At a time when most global tech companies have either decided to allow all their employees to work from home (WFH) for another year, or are contemplating a permanent WFH arrangement, tech giant Apple is planning to get a few of its employees back to work in some of its global offices.
However, the employees being asked to return may only have to be physically present in the office for limited time periods.
A few employees of the Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino, California, have been asked to come back to work in phases, over a few months.
In the first phase, focus will be on employees who are unable to perform their jobs from home or are encountering challenges in working from home. This will likely include employees who work on the Company’s hardware products. Some staff who are part of this phase have apparently already started working at Apple’s offices again.
More employees will return to Apple’s offices in the second phase of the plan that’s scheduled to start in July.
In the month of April, Tim Cook, CEO, Apple, had told employees that social-distancing norms and temperature checks will be implemented in the Company whenever employees are asked to return.
However, with no disclosures made yet regarding preventive measures for the returning employees at this point, this has become a matter of concern for the staff now.
The California-based company also plans to open some of its retail stores, all of which had been closed on March 14. It is reported that some stores in Idaho, South Carolina, Alabama, and Alaska will be opened sometime this week, and employees will have to submit to temperature checks and wear masks.
