IBX’s new in-person office policy has some workers feeling betrayed. Others are job-hunting.

Since Independence Blue Cross announced its new hybrid work policy, employees have been speaking out about their complaints.

The company told roughly 3,000 employees last week that they’ll be required to work in the office every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for a full day, beginning in March for managers and supervisors and April for everyone else. It marked the end of a model called “hybrid of choice” which allowed most staff to work remotely as much as they wanted to.

Employees, including some in senior positions, said they had been under the impression that the “hybrid of choice” model was permanent. They said that leadership has been inflexible about the return plans and that they feel they’ve been “misled” and “lied to” by top management.

“We recognize that our new hybrid model will be an adjustment,” said executive vice president Crystal E. Ashby, who leads IBX’s human resources, diversity, and communications functions. “This decision was made only after careful consideration, taking into account how best to achieve our business goals while having a schedule that still provides flexibility for our associates and maintains a strong in-person presence in our facilities.”

» READ MORE: Independence Blue Cross changes its work-from-home policy, the latest big Philly employer to require more in-office days

The Inquirer heard from IBX employees from different departments and seniority levels who explained their concerns about the new hybrid policy. They said company communications so far have not provided any hints of flexibility, and they’ve seen a barrage of negative reaction from their colleagues. All of them asked that their names not be used so they could speak freely without concern for their job security.

Since leadership posted an article announcing the new policy on the company’s internal site, IWAY, employees have added over 200 comments, according to IBX workers who have seen them. The vast majority of IWAY comments about the policy and messaging were negative, employees said.

Many commenters openly discussed their worries about finding additional childcare to cover commuting time and the challenges they will now face in finding caregiver coverage for family members who are elderly or have disabilities. It’s not that they had been taking care of family on company time, workers explained, but the prior arrangement had allowed them to be present at home for older children and family members who just need an adult around. For some with younger children, they’ve built childcare arrangements that cover the work day, but not a long commute in the morning and evening.

Employees also shared concerns about their own mental health on IWAY, describing how remote work flexibility has reduced their stress and allowed them to attend to personal needs like medical appointments without compromising productivity at work.

Ashby said leaders have been reviewing comments on the internal post “in order to provide any needed updates or responses” as well as meeting with associates about their concerns. “We acknowledge that associates may need flexibility to handle business needs or personal matters during the preferred in-person workdays, just as they have in the past,” Ashby said.

Meanwhile, people describing themselves as IBX employees have taken to Reddit and Glassdoor to complain about the new in-office requirement and how it caught people by surprise.

“People [who] built their lives around the promise of the ‘hybrid of choice’ model now have the rug pulled out from under them,” one Glassdoor review said.

Even senior employees were blindsided by the change. One director-level employee, who has worked for IBX for well over a decade, said there had been some rumors building about a change in the hybrid policy, but nobody expected it would be three full days a week of mandatory in-office attendance. “That hit us all like a ton of bricks,” they said.

“They lied,” the director said. “What’s happening is dishonest.”

Independence announced the “hybrid of choice” model officially in April 2022.

“This provides most of our associates with the flexibility to choose the schedule that works for them, including remaining remote, coming into the office every day, or coming into the office on days of their choosing, at their discretion,” the email announcement said, according to a screenshot provided to The Inquirer.

At the time, other large employers were touting similarly bespoke work arrangements.

Multiple employees said IBX has hired people in the past two or three years using the hybrid of choice model as a draw. The policy required that employees live in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Delaware.

“I know a few people who were hired in the past two or three years. They were told that they were hired for a remote position,” one manager said. “They were literally lied to or misled.”

Some smaller groups of employees were asked a few months ago to come back on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, workers said, and felt similarly blindsided. Nobody was told that the requirement could become companywide, employees said.

An FAQ document distributed to staff last week added to employees’ concerns. It said “you should plan to work the full day on-site” and clarified that “we do not support an alternate schedule” of a different three days in-office. It also instructed that “if you are not feeling well, you should use your PTO,” while adding that people who are sick but feel well enough to work from home should discuss that with their manager.

The IBX director said they’re concerned about losing people on their team who will seek out new jobs. But the director is also starting to put out feelers for a new job and has already found listings of better-paying positions requiring less than three in-office days.

“It’s morally wrong to tell people that this is your workplace model, and then just change it with [insufficient] notice, no accounting for the fact that this is going to be really hard for most people,” the IBX director said. “As a leader, I’m being forced to do this to my own people, and I don’t want to. It violates my convictions.”

Other employees, even those who worked at IBX pre-pandemic, said they feel they have no choice but to look for another job now.

An associate-level employee who has been with IBX more than five years said her family members currently split care for her young child during work hours but won’t be able to cover the additional hours needed for the new commute three days a week. Paying for childcare and commuting will essentially be a 50% pay-cut for her, she said — and that’s if she can find a day care with openings. So far, every childcare facility she’s found has a wait-list well past April, when her in-office requirement begins.

“Even before I got pregnant, [IBX] communicated that we would be staying at a hybrid of choice model. And my family offered to help with childcare,” the associate said. “I absolutely would have gotten on a wait-list the moment I was pregnant” if the company had indicated there may be a policy change requiring office time.

The manager who has been with IBX for about 10 years said they have more caregiver responsibilities now than pre-pandemic, and they know of several colleagues in similar situations with sick or elderly family members. The lack of flexibility communicated to employees in the new policy seems to contradict Independence’s own consumer-facing guidance about “care for the caregiver,” the manager said.

A different manager, who has been with IBX for more than a decade, said they were “devastated” and “felt betrayed” when they learned about the new policy.

“I never realized how burned out I was in the old way” of commuting to the office, the manager said. “We’re a health and wellness company, and they’re forcing us into something that makes us unwell.”