USAA planning return to offices
After postponing the voluntary return of its workforce on three occasions because of rising COVID-19 cases, USAA is giving it another try.
The San Antonio insurance and financial services company plans for employees to return to its offices in phases beginning in May, USAA spokeswoman Tiffany Edmonds said in an email Monday.
But it’s too early to know just how many employees will resume working from the office, she said.
USAA employs about 35,000 people, including roughly 19,000 in San Antonio — where it is one of the city’s largest employers.
“In the new model, employees will either work in a USAA office or at home, or in a hybrid model with working some days from the office and others from home,” Edmonds said. “We expect to complete our phased approach in July.”
USAA will provide a “significantly greater amount of flexibility for some of our employees to work remotely 100 percent and others to adopt some form of a hybrid schedule,” CEO Wayne Peacock said in an interview with Yahoo on Friday.
“And I’m hopeful that by July we’ll be into our new equilibrium,” he said. “And then we’ll just continue to adapt from there.”
One of the big challenges for USAA during the pandemic was getting employees adapted to working from home and then advancing its “digital capabilities” to serve its members, Peacock said.
USAA isn’t requiring workers to get vaccinated before heading back to the office.
“But we are encouraging all employees to get a vaccine when they become eligible,” Edmonds said. Workers can use paid time to get the vaccine.
USAA originally targeted Sept. 1 for bringing back workers but pushed that back to the beginning of January after COVID-19 cases surged. With no letup in the virus’ spread, USAA moved the date again to Feb. 1.
In January, USAA scrapped the Feb. 1 return date, too. At that time, though, it held off setting a new date for workers’ return.
USAA’S latest announcement comes as COVID-19 cases in Bexar
County are declining. The rolling seven-day average of new cases stood at 174 a day as of Sunday, down from 312 a month ago and 2,062 two months ago.
Edmonds said USAA is adapting its “office configurations to support team spaces, hybrid schedules and improved collaboration tools to connect remote teammates.”
During the pandemic, some USAA employees and third-party contractors have been coming into the office. As of December, the number was about 1,400.