EHR company Epic has had its 11,000 Wisconsin-based employees working in-person five days a week since November 2021, Milwaukee Business Journal reported Dec. 15.
"You cannot replace face-to-face interactions or popping over to someone's office for a quick gut check with a virtual setting," said Erin McWilliams, director of benefits at Epic. "These are all quick micro-interactions that you may have opted not to do when remote. When joining a meeting virtually we often found people were distracted, not fully engaged … most of us have seen and experienced this first hand."
While many Epic employees worked from the company's 1,400-acre Verona, Wis.-based campus during the pandemic, Epic gradually began requiring all employees to spend time in the office starting in the second half of 2021.
"In May of that year, we announced that we would introduce a tiered approach for our formal 'return to campus,' which allowed people to adjust over time and get more comfortable with more in-person interactions after so many months of a changed reality," said Ms. McWilliams.
In July, the company announced that employees were required to spend three days in the office. In August, it went up to four days. In September and October, employees were allowed two remote days per month.
Since November 2021, most Verona employees are expected to be in the office five days a week. There are only some exceptions for a small number of employees who have alternate schedules and for others who work remotely.
Some Epic employees expressed unhappiness with the policy, but it hasn't hampered the company's employment growth rate from 11,300 worldwide employees in 2021 to 12,500 this year.