Nearly 90% of surveyed Apple employees reportedly say being able to work from home indefinitely is ‘very important’ as the company plows ahead with plans to return to the office

• Nearly 90% of surveyed Apple employees value an indefinite work-from-home option, The Verge reports.
• Apple has doubled down on its plans for hybrid work, including a September return to the office.
• The company's workers have previously protested plans to go to the office three days a week.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

The vast majority of surveyed Apple employees reportedly say they value being able to work from home indefinitely, even as the company doubles down on its plans to have them return to the office.

Nearly 90% of Apple workers who took an internal survey circulated in June marked "strongly agree" regarding the statement "Location-flexible working options are a very important issue to me," according to The Verge. For the purposes of the survey, "location-flexible" meant being able to work from home indefinitely. More than 1,700 workers gave an answer to that question, The Verge reports. Apple had roughly 147,000 total employees at the end of 2020.

More than 58% of respondents said they strongly agree with the statement "I am worried that some of my colleagues will have to leave Apple due to LACK of location-flexible work options," according to The Verge. Nearly 37% worried they personally would need to quit over the lack of options.

In mid-June, the survey results were sent to CEO Tim Cook and Deirdre O'Brien, Apple's senior vice president of retail and people, along with videos from two dozen employees explaining why they value remote work, The Verge reports.

The effort represents Apple workers' growing frustration with the company's plans to forge ahead with a hybrid work model.

Apple first announced in early June that it would ask employees to return to the office for three days a week starting in September. Shortly after the announcement was made, dozens of employees wrote a letter pushing back against the policy and advocating for the location-flexible work instead, according to The Verge. In response, Apple doubled down on its hybrid work plans, with O'Brien saying in a video reviewed by The Verge that "in-person collaboration is essential to our culture and our future."

Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.