DES MOINES, Iowa — After more than a year of working from home, some companies are inviting employees back to the building _ while others are paying their employees to have remote workspaces.
Since March of 2020, Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield executive vice president Marci Chickering said the company has been thinking of ways to bring its employees back to its downtown office.
This month it became reality when they implemented a pilot program.
"We would have up to 10 percent of our workforce return if they wanted to volunteer a minimum of one day a week in the office, as long as they were fully vaccinated," Chickering said.
The executive vice president said the pilot program consists of just over 200 out of their roughly 1,800 employees.
The program will run through Labor Day and then be evaluated to see if it's working well enough to be used to bring back the rest of Wellmark's workers.
So far, Chickering said the employees involved in the pilot program like it.
"Just being back part of the vibe, being back in the organization, those were some good examples of what employees have shared with us," Chickering said.
And while companies like Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield are inviting some employees back, other companies are paying for workers to have a working space in a co-working office, like Gravitate Coworking.
"I have three larger companies who have done that, and probably dozens of individuals who have that option as well, " Abby Rowling, the director of operations at Graviate Coworking, said.
Rowling said with the companies paying for their employees to work there, it has contributed to their membership levels increasing significantly.
"When we first started opening back up I'd probably see anywhere from four to 15 people on an average day, it was really quiet. "Now I'm seeing around 40 to 50 people a day."
Sharaine Conner, a mental health and addiction therapist, said more people heading back into the office or working outside of the home is beneficial.
"Take the time to reorganize and get back to the point of, 'work is here and my brain thinks about work in this capacity," Conner said.
Conner also said having some people back in an environment they are used to, might help their productivity and provide them a sense of normalcy.