A few Apple employees suspected the use of erroneous data in the design of new products. These erroneous data would have been exploited by the Health division of the firm.
Some of these suspicious employees were fired while others ran into a wall of hostility. The employees of the company also note a concern for structuring and organization at the level of the Health division of Apple. The ambitions of this company to position itself as a benchmark in the health sector are hampered.
The top concerns of employees in Apple’s Health division
The main concern of employees is the relevance of the studies set up by Apple at the level of its Health division. This study focused on the provision of health care to the firm’s employees. The data is collected through devices produced by Apple’s Health division.
Will Poe, one of the doctors involved in the project, stated his concerns in his resignation letter to CEO Tim Cook. He fears that the team members have provided fake data to Jeff Williams, the chief operating officer. The latter is responsible for leveraging the company’s efforts in the healthcare sector. Will Poe fears that team members reported that care was of high quality even though the measurement of this quality was not standardized.
Other employees supported Will Poe’s fears, but the company gave them no consideration. It would seem thatApple doesn’t want any help and displays satisfaction with the current status quo.
What you will learn
The explanation provided by Apple on the concerns of its employees
Apple defended itself in the person of Fred Sainz, its senior director of corporate communications. According to him, some parts of this whole story belong toobsolete information. The firm is indeed still at the beginning of its positioning in the field of health technologies.
The fact that Apple considers the development ofapplications and products for consumers and not for medicine, is also a problem. This made it difficult for the healthcare team to create more effective primary care programs through internal clinical trials.
The company actually uses the health division and its work as stimulator of its Apple smartwatch sales. Moreover, this division has no clear operating strategy. The employees also have no say in it. An engineering program manager was even fired sometime after talking about the fake data.
However, it would seem that Apple’s global culture is starting to change. More and more employees are speaking out to encourage managers to consider their concerns. Apple also wants to act so that employees feel “heard”.