Maybe allow teams, but I don't think allowing individuals to choose isn't good.
Having a team that's half remote/half in-person is worse of both worlds. What typically ends up happening IME is that the in-person half typically gets way way way more visibility than those working remote. It's especially worse if the company isn't remote first at all. It's especially terrible if the team is remotely distributed as well. I left my last company because my org had a time preference for their offices in Hyderabad, which isn't bad but they kept forcing mandatory meetings at 7 or 8 am. All the US workers hated it. The idea of core hours didn't exists, you basically had to adapt to Hyderabad time or you suffered.
I have no issue with remote teams or in-person teams, but having both in the same team is the worse.
The Apple policy under discussion is a top-down edict from the executives that no future remote roles are allowed, period. This is more draconian than the pre-pandemic “exceptions allowed with VP approval” policy. Your experience isn’t germane to this situation.
> Your experience isn’t germane to this situation.
I've been seeing more and more of this rude dismissal of other comments. They're discussing the general topic at hand by offering their experience. Your snarky reply degrades the conversation significantly more than them broadening the conversation.
My team is 1/2 in person and 1/2 remote and it works fine. We don't have the "way way more visibility" problem. I think this is at least partly because my director is remote, and at least one link in the chain of VPs above him is remote as well.
Have you worked in this environment? I have and I agree with the previous comment. You get the low friction interaction of being there in person but then all the people who aren't there get left out. Or you have to do everything on video anyway so there's no point in some people being in person. My bet is in person companies win in the end.
Even if it's true that in-person developers are more productive, you also have to account for the preference of developers. If developers prefer to work remotely, then the average in-person developer is probably likely to be worse than the average remote developer (since skilled developers will have an easier time to find the more attractive remote positions).
And as we all know, the difference between a skilled developer and a bad one is quite massive.
