The Hartford to increase employee in-office requirements starting in January

Property and casualty insurer The Hartford said it will require workers to spend more time in the office starting early next year, another sign of employers’ increasing desires to get back to more regular in-person work schedules. 

The Hartford said it’s making changes to “balance business performance, growth, collaboration and a contemporary employee experience.”

“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,” said Matthew Sturdevant, a spokesman for The Hartford. 

Starting Jan. 2, the majority of The Hartford’s employees who have been in hybrid work arrangements will work three days in the office, Tuesday through Thursday, the company said. 
In addition, some employees who are fully remote will transition to hybrid schedules, while senior executives will work four days in the office, the company said.

The Hartford, which is headquartered in the city’s Asylum Hill neighborhood and reported 5,500 employees in Connecticut as of November 2022, provided no further details about its workplace policies. 

Employers over the last year have increasingly been encouraging, and in some cases mandating, a return to the office, particularly as we get further away from the pandemic.

Many companies, however, have shied away from a five-day-a-week, in-office mandate, fearing it could upset workers who have gotten used to a more flexible work arrangement. 

About 26% of U.S. workers work from home at least one day a week, according to the latest data available from the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s down from a peak of 37% in early 2021, according to Bloomberg.