Apple Executive Addresses Recent Employee Concerns in Internal Video

[I7guy]

Apple is getting it from all sides recently. Apple opens themselves up because they are so political. When you say one thing and do another, like a lot of big companies, people tend to get upset.

I read the comments. Seems like sour grapes. And if apple did what the labor board said, probably for the best. Employees will wind up with a system where nobody really wins except done top, top talent.

 

[Rainshadow]

That’s the corporate message. It’s well proven that companies encourage employees not to share their compensation with others not to prevent tension between employees, but to prevent tension between employees and their employer. It serves the corporate interest to keep employees in the dark about how others are compensated. When people find out they aren’t being paid as much as their co-worker in the same role, they’re much more likely to become resentful toward the employer, the one actually deciding they are worth less. Any resentment to the other employee will be shallow and short-lived. Any corporate training manual for middle-management and above will tell you exactly the same.

It’s just simply inappropriate on a logical level when trying to foster an enjoyable working environment. The few times I’ve let my pay slip, “friends” of mine have started crusades with bosses to make more money and never again treated me the same. Those two examples barely worked while on the job, left early and arrived late. It’s not JUST to protect their bottom line. It’s common sense. The ones complaining of pay secrecy are usually the ones always looking around at everyone else instead of doing their job.

Do your job well and ensure your supervisors know what you feel you’re worth. If they won’t agree over time, let them retrain someone who is comfortable at that wage. Until people start doing that, pay will continue to stagnate.

This generation (and the majority of mine) would rather complain on TWITTER about pay than have what they perceive as a confrontational conversation with another human being in person. It’s not confrontational. Work is a mutual relationship if you have the right attitude and work ethic, they won’t WANT to lose you - if you at least have a reasonable boss ?

 

[Analog Kid]

There is no question that Apple could, and should pay its employees more.

This sounds a lot like an unresearched opinion masquerading as a fact.

 

[Denzo]

I can’t speak for everyone because I have friends in the more creative fields like senior marketing roles who make an absolute packet, or law friends who are on solid money. In contrast though, my banking buddies, educated and grinding long hours for years, make the same as a tradesman, which is now about the same as a teacher. ($110k). Both those jobs have many holidays, short hours and definitely a less strenuous education path.
if I knew back in university that if I chose marketing or teaching I could get just as much, as a mid level banking job, with much shorter hours, I would have saved the heart ache and chosen another field.
Back to the article - corporate companies is like this everywhere. Hush on pay and HR try and dick you on behalf of upper management.

 

[Analog Kid]

Yes, there are pay equity problems in all companies. Race, gender, self promotion, are all contributors.

That said, I've yet to meet anyone who thinks they're paid too much, and very few who look at their colleagues and consider themselves below average.

 

[Average Pro]

Easy solution. Post your salary on your cubicle/door so everyone can see it. I've been doing this since 2000.
I've only had one manager point out that it might upset someone. I responded that I am providing information and I cannot control how someone else reacts (positively or negatively) to it.

 

[Arbuthnott]

In a video broadcasted to staffers days before Labor Day, Apple's retail and people chief Deirdre O'Brien addressed the growing number of Apple employees voicing their opinions about workplace issues like pay inequality.

Let's be clear, in any sort of meritocracy, one person's pay rise or performance bonus is another person's perceived inequality. The key issue here is one of what equality we are aiming at. The West - that part of the world that has moved civilisation forwards in leaps and bounds since escaping from the stranglehold of the Church in the Middle Ages - strives to achieve equality of opportunity. There is a competing meme, favoured by many failed Communist regimes around the world, related to equality of outcome. This latter has failed everywhere it has been tried. Everywhere. It discourages engagement and commitment and individual endeavour, because you get the same outcome if you strive or if you do bugger all. So why not all do bugger all? And so the results are woeful.

Those people seeking equal pay, rather than equal opportunity, should leave and join some institution that is less engaged in creating and encouraging success. If they stay, and if Apple is persuaded to make everyone equal, it's time for Apple to shut its doors

 

[Arbuthnott]

Yes, there are pay equity problems in all companies. Race, gender, self promotion, are all contributors.

That said, I've yet to meet anyone who thinks they're paid too much, and very few who look at their colleagues and consider themselves below average.

In my experience, the biggest cause of pay inequality is to do with performance. The highest performers may earn dramatically more than those for whom work is an activity between two beers

 

[Juan007]

Apple rewards top performers and does a really great job, as evidenced by their years and years of record success. The problem is that low-performers think they are top-performers, a guy who doesn't get any work done thinks he deserves to be paid like an All Star. When you have 50,000+ employees, there are bound to be a few disillusion people who blast their phony grievances all over Twitter.

