UPDATED 16:03 EDT / JUNE 10 2020

POLICY

Report: Some Apple employees will start returning to its Cupertino HQ next week

Apple Inc. will open its global headquarters in Cupertino, California, to a limited number of employees on June 15, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg late Tuesday.

Apple’s headquarters is a massive 2.8-million-square-feet circular facility where about 12,000 staffers normally do their work. Apple in March asked employees to telecommute because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The reported plan to reopen the campus to select employees is part of a multiphase roadmap. The majority of workers aren’t expected to return to the headquarters, officially known as Apple Park, for several months.

Apple’s internal memo is said to have specified that employees who will receive access next week will be required to wear face masks at all times. There will be other restrictions as well, including mandatory temperature checks and a limit on the number of days per week employees can be in Apple Park. The iPhone maker will reportedly also cap how many employees can gather in a given area.

The safety policies outlined in the memo are said to apply to Apple’s nearby Infinite Loop campus too, which served as its headquarters until 2017.

The second phase of the reopening is scheduled to start next month, according to Bloomberg. But Apple told employees that the plan may change depending on local and state stay-at-home orders.

Employees began returning to some of Apple’s global offices in May. The company has reopened more than half of its 510 retail stores worldwide as of earlier this month and some personnel, including a few engineers and executives, are reportedly already back at work at Apple Park.

Other tech firms including Facebook Inc. and Google LLC have announced plans to reopen some offices next month on a limited basis. Still others, most notably Twitter Inc., are taking steps to make telecommuting a bigger part of their operations. The social network recently told staffers that they will have the option to work from home permanently.

Apple’s transition to remote work earlier this year is said to have involved some challenges because of the company’s well-known secrecy about its product development initiatives. The company has, among other things, a policy of preventing unreleased products from being taken off campus. That’s apparently one of the reasons some engineers returned to Apple Park ahead of the first phase of the reopening plan scheduled for next week.

Photo: Unsplash

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