Cerner, Hallmark, H&R Block: when Kansas City’s big employers plan to return to office
In a matter of days, H&R Block radically transformed its entire business as the coronavirus forced workers to home offices and kitchen tables. But the transition back to the company’s headquarters in downtown Kansas City will play out over months.
Like many of the area’s large employers, H&R Block plans a phased reentry for its 2,000 corporate employees. The first batch of about 100 employees are set to come back on June 1 — a randomized process the company plans to repeat every two weeks for the foreseeable future.
“We are inviting our associates back. We use inviting very specifically because we know there are people who may not feel comfortable, may not be able to come back to work when we invite them,” said Tiffany Monroe, the company’s chief people officer. “We don’t want people to feel like they have to come back.”
Like many companies, H&R Block has realized how productive employees can be away from the office — even as the pandemic upended the traditional income tax season by pushing tax deadlines back.
“I feel like working from home in the way that we have has really allowed people to adapt,” Monroe said. “We’re excited to get the office up and running, but we’re going to go slow.”
Many employers have spent recent weeks crafting plans to bring employees back to offices now that stay-home orders are expiring across the region. But even as some such as Cerner prepare to welcome workers back as early as next week, few expect things to return to normal anytime soon. And some think the workplace has been forever changed.
Offices will run below their usual capacity for months. Many cafeterias and fitness centers will be closed or limited. Masks will be required or encouraged. And new rules will govern the use of staircases, walkways and elevators.
H&R Block will remove chairs from some larger conference rooms to keep occupancy down and close down smaller huddle rooms. Markers for white boards have been removed to cut down on the possibility of contamination.
The company’s cafeteria and coffee shop will not allow employees to sit down and neither will reopen to the public for some time. Employees must wear masks in common areas and times they are unable to maintain distance from others.
“It will definitely look and feel differently,” Monroe said.
An informal survey of board members at the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce recently found about half planned to bring workers back sometime in June. More than 90 percent planned a staggered return of their workforces.
Hallmark Cards plans a limited reopening of its headquarters on June 1.
The company will initially bring in 10% to 15% of its 3,000 or so corporate employees, said spokeswoman JiaoJiao Shen. Hallmark will close common areas to spread employees apart and will screen workers before they come to the campus, she said.
Cerner, the region’s largest private employer, will start moving employees back on Monday, starting with executive leadership. Only 10% of the company’s workforce will return to work initially.
For the foreseeable future, all of Cerner’s buildings will house no more than half their usual numbers of workers. The healthcare IT company employs some 28,000 workers around the globe, including 14,000 across several Kansas City campuses.
As employees return, they’ll be encouraged to wear masks. The company will close fitness centers and cafeterias. Elevators will be limited to two passengers and all staircases will be designated for one-way travel — either up or down.
Cerner moved nearly its entire workforce to remote work within four days — a process that it will start to slowly unwind next week. But it’s already clear that the pandemic has forever changed the industry, said Eva Karp, a senior vice president and chief clinical and patient safety officer at Cerner.
She said some positions, particularly in the company’s consulting and client support divisions, will likely transition to virtual roles in the future.
“I don’t think we’ll ever go back to before. We’re considering a transition to the new and our new workforce and the new environment,” she said. “We’re continually communicating that it’s an evolution.”
As Cerner managers work to space employees out in buildings, they’ll have one helpful advantage: two new buildings on the sprawling Innovations campus will open soon in south Kansas City.
Cerner’s productivity has remained high as it works to support hospitals and healthcare providers, Karp said. Aside from helping hospitals add critical care beds, Cerner teams have been busy with the unprecedented rise in telemedicine.
She said the company has extensively surveyed workers about plans for returning to offices. While many have grown accustomed to working at home, others are itching to come back.
“I have found that there are extroverts in the world and there are introverts in the world,” Karp said. “And when you put them into a virtual working environment, you find very quickly who are the introverts and who are the extroverts.”
Coming back will be ‘very gradual’
While two offices in Southeast Asia have begun to reopen, domestic offices of Black & Veatch won’t reopen until June 1 at the earliest.
