We want you back

This week Apple announced that everyone must come back to the office, for real this time. As first reported by Bloomberg, Santa Clara workers will need to work from the Cupertino spaceship three days a week, starting Sept. 5. They’re required to be there Tuesdays, Thursdays and an additional third day of their team's choosing. Then they can choose to work remotely for the rest of the week.

Apple has historically been a canary in the coal mine in terms of big industry culture shifts, but it’s also been more dedicated to RTO than most other tech companies. Protocol asked tech leaders to weigh in on Apple’s decision.

Apple is right. “Apple has the power to move the entire industry with this announcement,” Larry Gadea told Protocol. Gadea, the founder and CEO of workplace platform Envoy, has some real skin in the game when it comes to workers getting back to a physical location, but he also genuinely believes face-to-face collaboration is essential. “With the economy the way it is and layoffs happening, people need to rally together to solve their company's problems. Culture is, and always will be, how companies identify — and being together in person, even two or three days a week, is important for culture, creativity and the business.”

Apple is wrong. "Apple's revised return-to-office guidelines are both disappointing and surprising,” says Annie Dean, Atlassian’s head of Team Anywhere. “For a company that helped invent mobile, they're fighting remote work like they're still just a desktop company.” Dean told Protocol that companies like Apple should be encouraging more flexibility. “Apple is missing an opportunity to identify the challenges remote workers will face because they're not living this reality themselves. They should be asking employees to embrace remote working to help fix the 'bugs' of remote, like working outside, on the go or with limited Wi-Fi — to make the best product possible for their customers.”

Never force it. Darren Murph, head of remote for GitLab, has a few things to say about mandatory back-to-the-office requirements. “It limits the agency of team members to redesign their lives, which manifests as low engagement at work,” Murph told Protocol. “This form of hybrid work invites inequity and fails to acknowledge new workplace experience expectations.”

Meet in the middle. “In-office Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 makes less and less sense for many people and many businesses. Employees see that, and so now employers [do too],” says Dan Pupius, CEO and founder of remote work software platform Range. “This policy change from Apple is a step towards meeting employees in the middle, and I expect will lead to further flexibility down the road.”

Pick the days when people come in. Productivity software ClickUp also designates certain days where employees are asked to come into the office. “For those employees, being together can enhance in-person connection, a significant value that can't be quantified,” says Alex Small, ClickUp’s VP of strategic finance. “No one wants to commute to an empty office, so identifying specific days to interact with co-workers as well as complete strategic work that benefits from in-person connection is key to fostering a strong culture."

Don’t measure productivity through butts in seats. “If employers want to retain and attract top talent, they need to offer a variety of truly flexible work models to meet team members where they are in their professional and personal lives,” Zoë Harte, chief people officer at Upwork, told Protocol. Harte says performance shouldn’t be judged by how often a worker comes to the office. “It’s time we raise our game as business leaders and get better at measuring productivity and at rewarding the behaviors and people that are truly adding value.”

Time will tell. Jason Fried is co-founder and CEO of 37signals, maker of Basecamp, software designed for remote work. Fried told Protocol that he’s obviously all in on remote work and has been for decades. But that doesn’t mean that Apple is making a mistake. “Given Apple's extraordinary history and success, it's hard to argue that they don't know what's best for them, their staff and the way they work,” said Fried. “Time will tell as things shake out, people shuffle around, new realities settle in and enough time creates the space and separation to look back and see how decisions played out."