Highmark Health is bumping up its in-office work days for hybrid employees from two days a week to three, the Pittsburgh Business Times reported Aug. 3.
Highmark Health employs about 42,000 people, including through the BCBS health plans and the Allegheny Health Network. About 14,000 employees are under a hybrid schedule, and clinical employees and top executives have always been fully in-office. Off-site employees are not affected. According to the report, about half of the company's total workforce will be considered hybrid.
The change is effective in September and is an expectation, not a mandate. Managers will be able to decide which days are in-office and which activities will take place on those days.
"It's actually not because we feel like we had a productivity issue or a performance issue," Highmark EVP Karen Hanlon told the Business Times. "But at the end of the day, we have a culture that is based on relationship building, trust, collaboration, coaching and mentoring. We think those things happen better when you have an in-person relationship and ability to meet together."