These can be questions, requests for input, or just a cue for the trainee to click on. For example, trainers deliver regular prompts to each person throughout live instruction. Next, Apple uses a variety of tactics to ensure that would-be advisors are actually at their computers while training is going on. So immediately, workers have an impetus not only to pay attention, but to keep the job once it’s final because they worked so hard to get there. They have two chances to hit the grading benchmark (two advisors said this was 89 percent, one said it was 80 percent), before they are kicked out of the program. Then at the end of each week, everyone takes an exam. The curriculum is broken into four, one-week sections that are a mix of live instruction and self-paced modules in iDesk. training program is actually a testing period. As one employee commented in a community thread, “I can honestly say the job was probably one of the most stressful I have ever had, and I used to counsel drug addicts and felons!”įor starters, according to the advisors I spoke to, Apple doesn’t tell trainees until after they’re “hired” that the four-week, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. The methods in every case were intense, sometimes sort of silly, and at other times borderline extreme. They are notoriously tight-lipped on strategy). I know this, because I recently emailed more than 40 current and former “Advisors” on LinkedIn to learn how. At the same time, their recruiters can draw from an enormous talent pool since location isn’t a factor, and weather never prevents “advisors” from coming to work.īut running a team this way doesn’t come without challenges, chief among them being effectively training people in disparate locations. The fact of the matter is, while not every remote worker is happier, more productive, and produces better quality work, as some have purported, telecommuting offers indisputable benefits for certain types of businesses. Apple, for example, permanently employs a massive network of remote customer support agents (dubbed At-Home Apple Advisors), saving them the huge real estate expense of a call center. Companies such as Best Buy followed suit by announcing they too would end their flexible work options, while some industry observers called the move an “ epic fail. When a leaked memo broke the news earlier this year that Yahoo was ending its work-from-home program, CEO Marissa Mayer was both lauded and lambasted for the decision. Editor’s note: Ashley Verrill is a software analyst for Software Advice, as well as the Managing Editor for the Customer Service Investigator blog.
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