Working from Home Amid COVID-19 a No-No for Apple Staff Due to FBI-Like Secrecy

Apple employees are complaining that working from home is difficult, if not impossible, due to the FBI-like secrecy that the Cupertino-based tech giant has put in place to protect its new products.

Apple is known as a company that always increases its efforts to prevent leaks and the disclosure of information regarding projects that are still in the works, so providing employees with remote access to critical systems is a challenging thing to do during these difficult times.

The firm told staff to work from home due to the coronavirus outbreak, but according to The Wall Street Journal, many find this thing pretty difficult due to Apple’s restrictions.

No other option than going to the office

So in turn, many engineers continue to work at Apple’s headquarters, despite Apple itself insisting that everyone should stay at home if possible.

“In all of our offices, we are moving to flexible work arrangements worldwide outside of Greater China. That means team members should work remotely if their job allows, and those whose work requires them to be on site should follow guidance to maximize interpersonal space. Extensive, deep cleaning will continue at all sites. In all our offices, we are rolling out new health screenings and temperature checks,” Apple said recently.

“All of our hourly workers will continue to receive pay in alignment with business as usual operations. We have expanded our leave policies to accommodate personal or family health circumstances created by COVID-19 — including recovering from an illness, caring for a sick loved one, mandatory quarantining, or childcare challenges due to school closures.”

Apple is one of the companies hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak. In addition to moving WWDC to an online-only event, the Cupertino-based firm has also reportedly delayed the debut of the iPhone 9, which was originally projected to go live as soon as this month.