Mark Gurman, writing for 9to5mac:
Apple today announced a significant new initiative internally for employees that “effectively [makes] everyone who works for Apple eligible for an RSU grant.” RSU grants, or Restricted Stock Units, have typically been reserved for top Apple management and product engineering roles as a way to retain employee talent for long periods of time. For example, Apple CEO Tim Cook was granted 1 million shares in 2011, following the succession of Steve Jobs, that will vest over time through 2021. According to an email from Cook to all employees today, a similar plan, with obviously much smaller amounts of shares, is now starting.
Follow the link to read Tim’s email. This is an astute business move, and an incredibly generous gesture.
RSUs for low-level non-engineering, especially retail, employees is certainly a new, and great, thing. However, a good friend had no problem walking away from a fair number of AAPL RSUs for a gig at a startup that offered the same challenges with a much better work-life balance. Of course, she’s a Unicorn—a really smart woman with a engineering degree from technological university, so she can basically write her own ticket anywhere.
This is really great. Another company recognizes the value of retaining people rather than be like Amazon where running people through a mill and spitting them out is their SOP.
If I may be so bold as to point out, this is as likely a response to the utterly brutal churn each and every retail store is undergoing among their geniuses and family room specialists (mobile device techs). They are getting totally crushed under the load. Look at how many retails stores Apple has added in US markets over the past three years and compare that to how many mobile devices Apple has sold in that period. Apple is selling more devices and not increasing the numbers of repair techs in stores. These are decisions by people in charge to not add geniuses and frs equal to the proportion of devices in certain markets.
Just as frs’s are hired then trained (many weeks of interviewing, training, shadowing) others are burning out and the cycle begins again.
To me, this is as much a carrot held out to try to keep frs’s from bailing. Interesting will be to watch the frs churn rate, if it doesn’t slow down you can say things suck so bad to be an frs that 19 shares of AAPL for free isn’t worth the crap angry customers dump on them for them having to wait like everyone else.