The Overland Park-based engineering firm is watching the numbers of coronavirus cases as it determines how to bring employees back, said John Johnson, the firm’s vice president of environmental, safety, health and security. The company generally plans to wait at least two weeks after stay-home orders are lifted to see how the numbers of cases play out in each location.
“We are not in a rush to get back to our offices,” Johnson said. “We’ll have to monitor things very, very closely. The exposures in the community are going to be the indicator.”
Black & Veatch, which employs about 3,000 across three Kansas City area offices, closed its headquarters in mid-March as several employees were potentially exposed to the virus. Since that time, productivity has remained steady, Johnson said, and construction on active projects has progressed.
As offices begin to open, the firm will first target staff who need access to technology like advanced computers or printers to complete their work. Johnson said only about a quarter of workers are expected to return to the office initially.
The company will require masks for all employees and guests, install new HVAC filters and limit capacity in elevators. Likewise, business travel will remain very limited. Typically, Black & Veatch processes 1,000 travel arrangements each week.
“We do less than five a week now,” Johnson said. “In essence, it’s banned. If you do need to travel it does require business line president approval.”
Similarly, Commerce Bank will look to start bringing back some of its workforce on June 1 under a five-phased plan.
“It’s very conservative. It’s very gradual,” said Steve Bryne, the bank’s director of corporate services.
The bank has closed lobbies and walk-up retail locations, but kept drive-thrus open. But business has been booming, particularly as it worked to help some 7,000 customers secure loans from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program.
Before the pandemic, Commerce Bank helped issue about 10 Small Business Administration loans per month. At the height of the PPP program, remote staff were helping issue 500 per day, said Kevin Barth, chairman and CEO for Commerce Bank’s Kansas City region.
“It’s worked so well we don’t feel a huge sense of urgency to get everybody back together as soon as possible,” he said. “We’re serving our customers very, very well.”
About 85% of the bank’s 2,700 Kansas City-area employees are working remotely. When they begin to return, meetings will stay virtual and workers will wear masks when circulating around the office.
Barth said he still believed in the power of camaraderie of working together, but the bank will move slowly in the coming weeks.
“There’s no need to rush and take any undue risk,” he said. “So we’re going to be very careful, very deliberate.”
Learning to work from home
For advertising professionals, brainstorming ideas and discussing creative projects in person is central to the job. And that experience isn’t quite replicated with video conferences.
“Typically, when you’re all in a room together, you’re putting ideas up on the wall and people are building on the ideas because you’re having a dynamic discussion,” said Barkley CEO Jeff King. “In the current environment, it’s just a little choppier.”
Presenting to prospective clients and building relationships with new ones can be especially tricky. On one video conference with a client, King said an employee of the Kansas City advertising agency dropped off the call during her presentation because of an internet malfunction.
“It’d be like if she were standing in the room and just got teleported out instantly,” he said.
Even so, King said Barkley has an obligation to return its 300 employees slowly simply because it can. He said it’s not essential for the firm’s employees — who started working from home at least a week before the city’s stay-at-home order mandated it — to come to the office. So they won’t.
The company may allow some teams to come into the office to work on projects in June, but most workers won’t return until July 6 at the earliest.
“I would say for the foreseeable future, the way we’ll use the office is just more of a resource for people who need to gather for critical collaborations...,” King said. “Even though we gave that July date as a soonest case scenario, I would guess that it’ll be longer than that before we actually have 300 people back in the building.”
Employees of Kansas City-based BNIM could have returned to the office as early as May 6, but the architecture firm will wait until at least June 1 to bring workers back after surveys found employees were in no rush to return.
HR director Ruthie Harrison said employees were pleasantly surprised with their transition to remote work. And communication between team members has grown more intentional and inclusive.
“Instead of just grabbing your two peeps and going out to lunch, the whole studio might set aside an hour,” Harrison said.
Waiting allows the firm time to acquire the personal protective equipment it needs and reflects the cautious attitude of the workforce.
“We were very fast in deciding to spread out,” CEO Steve McDowell said earlier this month, “and we’re going to be very slow in deciding about how and when we reconvene.”
This story was originally published May 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
