Many Minneapolis employers rebooting return-to-office plans

Some Minnesota employers have decided to reboot their back-to-the-office plans as the omicron virus wave continues to recede, with the city of Minneapolis set to switch to its hybrid plan Monday.

"It's very exciting," said Steve Cramer, chief executive of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, who heard from three of the top 15 downtown employers Thursday that they have reinstated return-to-work plans. "This is a definite shot in the arm coming out of a cold, omicron-dominated January. I'm confident March and April will bring more announcements like this."

Xcel Energy officials in a Downtown Council panel on Wednesday said the return date for Xcel's 6,000 remote workers is March 7. Wells Fargo told employees in a letter the same day that it was resuming its voluntary "early return" to the office effective immediately.

However "most U.S. employee groups, including those in customer-facing roles, employees in enterprise functions and line of business support roles and technology, will begin to return to a 'hybrid' flexible model starting March 14," Wells Fargo spokesperson Staci Schiller said.

Ameriprise, which had required some office days starting in the fall, softened that stance last month for its 4,800 Minneapolis workers when omicron infection rates were rising. But as of Thursday, the downtown workforce is back in the office three or more days a week, "with flexibility," spokeswoman Alison Mueller said.

Many office workers began doing their jobs from home soon after the coronavirus first appeared in the United States in late January 2020. Employers put together return-to-office plans only to postpone them more than once as virus variants swept the country. Now that omicron cases and hospitalizations are on the decline again in Minnesota, they feel safe in calling people back to office buildings.

Target Corp., downtown Minneapolis' largest employer, has not set a firm return date but has opened its offices for workers to return voluntarily, officials said. The company will be adopting a hybrid work model.

U.S. Bank, with 4,900 workers downtown, expects hundreds of workers also to return soon to their offices.

"We have started moving toward more regular business operations, and we would expect more employees to be working onsite in a hybrid manner for important moments and activities with their teams beginning later in February," U.S. Bank spokesman Jeff Shelman said in an e-mail.

This week, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told Downtown Council officials that the city was committed to bringing most of its 4,000 workers back on a hybrid basis beginning Feb. 14.

That date was originally chosen at the end of December after some city workers pushed back against a Jan. 10 return date because of omicron and fears about vulnerable young children who are not old enough to be vaccinated.

Some city staffers this week reiterated their concerns that the plan is being rushed and does not address issues such as downtown crime, protests and improvements in in-office culture that some workers of color have deemed necessary.

But Frey and City Council members Lisa Goodman and Michael Rainville said they want to see downtown Minneapolis reactivated and that the city should bring its employees back as an example to the private sector.

"It's very important that the city take a leadership role," Rainville said. "How can we go to the county or to U.S. Bank or Wells Fargo and ask them to bring their employees back if we haven't brought ours?"

The return-to-work effort comes one month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate for employers with more than 100 workers.

That move caused many employers to put off vaccine mandates of their own, though most executives say they strongly encourage employee vaccinations as a way to promote safety and minimize absences.

Some employers have yet to announce when they expect to see workers back en masse. The insurance and employee benefits giant Securian Financial originally hoped to bring back its 3,000 employees to St. Paul by Feb. 1, but delayed those plans as COVID infections swelled.

"As of right now, no return announcement date has been made," spokesman Jeff Bakken said.

Star Tribune staff writer Faiza Mahamud contributed to this article.