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Major Chattanooga area employers in no rush to bring workers back to the office amid coronavirus crisis

Staff photo by Jenna Walker/Chattanooga Times Free Press / The BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee corporate headquarters atop Cameron Hill is largely vacant of employees since the insurer shifted 96% of its staff to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Staff photo by Jenna Walker/Chattanooga Times Free Press / The BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee corporate headquarters atop Cameron Hill is largely vacant of employees since the insurer shifted 96% of its staff to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Staff photo by Jenna Walker/Chattanooga Times Free Press / The BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee corporate headquarters atop Cameron Hill is largely vacant of employees since the insurer shifted 96% of its staff to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

By Dave Flessner 4 min read

Retail stores and restaurants have reopened and barber shops and salons will open again on Wednesday in Chattanooga.

But major office employers are still cautious about bringing workers back to their facilities. With the campus of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and major downtown attractions like the Tennessee Aquarium and the Creative Discovery Museum still closed, most of the workers and visitors who normally come downtown are still staying home this month.

BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, one of Chattanooga’s biggest employers which shifted all but a few hundred of its 6,800 workers to work from home in March, is keeping its staff teleworking during May.

The Chattanooga-based insurer, the biggest health insurance company in Tennessee, already had more than 30% of its employees telecommuting full-time before the stay-at-home orders were issued to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus. That share grew to 96% of all BlueCross workers in March and will continue for the next four weeks.

“We’re planning to begin bringing some employees back to the office around June 1, starting with very limited numbers, increasing very gradually over time and adjusting our plans, if needed,” BlueCross spokesman John Hawbaker said Monday. “Our distributed workforce has proven to make us more resilient and we do expect to have a larger number of telecommuters going forward.”