DES MOINES, Iowa — The pandemic-era trend of working from home became the new normal for thousands of employees in Iowa, but one of Des Moines’ biggest employers is changing things up once again.
Principal Financial Group, which employs around 6,500 people in Des Moines, will require those who live within 30 miles of the office to work in person at least three days a week.
The change will take effect in November, and employees were notified via email last week that they must comply.
"Maybe you can do your job, or some days of your job, sitting at your kitchen table at your laptop, but it's a lot better to come downtown, collaborate with your coworkers, go out and have a little fun for lunch," said Des Moines Deputy City Manager Matt Anderson.
City management has been working closely with the Greater Des Moines Partnerships to attract workers back to their downtown offices for some time now.
Anderson says that they don't want to lose all of the progress that has gone into the city's business district over the past few decades.
"If this pandemic-related vacancy had happened twenty years ago, I think we’d be in big trouble," he said. "We were really reliant on our downtown work force for our vitality."
And while Principal is trying to bring employees back downtown, Nationwide and Wells Fargo are planning to shrink their downtown footprint.
Nationwide has reached a tentative agreement to sell one of its two downtown offices to the city of Des Moines, and Wells Fargo is trying to sell four of their downtown office spaces.
Principal wasn’t willing to comment on how employees are reacting to the news, but one former employee says that in order to keep their staff, the company must provide community-building opportunities.
“If corporate is going to bring people back, then they have to establish, or re-establish a corporate community," said Christopher James, who now owns his own coffee business. "They have to do better than what they were doing pre-COVID.”