Apple thinks that its new $5 billion campus which is also the new headquarters for the firm is awesome but some employees are not pleased about the open plan design.
Various publications about the new Cupertino campus revealed that the company considered everything as far as design was concerned. Some have described it as a spaceship design and there was a lot of hype about it including the fact that building the facility cost the company $5 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported a month ago that the new campus has open plan floors. This means employees including engineers will be working on tables rather than in offices or cubicles and some of them are not pleased about it.
“I heard that when floor plans were announced, that there was some meeting with Apple Vice President Johny Srouji’s team,” stated John Gruber, well known Apple Blogger and Podcaster.
Gruber further pointed out that the vice president of the firm happens to be in charge of Apple’s custom silicon, including the A10 and A11 silicon. The Blogger further added that Srouji seemed very displeased when he was shown the floor plans for the new campus. So much so that a few curse words ensued. Judging by the reaction, Srouji was not pleased about the open plan nature adopted in the new facility and he stated that his team would not work in such.
Apple insisted on having open offices during its presentation of the facility to the city of Cupertino. The idea was that the open floor plans would promote collaboration among the employees. However, it seems that some of the high-level executives in the company will have their own offices on the fourth floor of the building.
Some of the company’s employees feel that the open plan nature of the offices does not foster privacy. It also seems rather unfair that Apple executives should have their own offices yet the rest of the workers are reduced to just having desks or workstations in one open space. Apple has not addressed the issue and it is not yet clear whether there will be any action towards introducing partitioned offices.
