Apple's Top Executive Quits Company Over Return To Office Policy: Report

As Covid took the world in its grip, companies asked their employees to work from home. But in recent weeks, closed offices have begun to reopen as a result of fewer COVID-19 cases in various parts of the world.

Tech giant Apple too issued an order, asking its employees to work three days a week from office. But many employees seem to be unhappy with Apple's return to office policy.

Ian Goodfellow, the director of machine learning, resigned last week, informing colleagues that CEO Tim Cook's push to get employees back into the office had pushed him out, according to a tweet by The Verge reporter.

"I believe strongly that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team," he said, according to the report.

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As per his LinkedIn page, Mr Goodfellow was working with Apple since 2019. His profile further said he is "an industry leader in machine learning".

According to Fortune, between April 13 and April 19 this year, 652 Apple workers participated to an anonymous social network survey conducted by Blind. Although the interviewees' names are unknown, their employment status was confirmed using their Apple corporate email addresses.

Seventy-six per cent of Apple employees surveyed were unhappy with the company's return-to-work policy, which was implemented after the COVID-19 outbreak subsided, Fortune further said in the report.

Apple started its hybrid work plan from April 11 this year asking corporate employees to come to the office once a week. From May 23 onwards, workers will be required to come into the office three days a week.

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Despite the reported unrest among employees, Apple CEO Tim Cook is insisting his staff to return to work.

According to Bloomberg, Mr Cook added in a memo, "In the next weeks and months, we have a chance to combine the best of what we have learned about working remotely with the irreplaceable benefits of in-person collaboration."

"It is as important as ever that we support each other through this transition, through the challenges we face as a team and around the world," he further said in the memo.