Like millions of other workers during this pandemic, many of Apple’s staff have been working from home. But now Tim Cook has sent Apple employees an e-mail demanding they return to the office, for at least three days a week, by early September. Some may be allowed to work remotely for up to two days a week, but only with the express permission of their managers.

This is a deeply disappointing development.

I was hoping the pandemic would change attitudes towards remote working.

Before the pandemic, many millions of office workers left their houses each day and crowded onto trains or struggled through commuter traffic. Once in the office, they spent most of the day working on a computer. And then they had to struggle through the crowds and traffic again to get home.

It made no sense. They already had internet-connected computers at home. The technology existed for them to work from home and save themselves many hours of commuting each week. Without the misery of the commute, they might be much happier and more productive. And they could spend more time with their families.

So why did they carry on commuting and polluting unnecessarily? They were forced to. In many cases, their employers simply didn’t trust them to work from home.

Along with many others, I was hoping the pandemic would change attitudes towards remote working. In some cases, it clearly has. Having been forced to allow staff to work remotely, many employers found it worked out remarkably well. They found their staff could be trusted to work just as hard at home as they did in the office.

Remote working is the future of office work. And the pandemic has enabled both employees and employers to better appreciate its many potential benefits — such as happier staff and reduced office rental costs. Consequently, many companies, including Facebook, have announced plans to let staff continue to work remotely when the pandemic is over.

But Tim Cook doesn’t seem to share the general enthusiasm.

“Video conference calling has narrowed the distance between us, to be sure, but there are things it simply cannot replicate,” wrote Cook.

Cook offered rather vague reasons for why he thinks it’s so important to get back to the office:

“Let me simply say that I look forward to seeing your faces. I know I’m not alone in missing the hum of activity, the energy, creativity and collaboration of our in-person meetings and the sense of community we’ve all built.”

But Apple is a technology company. It creates many of the tools — hardware, software and services — that people use when working remotely. So Cook’s seemingly rather backwards-looking attitude begs a whole heap of questions.

If remote working, for office workers, is inadequate in some way, why doesn’t Apple do something about it? If the tools are inadequate, why doesn’t Apple improve them? And why should we have confidence in Apple’s remote working tools, if Apple doesn’t trust them itself?

It would have been better to leave the matter to individual managers to decide. Some roles will be less well-suited to remote working than others. So why is Cook resorting to a blanket policy of everyone being in the office at least three days a week? Why can’t individual managers be trusted to know which members of their teams need to attend the office in person and which don’t?

Why is Cook forcing this policy on all employees, regardless of how successfully they’ve been working remotely during the pandemic? Why won’t he let individual employees decide if they should be in the office, or if they’re better off working from home? Doesn’t Cook trust his own workers?

what better way to boost the “sense of community” Cook craves than by encouraging family-friendly working practices?

And what about pollution? What about global warming? Does Tim Cook genuinely care about the environment — or does he merely pretend to do so for PR purposes?

Perhaps Cook would be embarrassed if, having invested vast resources in building Apple’s flashy flying saucer HQ, the switch to remote working made it redundant?

He says he misses the hum of activity of a full office. But are thousands of workers really to be dragged daily through commuter traffic just so Tim Cook can hear the ‘hum’ of worker activity?

Isn’t there an app for that? Cook’s Homepod could mimic the sounds of a full office, just for his benefit. Then he can get the humming sound he craves, without making employees waste thousands of hours of their lives on unnecessary commutes that add to congestion and create pollution.

He could get his buzz without upsetting the workers who’ve found remote working more productive and better for their families.

And he could avoid making it look like Apple wants to cancel the future.

Remote working has huge benefits for workers and for the environment. If managed correctly, it can boost productivity and creativity. And what better way to boost the “sense of community” Cook craves than by encouraging family-friendly working practices?