Apple Employees Work From Home
Apple employees may have to keep on performing their office tasks at home until June 2021 (Photo: Standsome Worklifestyle/Unsplash(BY CC 2.0))

Cook announces that most Apple office staff and employees may not return to their offices at least until June of 2021.

Apple has announced its post-coronavirus-vaccine plan as regards its office staff and employees. In a virtual town hall meeting with dozens of Apple employees Thursday, Tim Cook, Apple's Chief Executive Officer, said that there is a strong likelihood that most of the office staff and employees may have to wait until June 2021 to return to their offices. This is to ensure the threat of coronavirus infection is gone or drastically minimized by that time.

Apple's CEO said the achievements of the company this year even amid the difficulties posed by the pandemic opened the possibility of more employees working in the confines of their homes in the future. He also stated that there is a strong chance that Apple staff and employees may have to wait a bit more, perhaps until June 2021 to work again within the confines of their offices.

However, even with the sustained productivity of employees as they work at home, Cook has always expressed his desire for Apple's staff to return to their offices eventually. "There's no replacement for face-to-face collaboration, but we have also learned a great deal about how we can get our work done outside of the office without sacrificing productivity or results. All of these learnings are important. When we're on the other side of this pandemic, we will preserve everything great about Apple while incorporating the best of our transformations this year," Cook told the employees during the town hall meeting. He added because of the prevailing risk of coronavirus infection, Apple staff and employees might have to wait until June 2021 to return to their offices.

Cook also gave Apple employees some good news. He said that despite some difficulties encountered by the company, many employees in different regions could expect an additional paid holiday, which is set for Jan 4, 2021. Some tech companies like Google also offered similar incentives recently. Apple's CEO also highlighted the company's employee donation program, stating that this year is the strongest ever. According to Cook, Apple donated more than $591 million to charities, and concerning that effort, hundreds of Apple employees volunteered over 1.6 million hours. Many of these staff and employees might have to wait until June 2021 to return to their offices, Cook added. The Apple CEO also revealed that Apple is handing out a $5 million donation to groups and organizations that are helping those greatly affected by the COVID-19.

Several other company executives spoke during the town hall meeting where Cook revealed the strong likelihood that Apple staff and employees might have to wait until June 2021 to return to their offices. These include the chiefs of marketing, retail, hardware engineering, operations, and machine learning, software development, environment, services, and legal.