Apple Adds Five Vice Presidents, Including Two Women, to ‘Apple Leadership’ Press Page

Apple today updated its Apple Leadership press page to add the bios of five vice presidents, including Paul Deneve, Lisa Jackson, Joel Podolny, Johny Srouji, and Denise Young Smith.

The inclusion of several vice presidents on the executive team is a new move for the company, as the page previously only listed the company’s lineup of senior vice presidents.

Since taking over as CEO, Tim Cook has aimed to share the spotlight with his employees, letting company leaders like Eddy Cue, Craig Federighi, and Jony Ive take part in press interviews and lead Apple events. The addition of five new VPs to the press roster suggests Cook and the team at Apple are more open than ever, recognizing the efforts of an even larger number of key employees.

Of the new executives joining the page, Paul Deneve and Lisa Jackson are relatively new hires, joining Apple in 2013. Deneve oversees special projects, while Jackson has a public-facing job overseeing Apple’s environmental efforts. Joel Podolny, dean of Apple University and Denise Young Smith, who oversees Apple’s human resources, were promoted to their roles early in 2014. The remaining VP, Johny Srouji, oversees hardware technologies, a role he has held for just over a year.

The new additions to the executive press page also spotlight two additional women who hold important leadership roles at Apple, bringing the total number of females on the page to three, with Angela Ahrendts. Apple has faced criticism for its lack of female leadership in the past, which Cook has been aiming to remedy. According to diversity numbers released earlier this week, 72 percent of Apple employees in leadership roles are male.

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Apple Working to Remedy Labor Violations Found at Quanta Factories

The Fair Labor Association (FLA) today published a new report examining two factories operated by Apple-supplier Quanta Computer, finding several code violations related to working hours, recruitment policies, compensation, health and safety, and more in August of 2013 [PDF] (via TechCrunch).

Factories examined included a Quanta facility in Shanghai and one in Changshu. Quanta is a long-time Apple partner that manufactures Apple’s MacBook Air and much of the rest of the company’s Mac lineup.

Violations were found in both locations, with some of the more egregious issues including verbal abuse by supervisors, a hiring fee charged to workers by a broker or labor dispatch agent and long working hours. According to the report, 62 percent of workers in Changshu received no rest day for much of Q4 2012, working as many as 16 days in a row.

Overall score summary of management functions at Changshu
Many workers were also underpaid for sick leave and may have been uncompensated for up to an hour of work each day, based on clock in and clock out times. Some workers were forced into joining the All China Federation of Trade Unions, and there were several safety violations.

Both of the factories fell short of the local requirements for indoor air quality, and neither had easy access to a shower/eyewash station in case of emergency. There was no active worker participation in the Employee Health and Safety committees, and flammable and toxic substances were stored improperly at Shanghai while chemicals at Changshu were not properly monitored.

The Fair Labor Association provided a number of recommendations to improve conditions at the factory, and according to the report, Apple is using the recommendations to work with Quanta to fix each code violation. Apple released a statement on the FLA’s Quanta inspection, stating that it has worked closely with Quanta to bring improvements to working conditions.

Our suppliers must live up to the toughest standards in the industry if they want to keep doing business with Apple, which is the first and only technology company to be admitted to the Fair Labor Association. We are committed to providing safe and fair working conditions for everyone in our supply chain.

Last year we conducted 451 comprehensive, in-person audits deep into our supply chain so we could uncover problems and work with our suppliers to fix them. We track and report the weekly working hours for more than 1 million workers, and our 18-month Apple Supplier EHS Academy training program is raising the bar for environment, health and safety management in the industry.

The Quanta facilities inspected by the FLA last year were included in our 2014 Supplier Responsibility report, which we released in February. Our own experts have audited these sites 16 times, most recently last month.

In the year since the FLA’s visit, we have worked closely with Quanta to drive meaningful improvements in areas identified by both the FLA and Apple. Apple conducted four follow-up inspections on top of the annual audits of both facilities, to ensure the needed corrections are in place.

This year, through the end of July, Quanta has averaged 86 percent compliance with our 60-hour workweek. Excessive overtime is not in anyone’s best interest, and we will continue to work closely with Quanta and our other suppliers to prevent it.

Apple initially signed up for factory assessments by the Fair Labor Association back in 2012, following a rash of worker suicides at Foxconn, the factory responsible for assembling many of Apple’s mobile devices. The FLA has since helped to improve working conditions in several of Apple’s factories, with Apple aiming to bring all workplace compliance standards in line with the FLA’s guidelines.

Apple also maintains a Supplier Responsibility team that audits supply chain facilities to ensure compliance with Apple’s strict code of conduct preventing underage labor and providing safe, comfortable living conditions for workers. An additional Supplier Responsiblity academic board also evaluates Apple’s labor policies and practices and researches labor standards within the supply chain to create ethical working conditions wherever Apple products are produced.

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Earphones Filled With Health and Fitness Sensors Ready to Flood the Wearables Market

As Apple moves closer to launching its rumored health and fitness oriented iWatch, there has been significant focus on the types of sensors Apple might be looking to deploy. Among the intriguing options have been sensor-equipped earphones, which Apple has filed patent applications on in the past and which saw renewed attention following the posting of an unfounded rumor about EarPods with embedded biometric sensors earlier this year.

Earphones with health and fitness sensors do continue to be a topic of interest, and other manufacturers are preparing to bring their own products to the wearables market later this year. One biometric headphone attracting attention is a new offering from Intel and SMS Audio, which has musician 50 Cent as a co-founder (via Re/Code).

The SMS Audio BioSport In-Ear Headphones include heart rate monitoring powered by Intel technology and feature SMS Audio’s high-quality sound, comfort and fashion. The ear buds will use a combination of sensors, including an optical light sensor, to measure both resting and active heart rates. Powered by the smartphone’s audio jack, the headphones will share their data with a variety of third-party apps, with RunKeeper integration available at launch.

Intel and SMS Audio may be among the biggest names entering the sensor headphone market, but they are not alone. Earlier this year, LG released its own Bluetooth-connected, heart-rate-measuring earphones with mixed reviews. Hitting the market later this year are wireless Smart Earphones from FreeWavz, which monitors heart rate and other key fitness metrics. The Kickstarter-backed product reached its funding goal earlier this month and has a target ship date of October 2014.

Beyond the ultimately false rumor of EarPods with biometric sensors and Apple’s patent applications dating back a number of years, the company also recently hired former MIT researcher Eric Winokur as a Sensing Hardware engineer. Winokur is known for his work on wearable medical devices, including ear-worn sensors for cardiovascular monitoring. It is not known, however, whether Winokur is continuing his work on ear-worn sensors at Apple or if he is contributing more broadly to the biometrics team working on the iWatch.

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