Photo: Arne Müseler/arne-mueseler.com/CC-by-SA-3.0
It was on March 10th, 2020. We had been waiting on the announcement for some time, and were already a bit upset it hadn’t come earlier. Many of us commuted by a crowded train, and with COVID-19 cases quickly rising in the city, this was becoming increasingly dangerous. Our CEO took a car in from up state. Many of the executives could afford to either do that or live near the office. They didn’t know the daily fear of standing four inches from a stranger’s face, wondering if you’re going to get this new debilitating illness from them, for an hour every day.
Finally, around noon, an emergency all-hands was called. We were told to pack up what we could, and go home for the day. The office would be closed for two weeks, and we’d all be working from home. My coworkers said, “At least it’ll only be two weeks.” I raised an eyebrow and said something along the lines of, “Have you met Americans? It’ll be 6 months, if we’re lucky.”
Little did I know that I was being the optimistic one.
COVID cases are beginning to rise in the U.S. again, driven by subvariants of the Omicron variant. Despite this, many areas have lifted masking mandates, vaccination requirements, and companies are forcing employees back to the office. Apple is one such company. They’re now finding out there are consequences to asking employees to sacrifice their health and time to come into the office. Their director of machine learning just quit.
A Director Quits
Ian Goodfellow was Director of Machine Learning at Apple. He worked at the company for three years. However, Apple’s new in-office work policy drove him to leave. According to Zoe Schiffer of The Verge, Goodfellow stated, “I believe strongly that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team.”
Prior to Apple, Goodfellow was at Google, as a senior staff research scientist. He made a name for himself from his work with a technology known as Generative Adversarial Networks, which is a form of machine learning that puts two neural networks against each other to improve the accuracy of the results they produce. Now, Apple’s losing a director, a position that’s hard to fill, and an employee with substantial experience and accomplishments in the field of machine learning.
Goodfellow isn’t the only one considering leaving over in-office work policies. Apple’s policy dictates three days of in-office work for employees. Many employees can’t afford to live near Apple’s campus, and have a long commute to the office. On top of that, COVID cases are still spreading, thousands are still dying every week, and cases have begun to rise again. According to a small survey of Apple employees, 56% are currently looking to leave the company over the policy. In a more general study, 15% of hybrid and in-office respondents in the tech industry are looking to move to a remote position. Only 7% stated they want to return an in-office job. A third of employees stated that they already switched jobs to work remote during the pandemic. That group may do so again.
Workers don’t want to be in the office every day, but executives seem to make the decision anyway. It could be due to their shorter, easier commutes, their more interpersonal and meeting-focused work, and their total disassociation with their employees and their concerns.
In-Office Work: More Dangerous Than it’s Worth?
Screenshot via Johns Hopkins University Corovirus Resource Center. Up to date data available here.
AI and machine learning are incredibly important at Apple. They’ve now lost a resource for that work. On top of that, according to internal and external surveys, they stand to lose far more employees to their in-office policy. Employees are simply happier working from home. Is it worth it to lose employees? Studies say absolutely not.
Time and time again through the pandemic, studies have shown that working from home does not decrease productivity and may actually increase productivity. Still, executives like to see people in seats. They spent large portions of budgets on office space, and now it goes unused. For executives with a short commute, better healthcare, and jobs that necessitate more collaboration, it’s easy to become bitter and disassociated with the concerns of employees without those privileges. Besides, it’s not as easy to micromanage employees you can’t see all day. It’s harder for managers to trust that these employees are getting their work done. These are personal issues, not personnel issues. Remote workers have pulled their weight through two years of the pandemic, despite the occasional challenges and isolation of working at your office.
Employees don’t want to return to the office for a variety of reasons. Commutes are long and, with gas prices rising in areas that, due to lousy infrastructure, require driving, that’s more expensive. Commutes also often involve packed public transit, which can be a disease vector in best of times, let alone during a deadly pandemic. People want to have an extra hour to sleep in, especially in the tech sector, as, anecdotally, I’ve found tech employees are more likely to be “night owls.” They don’t want to spend $15 per day or more on lunches, or $5 per day on commutes, adding up to hundreds of dollars of additional expenses while, once again, the cost of living has already skyrocketed. They don’t want to give up the ability to do chores, get packages, easily go to the doctor, or any of the other things that become easier when you’re working from home. Returning to the office will cost employees hours of their day, forcing them to go from spending 8-9 hours of their day working to dedicating 10-12 hours of their day with work.
And on top of all of that, the United States still has a poor vaccination rate, is pulling mask mandates, and turning offices into super spreader locations. People don’t want COVID. But as offices are opening up, many are finding their employees end up being out for a week or more due to COVID. That can affect other offices as well, as the disease spreads or caretakers need time off to care for their sick loved ones. Far too often during this pandemic, that also includes bereavement time. Employees are getting less work done because it’s not safe to return yet.
So, for companies, they have to ask themselves. What’s the better investment? Retaining and hiring employees and looking out for their health and well-being, or some office space?
Sources and Further Reading:
- Eamon Barrett, Fortune
- Sami Fathi, MacRumors
- Dorian Martain, Texas A&M Today
- Malcolm Owen, AppleInsider, [2]
- Bryan Robinson, Ph.D., Forbes