According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently began allowing certain employees to work on special “side projects.” This move brings the company more in line with industry rivals such as Google, reportedly aiming to keep worker loyalty high in the midst of poaching.
The initiative, dubbed “Blue Sky,” grants a limited number of employees two-weeks break to work on projects outside the realm of their normal duties. The new program is akin to Google’s long-standing “20 percent time,” which allows engineers at the company to spend one day a week on side projects that may yield usable products or solutions.
The Wall Street Journal noted that Apple’s Blue Sky is a “far cry” from what Google’s plan offers, especially when it comes to the number of employees participating. The decision to start the program denotes a cultural shift for the Cupertino California company though.
The initiative was apparently started earlier in the year, though an exact date was not revealed.
Source: Google (blog), The Wall Street Journal via BusinessInsider
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