Apple will soon allow employees to return to physical offices if they are facing challenges remote working after Bloomberg revealed the company’s plans to gradually reintroduce normal practices later this month.
The report, published on Wednesday, said that the return-to-work roadmap would be broken down into two distinct phases.
The first phase will see staff members return to Apple’s offices globally if they cannot work from home or face problems when trying to do so.
The second phase will not be enacted until later in the summer, possibly July, when more workers will be able to venture to physical locations pending real-world developments in the quest to stop the spread of coronavirus or a second peak.
Bloomberg said that senior managers at Apple are now beginning to inform employees if they are “eligible” to return to offices as part of the first phase or won’t need to report in for some time yet.
Those remote working will continue to work as they have done since Apple shuttered its stores and offices following the lockdowns that came into place in mid-March.
The report added: “During the first phase, employees will either be asked to work from the office regularly or only for certain periods depending on their role, the company has told staff.”
The current advice is “fluid” and could change at any time during the next few weeks and months as the lockdown is eased.
While the vast majority of Apple employees have been working from home, select workers have still been venturing to corporate offices.
They include staff working in data centres and running business-critical operations.
The report also revealed that the first wave of returning employees will focus their efforts on hardware development.
Projects related to future tech such as AR and VR headsets have been dialled back for the time being.