Apple has set a September 5 deadline for all of its corporate employees to be in the offices, according to a Bloomberg report.

Employees will be expected to work out of office at least three days a week marking the tech giants latest attempt to bring workers back to office after sudden surges in COVID-19 cases delayed its plans.

Workers are expected to come in to work on Tuesdays, Thursdays and one other day according to the preferences of individual teams within the company. This marks a shift from the Silicon Valley company’s earlier plan which included Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays as part of the three-day work week. 

Apple has been working towards getting its employees back in office since at least June 2021, back when it first announced the three-day policy. However, because of surges in the number of COVID-19 cases, the California-based company has been forced to delay the return to office and has instead opted for a two-day workweek so far. The new three-day policy was announced on Monday. 

The Silicon Valley behemoth has been the most ardent supporter of bringing employees back to the office, something which hasn’t gone over too well with some staffers, according to Bloomberg. Other tech behemoths like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have been much more receptive to the concept of remote work in the past few months.

With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new relaxed guidelines regarding COVID-19 being release last week, Apple is likely to use that opportunity to bring its workers back to office. 

The reason for the company’s work from office policy is likely to be because of the upcoming launches of the new iPhone 14 and Apple Watch. In addition, the company has delayed the release of the new iPadOS 16, because feedback from users showed that the new Stage Manager feature wasn’t performing well and was littered with bugs.