Employees at Apple’s global offices have been told to work remotely in a bid to ensure their safety from coronavirus.
In an internal memo sent to employees, company CEO Tim Cook called the current environment challenging and cited the virus outbreak as an unprecedented event.
Last week the company asked its employees in California and Seattle to work remotely, however, the decision has been extended to corporate offices specifically those based in California, Seattle, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, and the UK, for the week of March 9 to 13.
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Employee safety
Since the teams at the company's retail stores cannot work remotely, Apple is looking for ways to reduce "human density and ensure those teams that are on-site can do their work safely and with peace of mind”.
It is being reported that the company is looking for ways to reduce the human occupancy at the Genius Bar in stores as well.
Apple has also asked its employees suffering from high fever or cough to stay away from work and only return when they’ve fully recovered. It urged employees to wash hands often, not to touch their face and follow quarantine procedures in case they’ve traveled to areas with infection. The company has also asked employees to opt for virtual meetings over travelling.
Earlier this year, Apple had to temporarily close all of its 42 stores in China though most of these are operational now. The company, however, has still restricted all employees from travelling to countries like China, South Korea, and Italy.
As per the memo, Tim Cook has promised that all the employees will continue to get their regular salaries even while working from home.
Apart from Apple, other tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet have announced similar policies asking employees to work from home and have restricted travel.
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Via: Bloomberg
