As COVID-19 outbreaks and hospitalizations continue to ravage the world, Apple has announced that employees will not have to return to the office until January. This is the third time that Apple has delayed its return to in-person work environments during the pandemic. First, the company announced that employees would return for three-day in-office work plans in September. Then, the company pushed its plan back until October. Now, it will revisit the idea in January.
Apple’s decision comes less than two weeks after 20 of its employees either tested positive for or were exposed to COVID-19 at a retail location in South Carolina. Other locations have also been forced to curl back retail hours due to COVID-19 outbreaks.
Apple is not the only tech giant to face issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lyft, Amazon and Facebook have also decided to delay returning to the office until January 2022. Not to mention, LinkedIn moved to a permanent remote work environment earlier this month.
“Today we’re building on what we’ve learned as we’ve experienced the ‘Great Reshuffle’ and taking a simple but powerful approach to how we work: We trust each other to do our best work where it works best for us and our teams. We’ve learned every individual and every team works differently, so we’re moving away from a one-size-fits-all policy,” LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky stated.
Apple has not come to the same conclusion that LinkedIn, but it will be forced to reconsider its decision yet again if COVID-19 continues to shape work environments in January.
