OMAHA - It's not just a pandemic thing.

Working from home has become more normalized. However, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska says it's been hiring people for work-from-home positions as a pilot program.  The new opportunities are in the company's customer service department.

Talent acquisition manager Colin Hayworth said while their customer service positions are nothing new, having them on a remote-work basis is, thanks to the pandemic lockdowns.

"As a company, we just never really pushed it hard enough, and then we were forced to have pretty much everybody working from home," Hayworth said.  "When that happened and we saw a very successful transition to have everybody work from home and minimal, if any, disruption at all to the service that we provide to our members, our executive team kind of asked ourselves, ‘why aren’t we capitalizing on this?'”

These work-from-home opportunities are not just for the Omaha area.

In fact, Blue Cross/Blue Shield said of the 26 people they've hired so far, seven are from the Norfolk and Columbus markets.

They said if you have a high school diploma or GED, plus have experience in customer service or billing offices, this would be up your ally.

They said benefits include paid time off, retirement and, not surprisingly, health insurance. 

Not only that, but the freedom that comes with it.

“I think the work/life balance that you get not only by being to work from home in a role like this, but in general, with this role and where it can take you and your career, it’s kind of hard to quantify that,” Hayworth said.

He said they don't know how many more remote customer service jobs they want to add at this point.  It may not be until next year, and they want to see how successful these new hires are first.

He said if they do see good things come out of it, they intend to open up such positions throughout the entire state, as well as other areas of operation.

“We’re very confident it’ll be a success and something that we hopefully will have as a part of our workforce planning efforts in the future.”

For more information on the remote customer service jobs, as well as other opportunities with Blue Cross & Blue Shield, visit: https://www.nebraskablue.com/About-Us/Careers