Throughout 2012 Tim Cook has continued to put his stamp on Apple and its culture. One move that we haven’t heard much until now is his decision earlier this year to allow certain employees to spend 20% of their work time pursuing new projects that may help Apple.
20% time has become a prominent employee incentive at other companies throughout Silicon Valley as it has been popularized by Google who got the idea from 3M. The incentive allows employees to spend 20% of their time on side projects, but it hasn’t been adopted by Apple until now.
Apple’s version of 20% time is much more limited than Google’s program. Apple is calling the program “Blue Sky,” and it allows employees to take two weeks to work on projects outside their normal responsibilities.
While Google’s 20% time program has been extended to all employees, Blue Sky is limited to just a small group of employees at Apple and was just started earlier this year. Whether Apple will implement Blue Sky throughout the rest of Apple remains to be seen, but the hope has been that it will keep Apple’s employees at the company longer.
Source: Business Insider