A major CT employer will require workers to put in more time at the office

HARTFORD — The Hartford Financial Services Group, a major employer in Hartford with thousands of workers at its headquarters office in Asylum Hill, confirmed Monday that it will require employees working partly from home to report to the office three days a week, as of Jan. 2.

In addition, some employees of The Hartford who had previously worked exclusively from home will adopt a hybrid schedule working a portion of the week in the office.

The change has the potential to foster downtown Hartford’s workweek vibrancy, which suffered a devastating setback during the pandemic when office employees were abruptly sent home to stop the spread of Covid. But tightening up the requirements to be in the office also could ruffle those employees who have come to enjoy the flexibility of working at home and have reshaped their lives around it.

“We are updating our enterprise work model with increased in-office days for those in hybrid arrangements and bringing more employees back to the office,” The Hartford said, in a statement Monday in response to an inquiry by The Courant. “Our work model is designed to balance business performance, growth, collaboration and a contemporary employee experience.”

Beginning in January, “the majority of employees with hybrid work arrangements will work 3 days (Tuesday through Thursday) in our offices, and some remote employees will transition to hybrid schedules,” the statement said. “Senior executives will work 4 days in our offices.”

The property-casualty insurer declined to comment on the parameters under which fully-remote workers would be required to return to the office. The Hartford also declined to say whether the new policy would be enforced with disciplinary measures or whether it was more a guideline.

An increasing number of employers are requiring their workers to be in the office at least three days a week. Some are reshaping their workplaces to create an atmosphere that more resembles home with couch groupings for collaboration and cafeterias that have kitchen islands for informal gatherings.

Interior workplace designers say such changes are responding to what workers have become accustomed in their homes, not spending the entire day at a desk.

But experts also say requirements to be in the office are, in most cases, more accurately described as guidelines. Employers walk a fine line how strongly they enforce “in-office” requirements because they risk losing valued workers to other companies and competitors.

Travelers Cos., the property-casualty insurer, with a major presence in the heart of downtown Hartford has required most of its employees to work in the office at least three days a week for more than a year. In 2022, that amounted to 2,500 in the office on a given day, but those numbers have increased by “hundreds,” Travelers said recently. Travelers employs about 7,000 in the Hartford area.

The Hartford’s move could benefit downtown businesses — including a growing number of coffee shops, restaurants and other businesses — especially since the insurer has consolidated hundreds of workers from its Windsor location to Hartford.

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, who earlier this year publicly urged employers to bring more workers back to offices in Hartford for a greater part of the workweek, Monday praised the decision by The Hartford.

“We know that many workplaces aren’t going back to five days in person anytime soon,” Bronin said. “But every additional day that employees are back in the office makes a difference for our city — our cafes, our small businesses and just the sense of energy and activity that you feel on the street.”

Bronin said he has long believed that the pendulum would swing back toward more “in-person” work.

“There’s no question that organizations of every kind lose something when they are too fully remote,” Bronin said. “They lose the ability to build strong personal relationships, lose the chance for those spontaneous interactions that are critical to innovation and lose the ability to mentor young talent and create an organizational culture.”

At the same time, Bronin said, he is urging conversions of vacant office space, if feasible, into housing to continue building the downtown Hartford residential base.

Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at kgosselin@courant.com.