Apple Employee Meeting Reveals More Corporate Kindness From Tim Cook

Apple Employee Meeting Reveals More Corporate Kindness From Tim Cook:

Since assuming the role of CEO, Tim Cook has opened up charitable matching, and, as of Wednesday, a generous employee discount program. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

With an employee headcount in excess of 45,000, Apple’s ability to manage news concerning its internal machinations sets a benchmark for corporate information control. It’s all described in fascinating detail in recent reporting from Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky.

Yesterday, however, CEO Tim Cook held an all-hands meeting for the work force, and a little bit of intel did seep out — and it’s good news that directly affects Apple employees.

9to5Mac reports that Cook announced an internal Apple discount program wherein employees will receive $500 off new Mac computers, and $250 off iPads. The report says the program will begin some time in June, and to qualify, employees must have 90 days’ tenure working for the company.

The employee discount program isn’t the first example of hardware generosity on Apple’s part. On June 28, 2007, Steve Jobs announced during an all-hands meeting that every employee with one year’s tenure would receive a new iPhone. It was an impressive gesture that Engadget estimated to cost Apple $12 million.

But it was also one of the few acts of overt, showy gifting that Jobs ever bestowed upon the work force, or even the world at large. Indeed, in the days following his death last October, a small but significant number of news outlets took Jobs to task for his apparent lack of interest in philanthropy, including the closure of Apple’s philanthropic efforts when he returned to the company in 1997.

Two recent gestures from Tim Cook, however, signal Apple is taking a kinder, gentler approach to wealth distribution (or wealth re-distribution as it’s known in some quarters).

First, there’s Wednesday’s hardware discount announcement. No, there weren’t iPad 3′s hidden beneath the seat of every employee, but by directly acknowledging the employees’ role in record earnings — backing up verbal praise with hardware discounts — Cook sent a message loaded with symbolism.

But the grander Cook gesture occurred early last September, after Cook become CEO, but before Jobs passed away. Cook announced that Apple would match charitable donations made by Apple employees, up to $10,000 per year for full-time workers in the U.S. The move spoke volumes about Tim Cook’s management style, and what a Tim Cook administration might mean for not only philanthropy, but corporate “openness” in general.

At Gadget Lab we’re not looking for hand-outs, but we’d love to receive an iPad 3 review unit, oh, say, maybe two or three weeks before the tablet hits retail.

It never hurts to ask.