Monday is the day Apple requires its corporate employees to start working in the office some of the time. The pandemic era when most of them could work from home all the time is over.
But everyone doesn’t have to be back in the office five days a week starting today. This is the beginning of a transition period, after which many workers will still be able to work from home a couple days of every week.
Apple is at it again, trying to retain top employees in a competitive marketplace by giving them big money. This time the Cupertino tech giant has handed out a round of special stock bonuses to a group of hardware and software engineers. The amounts range from $100,000 to $200,000.
Apple is dropping the requirement for most of its corporate employees to wear masks, but there are still limitations. And the company has begun allowing some of its retail employees to take off their face mask at Apple Stores.
The policy change takes place as the surge of COVID-19 cases caused by the omicron variant is essentially over.
Workers at some Apple Stores are reportedly planning to unionize. Employees are two stores are close to filing paperwork with the National Labor Relations Board and more are moving in that direction.
They say their goal is a larger share of Apple’s huge profits.
Apple retail store employees are getting more time off. Both sick days and vacation days. This is part of improving the benefits for those who works in the Mac-maker’s brick-and-mortar locations.
The changes come as lots of employers find themselves competing for quality applicants in a tight job market.
Competition for highly skilled engineers and programmers is fierce in Silicon Valley, and Apple’s answer is big bonuses for employees it really wants to hold on to. It reportedly rewarded some workers with up to $180,000 in company stock.
These were apparently unscheduled and not part of usual compensation packages.
Apple corporate employees must start working part-time in the office beginning on February 1, according to a company email that quickly leaked out.
But the Mac-maker has been forced to move back the date when employees to return to the office several times. It could happen again.
In the latest step in Apple’s COVID-19 campaign, the company is requesting that all U.S. employees report their vaccination status. But so far, Cupertino has not mandated that employees get shots.
Apple is reportedly going to test a program that will have its Apple Store retail employees work from home some of the time. And no, that won‘t involve customers shopping in employees’ living rooms.
Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s retail boss, sent a video to retail employees this weekend asking them to sign up to help customers remotely. She also said they should expect store closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to continue “for some period of time.”
Separately, Apple told employees that it doesn’t expect to have everyone back in its corporate headquarters before the end of 2020.
