Top Apple executive quits over return-to-office mandate

A senior director at Apple has quit over the company's return-to-office policy.

A top executive at Apple has quit the company in protest of its return-to-office policy. Ian Goodfellow, the director of machine learning at Apple, resigned last week after the company ordered all corporate employees to work from office three days a week, the New York Post reported.

On April 11, Apple ordered employees to return to office for one day a week, rescinding the work from home policy that the coronavirus pandemic had necessitated. By May 23, staff had to be in office at least three days a week, Apple said.

Dissatisfied with the return-to-office mandate, Ian Goodfellow announced his resignation last week. “I believe strongly that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team,” Goodfellow said, according to The Verge.

He is believed to be the most senior employee at Apple who has quit over its return-to-office policy. Goodfellow’s resignation comes at a time when there is a wave of dissatisfaction over companies calling their employees back to office. Recently, a group of Apple employees also published an anonymous letter to executives, criticising the company’s hybrid work policy as inflexible.