loose the ability to observe and learn the behavior of seniors and adopt mentors. Also some of my closest friends today are those I&#x27;ve met at work in my first job, and have been thorough the &quot;trenches&quot; together with.<p>Ymmv.

I&#x27;d be fine with such policy. I don&#x27;t want to ever work remote again. I used to think working from home would be more productive, but found it to be the exact opposite, between an endless supply of distractions, lack of face-to-face communication, overall drudgery of being stuck in your home all day, and having to think about meals (which is a surprisingly annoying change if you&#x27;re used to just getting whatever&#x27;s in the nearest cafeteria).

In 10 years we&#x27;ll look back on these kind of discussions and laugh. The idea that human productivity is a corollary to office &#x27;presence&#x27; is now absurd. Industrial centralization was arguably economically and socially necessary for 200+ years (especially when the alternative was serfdom) but this isn&#x27;t the 18th century anymore.<p>Large cities made successful by centralization have become logistically hellish and expensive. It&#x27;s become largely illogical to live in one.<p>Hybrid is a fudge and will be as burdensome for employees as it will be inefficient for their employers. Those that have hybrid forced on them will have to get used to endless scheduling admin &quot;...is Ted in today? Has anyone seen Ted?&quot;. And in a split &#x27;2 days out&#x27; v &#x27;3 days in model&#x27; it&#x27;s be hugely wasteful to have offices empty 4 days per week per person.<p>Companies insisting on in-person or hybrid have a dependency on their local job market. Two potentially terminal pressures with this: their local market will atrophy as the most marketable people choose to work remote roles. And they&#x27;ll be disadvantaged against remote-only competitors recruiting the best and most cost effective talent around the world.

I have no doubt that if most people lived next door to the office they wouldn&#x27;t mind going into the office and might even prefer it. The sad reality for Apple and any company in the Bay Area: house prices near work are insane and commute times to the &#x27;burbs are crazy long. Also, BART has gotten much less safe over the last few years, so some people feel they must drive.<p>All of Apple&#x27;s justifications mean nothing in the face of the above.

Here’s something I don’t understand:<p>Companies across the board the board seem to think they have every right to decide how to structure their employees lives. And almost universally they make a big show about listening to their employees and then afterwards show they don’t care one whit by demonstrating through their actions they either didn’t listen or don’t care. Then they rub salt in the wound with their carefully crafted corporate-speak press releases.<p>For any industry based on knowledge work, this behavior is just about as unprofessional as one can be; it’s insulting to their workforce and breeds malcontent.<p>On the other hand you have workplaces where honesty is both valued and respected on each side of the employer&#x2F;employee divide. I suspect we hear little about such companies, and they keep on running.<p>When might the big dishonest companies realize the dishonesty is at the core of not just the WFH problem, but nearly all of the problems they face? Is it even possible?

Remote work has added more than an hour to my usable, personal time each weekday because I&#x27;m no longer commuting. That&#x27;s ten days over a year. Plus all the time saved in miscellaneous commute-related activities. That&#x27;s a hard perk to give up. Tempus fugit. Memento mori.

Google, Amazon, and lots of other companies are in the same stance as Apple.<p>Deep down, I think the issue goes past working flexibility down to a multi-billion dollar financial question of what do these companies do with their real estate assets?<p>They&#x27;ve already built or bought gigantic office buildings and campuses across the US, so what do they do with them? Turn them into warehouses? Just let them sit at &lt;50% capacity?<p>Idk what the answer is, but I&#x27;m sure lots of CFOs are probably busy with this, since it seems like it would be &quot;paddling against the current&quot; to counteract remote preferences.

I work for a tech company in the midwest with about 5000 employees at the particular office I am at and we are currently in a state where you can either work from home or go to the office. I&#x27;d wager about ~10% of people go to the office and that includes people that have jobs that absolutely require the tools or equipment at the office.<p>I should mention that the original plan was also this 2-3 days a week at the office, but has been put on hold indefinitely until something changes.

“What employees want” isn’t really relevant. I’m sure employees also want 10x the salary. What matters is 1) can they use their brand, their balance sheet, their luxury office, or other parameters to maintain the workforce of the size and skills required to conduct their business, or 2) is in-person so much more effective than remote that they can compete in the market with fewer or less-skilled on-site workers because those workers’ output is so much better when on-site.

WFH vs No WFH vs Hybrid WFH has become the new emacs vs vi vs vscode (order not important), but I wonder if it will all go away when projects like <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Q13CishCKXY&amp;t=110s" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Q13CishCKXY&amp;t=110s</a> become as available as a web browser

Gross. Just let people work where they want already!