While some Apple employees aren't happy with hybrid work plans, those on the retail front line are probably delighted

Megacorp Apple will reportedly allow its blue-T-shirted retail elves to work from home in a similar manner to its office workers. According to Bloomberg, Apple is to trial a new hybrid WFH plan just for retail staff. Instead of making them walk the floors, flogging iGadgets directly to aggravated mall-goers, it seems Apple …

[elsergiovolador]

Lead by example

Can't Apple lead by example and start using their supreme technology to help workers do their job from anywhere?

What I mean by that, is surely the retail workers could work through FaceTime? Just place a tablet on the counter and let the employee interact with customers that way.

When last time I was in Apple store, the whole thing could have been done remotely. I talked to sales rep, got seated, spent 30 minutes waiting for them to come back, when they came back they said what I want is not in stock so I left.

I mean I get that some people are on the fence and would like a salesperson to gentle push them into purchase, so if something goes wrong they have someone to blame.

Imagine alternative scenario where Apple stores don't exist. Your parcel comes in. You unbox the laptop and it automatically FaceTime to a salesperson. Same experience but in the comfort of everyone's home.

[Headley_Grange]

Re: Lead by example

Imagine the alternative scenario where no shops exist at all - just warehouses with staff on crap contracts and zero hours delivery drivers. Your parcel of [food, clothes, laptop, medicine, lunch, .....] arrives and it automatically Facetimes a salesperson located in the country with this year's cheapest labour costs. Same experience, but from the comfort of you own HMO shit-hole that you're about to be evicted from because all the decent jobs have been offshored and your zero hours job delivered exactly zero hours this month so you can't afford the rent.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Lead by example

I think problem of low pay is orthogonal to the vision of shopless society.

Perhaps things like minimum wage should be based on given company revenue. Maybe a hybrid pay structure could be envisioned where there a base minimum wage and then a bonus based on revenue.

What is currently going on is a theft from the workers on an unprecedented scale. You cannot explain the fact that big companies boast about their billions and workers cannot afford anything.

Governments must address it, otherwise we are going to get another communist revolution, which is not going to be pretty.

[Snorlax]

Re: Lead by example

"What is currently going on is a theft from the workers on an unprecedented scale. You cannot explain the fact that big companies boast about their billions and workers cannot afford anything."

Currently? This has been the employer-employee relationship since forever - extracting the maximum amount of labour for the minimum amount of expenditure

[Headley_Grange]

Re: Lead by example

It's not just low pay, which is why I wrote "labour costs". It's also the fact that the workers don't get holiday pay, sick pay, p/maternity leave, weekends off, fire doors, employment rights, etc. The main savings in offshoring work isn't the salary, it's the fact that the employer has no overhead costs related to worker rights and safety.

Western governments will never address it because the main cause of it is that we, the consumer, choose the cheapest product with the fastest delivery and we don't give a toss if it's made by a 13 year-old girl who should be in education instead of working 70 hours a week in a dangerous sweat-shop for a few dollars. Even if the UK government were able to put massive import duty on goods made by workers who don't have the same workplace standards and protections that UK workers get (or, at least, used to get before zero hours and contracting out) then UK consumers (voters) would be angry because they couldn't buy cheap clothes in Primark and throw them away after a couple of wears.

BTW - I infer from your post that you think that the vision of a shopless society is a good thing. I think it's a very, very bad thing.

[DJV]

You unbox the laptop and it automatically FaceTime to a salesperson

I think Wally had a solution to that! https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-12-03

[Pascal Monett]

2 weeks a year ?

I believe it has been proven that Apple (among many others) has survived perfectly well with 99% of its staff working from home for around an entire year.

Now you pretend that 2 weeks is the acceptable maximum ?

Are you crazy ?

Stupid question. From a company with its own concealed-weapon-carrying police force that allows itself to raid its employees' homes, of course you are.

Still, 2 weeks is not going to cut the mustard.

You need to think different (don't know where I heard that).

[Adrian 4]

Re: 2 weeks a year ?

'two weeks a year working remotely'

.. is that the 2 weeks previously known as 'holiday' ?