When Securian Financial invited 3,400 current and former company employees to an outdoor lunch, beer, and live music festival in downtown St. Paul, Brian Meyer wondered how many people would actually show up. To their surprise, around 2,200 workers gave their response.
And, given the long lines for food and refreshments at Mears Park on Thursday afternoon, the turn-out was right on target.
“I was shocked,” said Mayer, a group life insurance underwriter from Bloomington. “It goes to show, people yearn to come together.”
St. Paul’s largest private employer, Securian’s CEO Chris Hilger, joined St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, St. Paul’s Downtown Alliance President Joe Spencer and other downtown boosters for the company’s largest get-together, in a city A joint effort to advertise the growing faith that had gone blank in the early days of the pandemic.
“It’s been a crazy couple of years,” Hilger admitted.
The “Together Again” festival – featuring music from Romantica and The Sunken Lands, ax throwing with a plastic axe, bean bag tosses and other outdoor fare – aims to showcase both the company and its atmosphere. Securian has stopped decriminalizing the need for employees to return to the office, instead encouraging employees in its two Robert Street buildings with broad latitudes approximately twice weekly.
In letters to the mayor’s office last October, CEOs of both Securian and Ecolab expressed hesitation to bring remote workers back to the city until the city cracks down on street crime. On Thursday, Hilger expressed optimism that things are moving in the right direction.
“We are proud of where we are,” he said. “We’ve been in town for 142 years. More than anything else, it’s time to have some fun. We need a little more fun in this world.”
Meyer had worked in Securian’s Robert Street offices for two weeks before the pandemic pushed him and thousands of other corporate employees across the country into the strange new world of remote work. He enjoyed his time away from the office, but it wasn’t until he started venturing back in once per week that he didn’t realize how much he was missing out on, both socially and professionally.
“I’m an absorbent,” said Meyer, who specializes in Complementary Health, a product line where the 142-year-old company is just starting to build out its footprint. “I get to hear my manager’s conversations with other sectors. I like to absorb and learn. This is collateral stuff you don’t really think about, but it’s important for people like me who are trying to build a career. ,
