Apple 'cracking down' on non-work Slack channels over staff remote work debate [u]
An internal Slack channel discussing Apple's remote working plans is under threat as the company is to enforce its rule limiting channels to specific project work.
Apple Park
Apple staff have already written two letters asking for more flexible remote working options -- and Apple has postponed return to work until October.
However, internally, arguments are continuing among staff in a Slack channel. According to Zoe Schiffer of The Verge, staff are objecting to how the most recent letter proposed pay cuts for remote workers.
Schiffer says that the staff who wrote the second letter have pointed out that Apple "already adjusts pay for fully remote workers outside the Bay Area."
"Apple has made it clear that the earliest it'll ask employees to return to the office is October," she continues. "Still, internally, people feel like the company isn't listening to their demands."
The debate is reportedly taking place in an internal Slack channel with around 6,000 Apple staff. However, Schiffer says that this channel is now under threat.
"Apple also recently began cracking down on Slack channels that aren't directly related to work," she says. "The company bans channels 'for activities and hobbies' that aren't directly related to projects or part of official employee groups -- but this wasn't always enforced, employees say."
UPDATE July 29, 2021: 09:50 AM Easter: Sources with knowledge of the matter have contacted AppleInsider to say that is not correct that Apple is cracking down on the Slack channels. They claim that the channels concerned are still up and in use.
Read on AppleInsider
Apple Park
Apple staff have already written two letters asking for more flexible remote working options -- and Apple has postponed return to work until October.
However, internally, arguments are continuing among staff in a Slack channel. According to Zoe Schiffer of The Verge, staff are objecting to how the most recent letter proposed pay cuts for remote workers.
The last letter Apple employees wrote advocating for remote work sparked a bit of controversy internally. It included a proposal for location-based pay cuts for fully remote employees. Some felt like this could unfairly disadvantage women and people of color.
-- Zoe Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer)
Schiffer says that the staff who wrote the second letter have pointed out that Apple "already adjusts pay for fully remote workers outside the Bay Area."
"Apple has made it clear that the earliest it'll ask employees to return to the office is October," she continues. "Still, internally, people feel like the company isn't listening to their demands."
The debate is reportedly taking place in an internal Slack channel with around 6,000 Apple staff. However, Schiffer says that this channel is now under threat.
"Apple also recently began cracking down on Slack channels that aren't directly related to work," she says. "The company bans channels 'for activities and hobbies' that aren't directly related to projects or part of official employee groups -- but this wasn't always enforced, employees say."
UPDATE July 29, 2021: 09:50 AM Easter: Sources with knowledge of the matter have contacted AppleInsider to say that is not correct that Apple is cracking down on the Slack channels. They claim that the channels concerned are still up and in use.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Not many people or companies respond well to demands. Especially out-of-contract ones.
Might be the beginning of the SV exodus.
Like I’ve said before, there is a lot of momentum, tradition, and long standing norms that are being challenged by the pandemic response. One of the existing norms in private business is that (non top level) employees do not generally share information about individual salary and compensation. At some level this creates a constant tension, implicit competitiveness, and fuzzy notion of where one really stands in the overall pecking order, at least at an individual level. From a management perspective the situation is actually quite different and secretive, the classic “force ranking” that is used to sort the wheat from the chaff and often used to decide who gets the first promotion and who gets the first pink slip.
We all accept the norms around secretive salary/compensation information in private industry but it’s not a universal system. At least in the military and in most civil service organizations, everyone at the same rank and years of service get the same base salary. Of course there are other allowances added to individual pay to compensate for individual circumstances, some fair and some not so much, but at least these extra allowances are out in the open, published, calculable, and not arbitrary.
I sometimes wonder if at least some of the existing norms in terms of salaries and compensation in private industry are in need of change? If companies published, at least internally, the base rate for each position along with the allowances for individual situations such as working remotely in Podunk, PA would the situation be any better or worse? From an employer like Apple’s perspective this calculus is already being employed, but only they, the managers who deal with these things, actually know what the numbers are and how the formula is applied. I’m not sure society as a whole is ready for a truly “open compensation information” model. It could lead to free agency and sniping of employees between companies, and of course a gradual move towards socialism.
The current fuzzy, noisy, secretive, oftentimes arbitrary, and clear delegation-of-power model that is currently in place isn’t perfect but it has worked for a very long time. If the current activism within Apple gains momentum and everyone digs in their heels, what comes out the other side may be hugely disruptive to how private industry works for the foreseeable future. That’s a problem for the next generation to solve.
Companies could more easily diversify and spread hubs throughout the country. Reduce the amount spent in SV, bring up other communities all while saving money.
I suggested the more lazy workers get paid less. It’s just common sense. No one is entitled to Covid conditions post-Covid and these Slackers weren’t protesting when they were in the office. Why does everyone else have to go to work while some of the richest employees in the world cry about having to go back?
All Apple IT needs to do is move everyone to MS Teams and, well, problem solved.
their project as if it was their own company. They are not sitting around trying to figure out how to work from home.
it makes me so genuinely happy to see Apple try to squash this debate because they’re blindly following doctrine. Oh the irony 😏
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My head.