Companies making it work as more employees do business from home: Top Workplaces 2023
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CLEVELAND, Ohio — The commute to work is changing.
Most people still get into their cars, onto a bus or a train in the morning to get to their jobs. But an increasing number of people take just a few steps from their kitchen and begin the work day.
It’s yet another way companies adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic. And while the pandemic has waned, companies continue to adjust as more workers prefer to do their jobs from home. But not all companies were caught completely off-guard.
For the 2023 Top Workplaces list, cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer have compiled 214 stand-out Northeast Ohio employers based on employee surveys. Find the full list and stories on the top three winners in each of four categories at cleveland.com/top-workplaces.
“Prior to the pandemic, we were a company that offered two remote days per week and three in-office days, plus flex time,” said Joe Soltis, CEO of Choice Local, a digital marketing company based in Westlake that finished at No. 42 among small businesses for Top Workplaces 2023. “This was considered very innovative at the time and cutting-edge. Now, it’s not. In our industry, that would be considered pretty normal.”
Soltis said Choice Local had its best year in company history when 100% of its employees worked from home during the pandemic. Now, 95% choose to continue working from home, he said.
“After the pandemic, we surveyed our teammates and they said they loved the freedom and wanted to keep our 100% work from home option, which we did,” Soltis said. “That is why we now offer the option to work from home full-time if someone wants to and most of our team chooses to do that. This is now considered innovative and cutting-edge and we receive great feedback on it from our teammates, and we are yet again having our best year ever in terms of growth, revenue, profit, teammate satisfaction and most metrics in our business.”
Choice Local is part of a growing trend in Ohio. As of 2021, 14.8% of Ohioans were working from home, according to the latest estimates from the Census Bureau. This is more than triple the rate of Ohioans who worked from home before the pandemic in 2019, at 4.6%.
Jessica Jung, president of Oswald Cos., an independent insurance brokerage firm based in Cleveland, said the company has adopted a hybrid work environment for its employees, who are required to come into the office two days per week. Oswald placed No. 23 among medium-sized companies.
“Before the pandemic, we worked in the office every weekday,” Jung said. “Upon returning after the shutdown, we switched to a hybrid schedule because our employee-owners wanted greater work-life balance. A hybrid schedule offers that flexibility.”
Despite the growing popularity of working from home, Jung said many the company’s younger workers still come to the office more than the required two days, saying they want “mentorship and development opportunities offered by in-person contact with more-seasoned colleagues.”
“We’re also creating ways for them to get engaged in the office and returning to many of the programs that made the office fun, such as free lunch celebrations and fundraising activities,” Jung said. ‘Our goal is to provide a culture where everyone is thriving at the individual and team level.”
MIM Software offers a hybrid schedule for its workers, who are required to come to the office one to three days per week, depending on their responsibilities. (MIM Software)
MIM Software, a medical software company based in Beachwood that placed No. 40 among midsize companies, also offers a hybrid work schedule, said Ashley Baucco, vice president of people operations. Workers are required to come to the office one to three days per week, depending on their responsibilities.
“Pre-pandemic, MIM Software was fully in-office (with a few employees working remotely),” Baucco said. “We’ve adapted well, and employees appreciate the flexibility and work-life balance that comes with a hybrid model.”
More workers have returned to MIM offices since the end of the pandemic, Baucco said. She said less than 10% of its employees work remotely full-time.
“MIM supports a hybrid work environment,” she said. “We believe that it is balance and flexibility that allows our employees to perform their best at work and at home. Rather than a companywide policy, each team is able to decide their hybrid schedule and in-office requirements based on the specific job responsibilities.”
At Revenue Group in Cleveland, more than 90% of its employees work from home, and payroll specialist Jen Garner doesn’t expect that to change. She says most of the people hired by Revenue Group, which is ranked No. 42 among midsize companies, work from home.
“Employees are encouraged to do what works for them,” Garner said. “If they live in the Cleveland area and they have no means to work from home, then we allow them to work in the office. We have approximately 20 employees who do so each week.”
Both Jung and Soltis say employees working from home is not a passing trend.
“Our hybrid, flexible work environment is here to stay,” Jung said. “The pandemic was a great exercise in what it takes to achieve true work-life balance. It challenged us to take a more holistic look at our employee-owners’ needs and wants. Our culture has certainly changed for the better already and we’re willing to do what it takes to continue thriving.”
Soltis also sees positives from the changes from the past few years.
“We have begun to become known as a great place to work, with great teammates, who work hard and accomplish a ton, while at the same time enabling our teammates to prioritize family and their non-work life as well as their career,” he said. “As a result, we are attracting more and more high achievers who see our five days work-from-home option as a big differentiator for themselves and their family.”
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