Submitted by Nate Borland, attorney, BrownWinick

The fully remote workforce prophecy has not proven true in Iowa. Instead, many Iowa employers sought the middle ground between a fully on-premises staff and a fully remote staff, adopting “flexible” or “hybrid” work arrangements. Hybrid work arrangements, where employees complete some work in the office and some work remotely, introduce human resources and performance management considerations.

Iowa employers and their human resources professionals should be alert to these issues to prevent misunderstandings and encourage harmony and consistency for hybrid workers and their supervisors.

Iowa employers continue to compete for the best employees, rolling out expanded employee benefits programs and touting their commitments to work-life balance, community involvement and investment, and employee growth. Human resources professionals and executives often speak of their employee focus and innovative initiatives meant to attract and retain talent in what remains a remarkably difficult labor market.

In the earlier stages of the pandemic, employees and managers predicted they would embrace fully remote work on a large scale. As time passed and offices sat empty, however, employers began to announce mandatory returns to work in a variety of forms and on a variety of schedules.

Some employers take an informal approach to managing hybrid employees’ schedules, granting employees the discretion to decide daily whether they will...

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