Apple CEO Tim Cook ‘can’t wait’ for employees to get back to personal work

Apple CEO Tim Cook is looking forward to employees returning to the office after the pandemic and in an interview with People, he said he anticipates that Apple will implement a “hybrid environment” to return to personal work.

Cook said it is important for people to “be in physical contact” because you cannot plan for collaboration and innovation.

“Innovation is not always a planned activity,” adds Cook. “It’s bumping into each other throughout the day and coming up with an idea that you just had. And you really need to be together to do that.”

Apple has a floor plan model designed to encourage employees to interact with each other, and Cook says Apple is still “figuring out” how to manage this as people get back to work. Time out of the office, however, has taught Apple that some things are “perfectly fine” to do virtually.

“We realized and learned that there are some things that are perfectly great to do virtually on Zoom or WebEx, whatever, or FaceTime, whatever you have. So, I think it will be, I’ll call it a hybrid environment [for] a little bit.”

Cook also took the opportunity to highlight the work that Apple employees did while working remotely. Cook said that Apple had a “huge and prolific period” with the launch of the iPhone 12’s 5G line and the M1 Macs. “These are great achievements,” he said.

“We are a personal team because we believe it is better for collaboration,” said Cook People. “But we knew that this was no longer possible, or was not possible for this period of time. And so we had to reinvent ourselves.”

Cook said there was no set date for returning to work, but that he “can’t wait” for Apple employees to get back to work.

In addition to commenting on Apple’s future plans for returning employees to work, Cook answered a series of quick questions about his daily routine. Cook said he goes to bed around 9:30 pm and wakes up at 4:00 am. He opens Apple News early in the morning, and coffee and his iPhone are two things he can’t live without.

Cook said he recently “drank too much” from the Apple TV + “Ted Lasso” series, and that strength training is his favorite workout. Cook also said that his nephew’s last FaceTimed, his favorite emoji is the peace symbol (✌️) emoji and that he hopes to take a trip to Glacier National Park in the future.