Apple is leaving nothing to chance amidst the rising cases of COVID-19. The company has confirmed that its employees may not return to office starting February 1, 2022.
Apple had asked employees to gradually beginning returning to office starting in February next year. However, the iPhone maker has now scrapped the "return to office" date entirely. Apple reportedly sent out a memo this week that confirmed the company won’t enforce the timeline at all.
Apple CEO Tim Cook sent out the memo to all the relevant employees delaying the corporate return-to-office deadline from February 1 2021, to a “date yet to be determined.” Simply put, the company is not even setting a tentative date by which employees should start coming back to office.
“We are delaying the start of our hybrid work pilot to a date yet to be determined. Our offices remain open and many of our colleagues are coming in regularly, including our teams in Greater China and elsewhere.”
The clear absence of a timeline openly confirms companies are struggling to get their operations back to normal. Interestingly, Apple seems to be merely following in Microsoft"s and Google"s footsteps. Microsoft has repeatedly pushed back its "back to office" timeline.
Meanwhile, Amazon has informed its tech and corporate workers that they would be working remotely indefinitely. Amazon employees would have to drop by the office occasionally, whenever necessary, but could work from home for the foreseeable future.
Earlier this week, Apple reinstated mask mandates and crowd control in all the Apple Stores currently operational in the United States.
Source: The Seattle Times