I get the impression Apple's at-home workers discussed in this article aren't engineers or otherwise involved with core product development? The weird training and mock customer calls tells me it's customer support, or something similar. In which case the comparison to Yahoo's recent closing of its work at home program doesn't really seem apt (since, as I understand it, Yahoo's was mostly engineers).
Exactly. It's like comparing apples to oranges. I can imagine the scrutiny when it comes to support reps working from home. But when it comes to engineers, it's a total different ball game. I hope they change the title to "How Apple manages at home Support Reps"
One certified Apple trainer told me that managers closely scrutinize every call
This will be a myth, otherwise you're paying a manager's rate plus a low-level employee's rate for every call. It's likely what they tell the employees to put the fear of god into them.
My money is on Apple recording every call and having the managers listen into the odd one here and there, and if there are specific issues on a past call, the recording is there... just like any other large call centre.
I worked at eBay customer service back in the day, and this was exactly how it worked. In fact, they had automated call statistics not surprisingly. If you had calls within the average handle time (AHT), and high satisfaction and resolution scores you were mostly ignored. Managers pick a random call or two from the team, screen it, and move on. If you're struggling they're likely to listen to your calls and give you advice. If you're doing well, they tend to pull a call and analyze it in a group meeting for others to pick up your tricks. The managers at eBay at least (and Apple I suspect) are only concerned about their overall team statistics.
My first job when I left Uni in the 90s was tech support for Gateway Computers. I was told that my time per call was too low for someone who had been there for a short time, and they didn't know if I was good at solving calls or ditching customers early. And they had no way of knowing. And they didn't actually listen to any of my calls to check.
But I did get hold of their official expected call time list and after that my stats were perfect, plus I trained up other staff in how to meet management expectations.
There's a good reason Gateway got a reputation for extra bad customer service.
Oh, goodness - I bet we could swap stories. I was Gateway tech support for a short time in 2000. I assure you - it got worse.
The "last straw" for me was when they essentially forced techs to sell hardware. Techs would lie through their teeth (oh, that BSOD is because you don't have enough RAM) and of course management blindly looked the other way.
If you really really wanted to you could specially train someone to monitor calls for specific issues and that one person could potentially listen to every call three or four reps make. You'd have them listen to all of the calls at twice the speed and use playback software that cuts out any silence (if you're looking for dead air, that's easy enough to do with most call-analysis software without listening yourself).
That's basically just me spitballing the closest thing I could imagine to that, and I doubt they're doing either.
I wouldn't be surprised if they do run a whole lot more quality assurance checks on new reps than tenured ones, but that'd be pretty normal.
Notice how the hub cities are all small to mid-size with low costs of living. There are none in California or New York. This probably makes paying the workers only $9-12/hour much more viable than in parts of the country with higher costs of living. Essentially, they've "outsourced" to the less-expensive parts of the US, rather than to India or the Philippines.
Maybe it's just me, but such a training would just push me to quit.
I work from home once a week and it is the only day where I get a good amount of coding done, because of fewer interruptions.
It takes certain kinds to work from home. I do not think I could work from home every day, it would be too hard to motivate myself; but who knows, I haven't tried.
The training is for people who will be taking support phone calls. Apple mostly does not allow engineers to work remotely. Of course, that means that the article has little relevance for us, unless we're going to be hiring phone support people who will work from home....
I'd be interested in seeing data from other large tech employers regarding productivity and ROI (on both the training required and the work that could be/is done at home). Author should've been more clear between engineers and support reps.
By the way, I see Coursera more like a nursery for future employees than an online university. If they coupled employment with high MOOC competency, maybe that would motivate people. That would solve their problem with monetizing and motivating students to take it seriously.
Yeah the story definitely isn't core-apple. The people I knew in design and engineering who worked at home while at Apple were not watched at all really...
