AP Photo/Richard Drew
- Apple will offer workers paid time off for vaccine appointments, according to Bloomberg.
- The company will also offer employees sick pay if they experience side effects from the shot.
- Apple previously said employees will start returning to the office in June.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Apple is encouraging its employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine by offering time off, according to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Apple employees will reportedly receive paid time off for vaccine appointments, as well as sick pay if they experience side effects following the vaccine. The company does not have access to vaccines itself and will not be providing shots to its employees, Bloomberg reports.
A spokesperson for Apple did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Many of Apple's employees have been working remotely since last March. Cook said during an interview on the "Outside Podcast" in December that about 15% of employees were reporting to Apple Park, Apple's Cupertino, California-based headquarters.
Cook previously told workers they should expect to start returning to the office in June 2021, though he cautioned that Apple would not "return to the way we were."
"There are some things that actually work really well virtually," Cook said in an interview at The Atlantic Festival last September.
Apple is famous for its culture of secrecy, and The Wall Street Journal reported last spring that working from home was challenging for employees. Some workers said they were unable to access internal systems from outside the office because of Apple's strict security measures, while others were confused over what work they were allowed to do from home.
The pandemic also affected a crucial aspect of Apple's business: hardware production. As Bloomberg reported late last year, Apple created workarounds, like remotely controlled robots and iPads equipped with augmented-reality software, to work with the employees at its factories in China.