Apple and Tim Cook have done a great job paying their top employees and rewarding success and contributions. Just go ask 99% of Apple employees. But you can't please 100% of people 100% of the time. Steve Jobs knew this, and that's why he showed so many people the door.

 

[m4mario]

Is this some kind of communist regime for everyone to get the same pay? There are some high talents in the industry that the hiring wing will want to entice with higher salaries.
For example, if you are moving from working in Apple retail, to development and coding, all the while using Apple’s internal training, then you will be paid less than someone who went to university, working at Google, created some industry standard open source libraries and gets hired at Apple. Then comes years of performance reviews and compensation adjustments. To ask that everything be reset and pay me the same as your industry leading best performers is entitled at best.

 

[Arbuthnott]

Apple rewards top performers and does a really great job, as evidenced by their years and years of record success. The problem is that low-performers think they are top-performers, a guy who doesn't get any work done thinks he deserves to be paid like an All Star. When you have 50,000+ employees, there are bound to be a few disillusion people who blast their phony grievances all over Twitter.

Apple and Tim Cook have done a great job paying their top employees and rewarding success and contributions. Just go ask 99% of Apple employees. But you can't please 100% of people 100% of the time. Steve Jobs knew this, and that's why he showed so many people the door.

Typical that the disaffected "squeaky wheels" chose to air their dissatisfaction about not getting more pay on Twitter. Of course they are not going to use the company's internal processes, because those processes favour the existing system of distinguishing between performers and non-performers. Those that can, do. Those that can't, Tweet.

 

[genovelle]

That’s the corporate message. It’s well proven that companies encourage employees not to share their compensation with others not to prevent tension between employees, but to prevent tension between employees and their employer. It serves the corporate interest to keep employees in the dark about how others are compensated. When people find out they aren’t being paid as much as their co-worker in the same role, they’re much more likely to become resentful toward the employer, the one actually deciding they are worth less. Any resentment to the other employee will be shallow and short-lived. Any corporate training manual for middle-management and above will tell you exactly the same.

There are plenty of slackers with poor work ethics or lacking performance or experience that feel they should be paid the same regardless. Even in commission based jobs where the guy or girl who works day and night to be on top there are others who refuse to do the same work but expects the same pay.

 

[genovelle]

BS on the HR lady; how can ongoing effort be required if the goal has been achieved?

Because people are hired every week and reviews and raises happen quarterly. It will always be a moving target.

 

[Arbuthnott]

I can’t speak for everyone because I have friends in the more creative fields like senior marketing roles who make an absolute packet, or law friends who are on solid money. In contrast though, my banking buddies, educated and grinding long hours for years, make the same as a tradesman, which is now about the same as a teacher. ($110k). Both those jobs have many holidays, short hours and definitely a less strenuous education path.
if I knew back in university that if I chose marketing or teaching I could get just as much, as a mid level banking job, with much shorter hours, I would have saved the heart ache and chosen another field.
Back to the article - corporate companies is like this everywhere. Hush on pay and HR try and dick you on behalf of upper management.

Interesting that your comment does not consider the link between pay and performance anywhere. Does this mean that it is a puzzle to you as to why some are paid more than others?

 

[CthuluLemon]

It’s just simply inappropriate on a logical level when trying to foster an enjoyable working environment. The few times I’ve let my pay slip, “friends” of mine have started crusades with bosses to make more money and never again treated me the same. Those two examples barely worked while on the job, left early and arrived late. It’s not JUST to protect their bottom line. It’s common sense. The ones complaining of pay secrecy are usually the ones always looking around at everyone else instead of doing their job.

Do your job well and ensure your supervisors know what you feel you’re worth. If they won’t agree over time, let them retrain someone who is comfortable at that wage. Until people start doing that, pay will continue to stagnate.

This generation (and the majority of mine) would rather complain on TWITTER about pay than have what they perceive as a confrontational conversation with another human being in person. It’s not confrontational. Work is a mutual relationship if you have the right attitude and work ethic, they won’t WANT to lose you - if you at least have a reasonable boss ?

Your mistake was thinking your co-workers were ever your friends. Their is no such thing in an office; not when it comes to people’s livelihood. I presume you used quotes to emphasize you’re wiser now? Your opinions of any generation also do not have any bearing on reality, and aren’t pertinent to the conversation, at least not without a considerable amount of projection and assumptions. It sounds more like grinding an ax than an argument to me.

Have you thought perhaps your co-workers stopped treating you the same because they realized you felt they “barely worked.” Resentment is almost always noticeable and tends to eventually be reciprocated. I’ve managed plenty of people who felt they were the best and acted superior to others on their team They were never better than those they looked down on. ?

I will say, if I take your anecdote at face value, it sounds like your manager wasn’t setting expectations well. Hiring freeze or something? It’s usually restrictions like that that keep lackluster employees around past their shelf life. I don’t understand managers who tolerate substandard work. If you don’t tell people they aren’t living up to expectations, they won’t know they’re lucky to be getting compensated what they are.

