Intel says it plans to become a “hybrid-first” company, allowing most employees to split their time between home and the office.
Many other employers are making similar decisions, acknowledging that the nature of work has changed permanently after COVID-19. Intel’s shift will be especially profound in Oregon – the chipmaker is the state’s largest corporate employer, with 21,000 people working at its suburban campuses in Washington County.
“The pandemic compressed a decade’s worth of change into months. From a crisis came an opportunity to reimagine how we work and collaborate,” Christy Pambianchi, the chipmaker’s chief people officer, wrote in a blog post Wednesday. “At Intel, it’s meant creating our future as a ‘hybrid-first’ company.”
The hybrid approach doesn’t apply to manufacturing workers who must be on site at Intel’s factories or in its research labs.
Pambianchi didn’t say when Intel will broadly reopen its offices to hybrid work. COVID-19 levels remain elevated in Oregon but have declined significantly from a record wave of infections triggered by the delta variant in late summer.
Oregon is home to Intel’s leading-edge research and its most advanced factories, as well as many corporate and administrative roles. The company declined to provide a breakdown of the share of Oregon employees who in roles that require them to be on site.
An employee survey in April found 90% of employees prefer to split their work hours between home and the office, Pambianchi wrote. And when COVID-19 forced offices to close last year, she said, Intel found employees were successful even while working virtually.
So Intel decided to make a permanent change.
“The majority of employees will split their time between working remotely and in the office,” Pambianchi said. She said it will be up to individual work teams to determine how often people come into the office.
“We’re not mandating a single approach regarding the number of days per week all employees should be on-site or how people should collaborate,” she said.
Statewide, only about a third of all workers have jobs that can be done remotely, according to the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis. Many employers, from grocery stores to schools, need jobs to be performed in person.
The broader effects of Intel’s shift may be somewhat muted in Oregon. The company hadn’t indicated it planned further expansion here, with the notable exception of more factories that are unaffected by the move to hybrid operations.
And those workers who are now eligible for hybrid work will evidently still be expected in the office regularly, which suggests they’re unlikely to stray too far from Hillsboro.
However, Intel’s change may be reflective of a broader shift among employers that are increasingly allowing employees more flexibility on when they need to be in the office -- or if they need to come in at all. That could have more significant regional implications.
Portland-based software company Expensify, for example, has just about 30 of its 140 employees in Oregon. The rest are distributed around the country, and around the world.
And when Umpqua Bank announced plans last month to move its banking offices from downtown Portland to Lake Oswego, the bank said it was doing so partly out of a recognition that its employees wanted a hybrid work arrangement and wanted an office closer to where they live.
-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | Twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699
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