Cigna to require more CT employees to return to offices, as companies reassess ‘massive, online, remote working’ [Hartford Courant]

The Cigna Group, which employs thousands in Connecticut, mostly in the Hartford area, will require more of its workforce to report to the office beginning in September, as the global health insurance giant seeks to rebalance the workplace so it more closely resembles how it was prior to the pandemic.

In a recent email to employees, Cigna Chairman and Chief Executive David Cordani wrote that 90% of the Bloomfield-based insurer’s employees — totaling 70,000 worldwide and “several thousand” in Connecticut — are now working fully or nearly fully from remote locations. That percentage needs to be pushed lower, Cordani wrote, because “a thriving office environment needs more of our co-workers working together in our sites.”

“Innovation and brainstorming are most effective in person — to easily build on each other’s ideas, problem-solve and ideate,” Cordani wrote.

Cordani said the insurer will transition to a workplace where more of its employees are working a majority of the time in the office, “with flexibility to work remotely for the balance of their work time.”

“Ultimately, our goal is a workforce model where those working in a site are generally more in line with pre-pandemic levels,” Cordani said.

The decision is particularly notable because high-profile, office space downsizings — particularly in downtown Hartford — have been attributed, at least in part, to a longer-term shift toward working from home. Some employment experts say flexibility on where employees work has become a recruiting tool in the aftermath of the pandemic. And some employees have pushed back against returning to the office, unwilling to give up the personal freedoms acquired in the pandemic that are provided by remote work.

A recent survey of 1,131 senior executives, including 670 chief executives globally, by The Conference Board, a non-partisan think-tank in New York, found there appears to be an “emerging equilibrium” around hybrid work. The survey found that just 5% of chief executives wanted to expand it and about 4% looked to reduce it.

The Conference Board found evidence that senior managers desired a return to office mandate, but just 5% of chief executives placed such a return among their top priorities for 2023.

Even so, Robert Yawson, associate professor of management at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, said an increasing number of companies are examining their workplaces and how they are divided between the office and home.

“Now companies are reassessing coming back, pulling back a bit from the massive, online, remote working — and readjusting,” Yawson said.

But Yawson said fully remote and hybrid working options are here to stay simply because they were already on the rise, even before the pandemic hit.

Towns and cities are watching closely how employers handle bringing workers back to the office — and to what degree. Workers are seen as a crucial component in supporting local restaurants and businesses.

Last week, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin urged a gathering of businesses to bring back as many office workers as possible, whether that’s just a day more than they are currently coming into downtown. Despite the addition of more than 2,000 apartments in and around Hartford in the last decade, office workers are still a crucial driver of the downtown Hartford economy — as highlighted by the pandemic — and will be key to regain momentum behind revitalization.

Cigna also has another compelling reason to bring its Hartford area employees back to the office. In 2021, the health insurer completed a $90 million renovation of its Bloomfield headquarters, the architecturally-significant Wilde Building. Cigna does not have offices in downtown Hartford.

“Our intent is to bring more employees back to the office a majority of the time, while still supporting the flexibility they need to balance personal and professional responsibilities,” a Cigna spokesperson said, in a statement. “We are taking these decisions very seriously, and are carefully evaluating The Cigna Group’s specific approach and plan.”

How Cigna reshapes its workplace in the coming months is still evolving. Cordani will be meeting with groups of employees this spring and in the summer.

In his email, Cordani said the decision hinges heavily on the swiftness needed to respond to the evolving needs of Cigna’s customers and clients. A fast-changing labor market — with people moving from one company to the another — has not left many employers untouched, including Cigna. In the past few years, the insurer has hired thousands of new employees in its global operations.

“The significant changes in our workforce have resulted in more work happening in silos and transactional interactions deeper relationships and trust,” Cordani said. “We need to nurture our core strengths, and can’t give up an inch of the ground we have worked so hard to win.”

Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at [email protected].

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