 

[Arbuthnott]

If the company is doing great, like a trillion dollar company with huge profits year after year, why not share the wealth with employees on a transparent basis?, for example: a special bonus due to covid situation, stress and hard efforts with a higher amount paid to those working longer at Apple?. Share the wealth created by your employees!!!.

What do you mean by "transparent" - publishing everyone's pay? I suspect that this will not resolve the current problem, because it will be the poor performers who are currently getting paid less. They are still going to be paid less even if their pay becomes public - but with the additional problem that others can infer that they are poor performers, rather than this being a private matter. Personally, I'm all for it, but there is an issue of people's dignity.

 

[Muzzakus]

Interesting that your comment does not consider the link between pay and performance anywhere. Does this mean that it is a puzzle to you as to why some are paid more than others?

It’s easier to claim sexism or racism etc.

The whole gender pay gap is a scam. Men & women get paid equal for the Same work, it is illegal in most countries to do otherwise - yet it exists there.

It is when you apply averages nationwide you only get a resulting gap, because you ignor overtime, long term maternity leave, job preferences!

They are literally trying to eliminate what women want. Placing undue expectation and pressure upon them to be cogs in the system. And yet the activists are too stupid to see it, pawns of capitalism.

 

[Arbuthnott]

I’m conflicted about it. Personally, if you are a woman and you are doing same job that a male engineer does, equal or better, your gender should have nothing to do with whether you should not or should get more salary. You just should. But, what this shows is that leadership in the company might be so far removed from these issues or they just turn a blind eye because they look at the broader picture of working at Apple. Hearing Tim and Deidre moan about coming back to the office I think thats the view they approach this from and the following:

1. You are working for one of the best companies on the planet, anybody would love to have that on their resume.

2. You are an FTE at Apple, not even a contractor or ancillary.

3. Comparing your salary to most Americans making minimum wage, is there really that much of a disparity to complain about regarding a little imbalance - its not like you are working at Macdonalds - this is Apple.

4. Uh, the benefits - you likely have your own office, we probably pick you up in the Bay in one of those shuttles with WiFi providing easy commute to and from work, nice lunches at Cafe Macs, free or affordable gym, health and benefits, vacation time (we all know you engineers love your sabbaticals).

5. Employee discounts on the latest Apple products.

6. You are working in Silicon Valley, hmm, Google, Facebook, Adobe, Tesla, Microsoft, Uber, the many startups littered throughout.

7. Out of all the applicants that likely applied to work here, the rigorous interviews, you didn’t bring up salary, at the time, you seemed grateful to just get the opportunity to work here.

8. Remember, its 100 times harder for an H1B applicant to even get here and do their best work - you probably just drove down from Sacramento or Fresno and here you are!

9. Look at this huge campus we paid 5 billion to build, you have acres of land to securely roam, do your work - are you working in construction where you have to wake up at 6 in the morning? Are you working on a farm like an undocumented immigrant with no rights, health benefits, who wakes up at 3 AM in the morning to pick fruits and vegetables all day? I don’t think so, in contrast, we are even giving you 3 days to work from the comfort of your home in pajamas and all you have to do is press the Touch ID button and launch Xcode then compile a new build before 6 PM, then order something from Door Dash; and worry about what you are gonna watch on Netflix later that evening - we would actually prefer if you subscribe to Apple+ - talk to your manager about getting the Apple Employee discount.

10. Tim to Deidre - Uh, whats the problem here again?

Just to clarify, its not me saying this, this is what I think management is saying. But, if this is what Apple management is indeed saying - they have some strong points here. Sometimes Americans don’t see how good they really have it and its effect of living in a first world country. But you could bring up Labour day which came out of the harshness of child labour and women suffrage, which also afforded women the right to vote and work place protections.

So, maybe these concerns about pay are also part of the evolution too.

If differences in pay are due to gender, ethnicity, or some other non-performance related characteristic, then this needs to change. My impression of Apple is that these sorts of differences are not the reason that some are complaining about differences in pay. The complaints are a function of Apple rewarding performance, and some people feel entitled to be paid the same as the best performers even if they themselves are not actually delivering such performance. Until someone can find any example of success anywhere of equal outcomes regardless of performance being paid the same, then all high-performing companies such as Apple are going to continue to reward people differently. Strength to them!

