Apple also shared new information about its plans to return to the office.
Apple Inc. is adjusting its operations as the Covid-19 business continues to climb in the United States and other parts of the world.
The tech giant in Cupertino, California, is pushing retail workers to work remotely because the virus is forcing the company to close some of its stores again, according to a video message sent to employees. He also ships Covid-19 test kits to employees’ homes and told staff in a memo that a full return to US offices will not take place before the end of the year.
In a video shared with Apple retail workers over the weekend, Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s senior vice president of retail and people, pressed store workers who have closed again to start working from home to serve customers who buy or are looking for support for products online. or by phone.
“If your store is closed, please sign up for Retail at Home, please speak to your manager, as we really need to be sure to move our teams to accommodate our customers remotely at this time,” O’Brien told staff. of the video. “We may have to work remotely for a while.”
The Apple official said that with the increase in the number of customers looking to buy or service products online during the pandemic, some consumers are experiencing “significant wait times”.
“This is not the experience we want to have for our customers,” added O’Brien. “So we really want to make sure that we move to where our customers are, to help them during this very difficult time. As you know, people really depend on their devices, especially right now.”
In March, Apple launched a program to allow retailers to switch to online roles when most Apple stores were closed worldwide.
In the video, O’Brien also told staff that, starting at the end of the month, they would get name tags to use in stores that they could personalize with their own Memoiji, Apple’s system for users themselves create virtual avatars on the iPhone. This will help retail staff to be more recognizable when wearing a face mask, she said.
Of Apple’s 271 retail locations in the U.S., more than 90 have had to close again due to the spikes in Covid-19. The company also closed some stores in the UK and Australia again. For locations that remain open, the company requires masks for customers and employees as well as temperature controls at the entrance. “The way we handled the protocols has been really effective,” said O’Brien in the recent video.
The company has also launched a program that allows employees in retail and remote businesses to take Covid-19 tests at home. The tests will be shipped to employees, and then the kit can be sent to a test site for processing. Last month, Apple began letting company employees return to their offices to take Covid-19 nasal swab tests on site.
The company also shared new information about its plans to return to the office. In a memo to staff last month, the company said: “We are not currently expecting a full return before the end of the year” for the Americas offices, but this “predicts that the full recovery will take held over the next few months based on local conditions “for” many “offices in the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe.
Apple recently spent several billion dollars on a new Silicon Valley campus and has hardware development processes that depend on working from the office.
The company brings staff back to its headquarters in stages, the first phase having started in mid-June. This phase was intended for employees who cannot do their work effectively at home, such as those working on future hardware products. In its recent note to employees, the company wrote that “we will begin to welcome again team members who prefer to work from the office or those who have projects that require them to be in the office, while continuing to significantly limit total occupancy. “
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
