Hartford Business Journal

10 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | AUGUST 9, 2021 Amid vastly changing work environment, Stanley Black & Decker to shift one- third of office employees to remote work By Sean Teehan steehan@hartfordbusiness.com P ost-pandemic operations at Stanley Black & Decker will look a lot different from pre-COVID times, both figuratively and literally. The toolmaking giant has shifted one-third of its office employee positions — 10,000 worldwide, including about 350 in Connecticut — to entirely remote work, with another third working hybrid and the rest remaining in the office five days a week, said Stephen Subasic, the company's chief human resources officer. To accommodate the new setup, the company is gutting its New Britain headquarters to add communications infrastructure. "You're talking about 10,000 employees on a global scale who will convert to virtual working, so it's a pretty massive undertaking," said Subasic, whose company employed 53,100 people worldwide, including factory workers, at the end of 2020. "We wanted to take advantage of this opportunity, where the traditional means of work, the paradigm, have really been shattered." As the fall approaches and an increasing number of companies welcome employees back to the physical workplace, it appears most workers aren't interested in being in the office five days a week. A recent Hartford Business Journal/PwC poll of HBJ readers found 18% of the nearly 400 respondents want to work remotely five days per week, while 62% said they'd like to come into the office four days or less. Employers and consultants say most office employees will likely return to work on a hybrid schedule, going into the office a few days per week, and working from home other days, with some positions shifting to fully remote. And the paradigm shift comes with new ways of recruiting and managing workers, as well as new issues likely to emerge for employers. "I think a lot of companies that have publicly said, 'hey, you can work from anywhere,' [are] figuring out, 'oh boy, doing that is a lot more complicated than we thought,' " said Julia Lamm, a workforce strategy partner with accounting and consulting firm PwC. Increased flexibility At Stanley, the switch to hybrid and full-remote work has been an intentional and thought-out process, said Ashley Baron, the company's vice president of human resources. After the manufacturer, like all businesses, was thrown into a remote-work situation via COVID-19, HR and other Stanley officials spent months analyzing each position within the company, including where it was located, to determine which jobs could be done remotely or require an in-person presence. "A customer service role could likely be virtual because they're taking calls all day, and entering things into a system, and they could do that remotely very successfully," Baron said. "A role like an engineer would have to be hybrid/in-office." Stanley is currently advertising some jobs as completely remote, Baron said. Many of those applicants say they're seeking out the position because their current employers want them back in the office, she added. Another Greater Hartford manufacturer, East Hartford-based Pratt & Whitney, also recently announced plans to shift about 80% of its salaried workers to hybrid or fully remote, as the jet-engine maker shrinks its local office space by half. Chief Human Resources Officer Maureen Waterston said the increased flexibility will expand Stanley Black & Decker will have fewer workers at its New Britain headquarters post-pandemic as the toolmaking giant shifts a third of its office employees to full remote work. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED Pratt's appeal to prospective employees, and remove geographical barriers for some job candidates. "We are focused on attracting, engaging and developing a top workforce that's diverse in background and experience," Waterston said. "With this flexibility, we also anticipate an increased candidate pool for positions, and the ability to optimize our talent pool across the business." Remote worker turnover PwC's Lamm said companies she works with are expanding work- from-home options and fully-remote positions, since employees largely favor the flexibility, with executives running the spectrum of reluctantly acquiescing to enthusiastically switching over. But the changes have been a mixed bag with some pros and unforeseen cons. In recruiting, for example, employers looking for remote workers can simply search for the best candidate, rather than someone who is both qualified and living within commuting distance (or willing to relocate), Lamm said. However, these workers can present other logistical obstacles. Taxes are an issue, Lamm said. States collect income tax based on the physical location where work is performed. If a company doesn't have a physical presence where a remote worker operates, it could create an added tax burden for both the employer and employee. "We did have clients who started to open up, and said, 'you can work from anywhere, except,' and they would list two or three states ... that were requiring higher levels of tax, and the company just wasn't ready to do that," Lamm said. Stanley Black & Decker simply started withholding employees' state payroll taxes based on workers' home addresses, Baron said. Lamm said clients are also seeing higher turnover among remote workers, but companies are generally accepting that as a cost of doing business. "Turnover might be one thing that you expect; that people are ready to jump somewhere else because they're just not feeling that loyalty and commitment to that organization," Lamm said. "I think what they're doing is planning for higher turnover among those teams." Legal issues Additionally, attorney Patrick McHale, a partner at Hartford labor and employment law firm Kainen, Escalera & McHale PC, said he can foresee litigation likely to emerge from the Ashley Baron Patrick McHale Julia Lamm

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