 

[Arbuthnott]

Pay equity. There are some variables to it. Position A has two people doing it. One is a female minority with three years experience and graduated from college A. The other is a white dude with six years experience from college B. They both start at Apple at the same time. Should they get paid the same?

your posts consistently and persistently avoid talking abut performance. Why is that? Surely your question should have been about what performance these people are delivering, not trying to make a false issue out of gender and ethnicity. Add the dimension of differences in performance to your thinking, and then you will find that all this makes sense. Or at least it does to anyone who relies on performance rather than just paying people to turn up to work

 

[profcutter]

The idea that a CEO can be paid hundreds of times more than the person selling you an iPad in a retail store, not to mention the people actually making the products, is not
natural, or accidental, it’s exploitation pure and simple. The fact that conditions in the factories that produce iPads and iPhones are so miserable that Foxconn had to put up nets to catch suicidal jumpers should give anyone defending this kind of income disparity a reason for pause. Apple is a trillion dollar company, at times the most valuable corporation in earth, when it’s not knocked out of place by Exxon-Mobil, a company that makes its trillions through dumping carbon into the atmosphere. To claim that apple can’t afford to pay living wages and manage pay equity across the folks that work for them is a complete fallacy.

This system is broken. That’s not a millennial concern, it’s as plain as the nose on your face. To ridicule workers who have the courage and the gumption to stand up for their own rights, and to point out the ways in which women and BIPOC folks are treated differently, and to heap doubt and derision on their claims just shows how much folks have bought into a system built entirely on inequality.

 

[Arbuthnott]

Should be easy to achieve pay equality. Divide current total pay paid to everyone by number of employees and pay everyone that amount. Include Tim in that calculation too. Why does he get paid so much, unfair. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need - should fit Apples philosophy.

Do you have an example of any successful organisation that works in the manner that you suggest? Any whatsoever? All the examples I can think of, which were all in Communist countries, crashed and burned and disappeared without trace.

 

[Arbuthnott]

The idea that a CEO can be paid hundreds of times more than the person selling you an iPad in a retail store, not to mention the people actually making the products, is not
natural, or accidental, it’s exploitation pure and simple. The fact that conditions in the factories that produce iPads and iPhones are so miserable that Foxconn had to put up nets to catch suicidal jumpers should give anyone defending this kind of income disparity a reason for pause. Apple is a trillion dollar company, at times the most valuable corporation in earth, when it’s not knocked out of place by Exxon-Mobil, a company that makes its trillions through dumping carbon into the atmosphere. To claim that apple can’t afford to pay living wages and manage pay equity across the folks that work for them is a complete fallacy.

This system is broken. That’s not a millennial concern, it’s as plain as the nose on your face. To ridicule workers who have the courage and the gumption to stand up for their own rights, and to point out the ways in which women and BIPOC folks are treated differently, and to heap doubt and derision on their claims just shows how much folks have bought into a system built entirely on inequality.

Interesting that you think that the fossil fuel companies dump carbon into the atmosphere. Last time I looked it was people like you and me who do that, and those companies simply make the products that we are looking for. The availability of cheap copious energy supplies is what has given us health services; longer, healthier, happier lives; greater opportunities for personal development, travel, and leisure time; less starvation, early death, disease, and suffering. Of course, you can choose to stop using all of the benefits of these fossil fuels, and you can refuse to work for any company that pays according to performance. Indeed, please go ahead and do so. But do it for yourself and please don't take any decisions on my behalf. I like the way that things work, and long experience tells me that what you are suggesting has no chance whatsoever of working.

 

[Juan007]

The idea that a CEO can be paid hundreds of times more than the person selling you an iPad in a retail store, not to mention the people actually making the products, is not
natural, or accidental, it’s exploitation pure and simple. The fact that conditions in the factories that produce iPads and iPhones are so miserable that Foxconn had to put up nets to catch suicidal jumpers should give anyone defending this kind of income disparity a reason for pause. Apple is a trillion dollar company, at times the most valuable corporation in earth, when it’s not knocked out of place by Exxon-Mobil, a company that makes its trillions through dumping carbon into the atmosphere. To claim that apple can’t afford to pay living wages and manage pay equity across the folks that work for them is a complete fallacy.

This system is broken. That’s not a millennial concern, it’s as plain as the nose on your face. To ridicule workers who have the courage and the gumption to stand up for their own rights, and to point out the ways in which women and BIPOC folks are treated differently, and to heap doubt and derision on their claims just shows how much folks have bought into a system built entirely on inequality.

Steve Jobs created the iPhone, you did not. You have no right to take away the wealth Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, and Apple Employees created. If you think the system is broken and want to opt out then you go right ahead. You make your own phone, pay all your workers millions of dollars, I'm sure you will be successful. Meanwhile I and 300 million of my countrymen want to continue with the current system, so please leave us alone, thanks. Communism not welcome here.

 

[emulator]

Right, when you get paid/recognized less, it's always for your race, ethnicity or sex and never for your work qualities.

 

[mannyvel]

Just because you're X doesn't mean you deserve to get paid as much, or more, than Y.

Y might actually do their job instead of whining about unfairness, like X.