Apple, which reportedly lost its director of machine learning over its return-to-office policy, is delaying plans due to an increase in Covid-19 cases.
Apple is delaying its plan to have all corporate employees return to the office for three days a week due to an increase in Covid-19 cases.
The company’s CEO, Tim Cook, said in March that workers would begin a phased return to the physical workplace starting on 11 April. This involved staff coming in to the office at least one day per week from 11 April and at least two days per week by late April and early May.
But Apple is now indefinitely delaying the final step of the plan, which would have required all employees in the office on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays by 23 May.
In a company memo seen by Bloomberg, Apple did not set a date for this policy delay to end, saying it was for “the time being”.
Workers will still be required to be in the office two days a week.
Apple cited a rise in Covid cases as the reason for the delay and is also reintroducing mask policies for when workers are in the office. It will require staff to wear face masks in all common areas.
The tech giant has faced criticism from some of its employees over its inflexibility around remote working, with some claiming that returning to the office would impinge on their productivity.
Earlier this month, Apple’s director of machine learning, Ian Goodfellow, reportedly resigned due to the company’s return-to-office policy. The Verge tech reporter Zoë Schiffer said on Twitter that Goodfellow had left a note to staff saying: “I believe strongly that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team.”
Now, Bloomberg reports that Goodfellow is joining DeepMind, Alphabet’s AI research unit.
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