WECC is planning to resume in-person meetings at its Salt Lake City headquarters, asking for “grace” as it plots a way to accommodate all stakeholders, CEO Melanie Frye said Wednesday.

“March 23 actually marks the two-year anniversary of us closing the WECC office,” Frye said during a quarterly meeting of WECC’s Board of Directors.

She pointed out that the regional entity’s last in-person event was the March 2020 board meeting, held just before the COVID-19 pandemic drove office workers into quarantine and established widespread use of remote working and virtual meetings.

WECC will retain elements of that now well-established practice in its approach to stakeholder gatherings, adopting a “hybrid” model of face-to-face meetups with the continued option of participating virtually, Frye said.

“Beginning May 1, we’ll start to consider on a case-by-case basis moving to hybrid meetings, which probably will be our new normal at work,” she said. “We know that many companies are still in limited travel arrangements, so as we contemplate having technical committee meetings, we know there will probably always be an element that is hybrid, with people remotely participating and, [for] those who are able to travel, in person.”

In a roundtable discussion during a meeting of the WECC Member Advisory Committee on Tuesday, stakeholders expressed a desire to get back to in-person meetings as their states and employers begin relaxing pandemic restrictions.

“Our policy is allowing for travel where appropriate, and we would love to see it happen,” MAC member Brian Evans-Mongeon, president of Utility Services, said.

Russell Noble, reliability compliance manager at Cowlitz County Public Utility District in Washington, said the “last vestiges” of his state’s COVID regulations would be expiring March 12. “We are looking towards getting back to normal and definitely be allowed to make necessary travel arrangements for necessary meetings.”

But WECC’s Canadian members still face uncertainty about crossing the border into the U.S., said Diana Wilson, director of enterprise risk management and compliance at the Alberta Electric System Operator. “I think it’s going to really have to be a matter of how things unfold,” she said.

Frye asked for forbearance as WECC attempts to transition to hybrid meetings.  

“The final point I’ll make is just to really ask grace as we start to implement hybrid meetings,” Frye said. “We’ll be evaluating the technology that we have in our meeting rooms, [and] it will be something new and different to have a combination of in-person participants and remote participants. So there may be some technology bumps along the way, and we’ll keep learning and evaluating what we might need on our end to provide the best experience for all of our stakeholders.”

Restrictions Relaxed, FlexWork Begins

Frye on Wednesday also informed the board that WECC will begin welcoming all staff to return to the Salt Lake City office on April 4, relaxing existing limits on the number of people allowed to work in the building on any given day.

“We have announced to our employees that we think now is the time to start to transition to our FlexWork — new normal — that we’ve developed,” Frye said.

WECC announced its decision to implement the new FlexWork program last June. The program is designed to give most employees the option to work from home, while also holding out the requirement that they might need to put in “core hours” at the office to attend trainings, committee meetings, regulatory audits and board meetings. FlexWork was postponed in September as the Delta variant fueled a surge in COVID cases.

“Our FlexWork program is a strategic business initiative that provides flexibility in work schedules that best fits WECC’s business objectives and expectations, and fulfills individual and team needs on the job in a collaborative and flexible work setting,” Julie Booth, WECC manager of communications and outreach, told ERO Insider Wednesday.

With the rollout of the program next month, WECC will lift current pandemic-related restrictions, including the 50% cap on attendance, the requirement to use the ClearPass application to sign in to work a day in advance to provide a health attestation and the need to wear a mask.

“For FlexWork, we will keep in place extra cleaning measures, hand sanitization stations and mask wearing when requested,” Booth said.