Apple Offers Employees Paid Time-Off For COVID-19 Vaccine Appointments

The battle against the novel coronavirus is far from over, but at least with the COVID-19 vaccines, now we have the right firepower to take it down once and for all. And people in several nations around the world, including India, have started to get vaccinated.

Reuters

The Cupertino giant didn¡¯t want any of its employees left out and to encourage them to go get vaccinated, it is offering paid time off for vaccination appointments as well as paid sick leave for those experiencing side effects.

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This was reported first by Bloomberg. Apple recently also clarified to its staff that it doesn't have access to the vaccines and is also not offering shots to its staff. This was revealed by the staff who remain to be anonymous.

With the onset of the pandemic last year, Apple was one of the first companies to announce work from home for its employees while also offering paid leaves to employees who had COVID-19 as well as those who experienced COVID-19-like-symptoms.

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At Apple, several of its corporate staff are continuing to work from home, however, its staff working in brick and mortar retail stores were asked to come as they were opened during the unlock phases of the lockdown.

This comes right after the state of California announced eligibility for vaccination of people over the age of 16 years starting April 15. This will soon be expanding to other states of the nation.

Apple is planning to call more of its staff to its corporate office sometime in June, which was revealed by CEO Tim Cook in a company town-hall meeting that was conducted during the end of 2020.

Reuters

As reported by Bloomberg, Cook said in a statement at the town hall meeting how he would prefer having staff to return to work, ¡°There's no replacement for face-to-face collaboration, but we have also learned a great deal about how we can get our work done outside of the office without sacrificing productivity or results.¡±

He added, ¡°When we're on the other side of this pandemic, we will preserve everything that is great about Apple while incorporating the best of our transformations this year.¡±