Cindy Lee recalls as a working mother with school-age children in the 1990s, having to juggle work demands and parenting responsibilities when inclement weather forced schools to close.
As the founder and owner of Lync Logistics in Chattanooga, Lee said she has worked to avoid such challenges by giving workers more flexibility in where and how they work so that events like this week's winter storm and school closings don't hurt business operations or employee families.
"For us, this was no big deal this week," Lee said in a telephone interview. "We try to be very flexible with our employees. If your kids are out of school, you can bring them to work or work from home."
Lync Logistics gave all of its employees laptop computers and extra computer monitors for home use before the pandemic.
"Our workers just set up shop at home, and we continued normal operations," Lee said.
Most office-based companies like Lync continued normal operations this week despite snow and icy roads that limited some travel and shut down local public schools all week.
BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, the largest private employer in Chattanooga, continued normal operations this week with nearly nine of every 10 workers doing their jobs from home.
"It's working really well because people do like the flexibility," Destiny Griffin, director of Medicare Advantage member experience and engagement, said in an interview. "The culture has definitely shifted from an on-campus environment in the past to our 'remote first' environment, and I think our staff has really resonated with this model."
On a normal day, 89% of the BlueCross staff work remotely from home, and that share can go even higher when inclement weather keeps more workers off the road. Worker productivity has increased with the change to remote work, Griffin said.
"Remote first doesn't mean remote only, and we work very hard to communicate virtually and, when needed, we do come to the office, for some team meetings," Griffin said.
(READ MORE: Will 2024 be the year employers crack down on remote work? Not so fast)
Remote work by the numbers
— As of 2023, 12.7% of full-time employees work from home, while 28.2% work a hybrid model.
— 89% of the workers at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee (Chattanooga's biggest private employer) work fully remote.
— By 2025, 32.6 million Americans are projected to work from home.
— 16% of companies operate fully remote.
— 98% of workers said they want to work remote at least some of the time.
— 65% report wanting to work remote all of the time.
— 71% of remote workers said remote work helps balance their work and personal life.
— 69% of remote workers report increased burnout from digital communication tools.
— 53% of remote workers said it's harder to feel connected to their co-workers.
— 73% of executives believe remote workers pose a greater security risk.
— 32% of hybrid workers report they would take a pay cut to work remotely full-time.
Source: Forbes Advisor, citing WFHResearch, Upwork, Buffer, Indeed, ApolloTechnical, McKinsey, Gallup, Pew Research and other sources
Other major office employers have shifted to a hybrid approach, with employees coming to the office three or four days in a typical week but still working from home when events, like the snow and ice this week, dictate.
"We are used to coordinating through these kinds of big weather events," Jason Provonsha, CEO of Steam Logistics, said in an emailed statement. "Internally, we have to make adjustments to accommodate people's needs to work from home in the event that they can't make it to the office. Externally, these events create both challenges and opportunities for us. At its core, logistics is problem-solving, and the weather just adds another element to this for us."
Unlike BlueCross, freight brokerage companies in Chattanooga like Lync and Steam Logistics tend to operate with most staff in the office, barring inclement weather.
Lee said her staff returned to the office by late 2020 after the pandemic eased.
"We determined most people do better in the office when they don't have the distractions of home around them all the time," Lee said.
But the company quickly pivoted to at-home work this week.
According to data compiled by Forbes magazine last year, 12.7% of full-time employees nationwide work from home. A significant 28.2% of employees have adapted to a hybrid work model that combines both home and in-office working.
Unum Corp., the world's biggest disability insurer with more than 10,000 employees, is typical of many of Chattanooga's biggest office employers in moving to a hybrid work environment. Most Unum workers are working hybrid schedules.
"Although we do have a small percentage of our staff that works remote all the time, that's not a direction we've taken for most of our workforce," Kimberly Bowen, senior vice president of global talent and inclusion at Unum, said in an interview last year. "We're really focused on a hybrid work environment with our employees coming into the office two or three days a week in most weeks."
The hybrid work approach allows companies to quickly pivot during inclement weather, Bowen said.
Remote-work numbers dropped after the pandemic eased. Many employers asked office workers to return to work sites to promote more teamwork and build the corporate culture.
But after declining in 2021 and 2022, work-from-home numbers held steady last year, according to data from WFH Research, a scholarly data collection project. Some experts claim the return to the office trend has plateaued.
"We're never going to go back to a five-days-in-the-office policy," Stephan Meier, professor of business at Columbia University, told USA Today. "Some employers are going to force people to come back, but I think over the next year, more and more firms will actually figure out how to manage hybrid well."
Resume Builder, which surveyed 1,190 workers about remote and hybrid work in December, found workers with flexible work options liked their jobs better.
"Employees are discovering what work locations they perform best in," Resume Builder's chief career adviser, Stacie Haller, said in a report about the survey. "In their ideal environment, workers are more productive, connected, and less stressed. Workers thrive in different environments and should have the ability to work from the location that is best suited to their needs."
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6340.