100 Best Companies to Work From Home? CT Has Four, Led by Aetna

Working from home – for a major company – isn’t the aberration it once was.  And a handful of Connecticut companies have made the national list of the Top 100 Work From Home companies. Aetna, now planning to stay in Connecticut, was the top-ranked Connecticut business, at number 17.  For those thinking about the proposed merger ahead, Rhode island based CVS Health also made the top 100, ranked number 93.

Stamford-based Xerox was number 31 on the list, dropping from number 14 in 2017, and The Hartford came in at number 69, a similar ranking to last year’s number 69.  Cigna was number 90, falling from number 74 last year. 

The list was featured recently in Forbes magazine, and was developed by the website Flexjobs.

“With mobile devices and videoconferencing technology becoming more widespread, telecommuting jobs are also becoming more common,” the publication pointed out.

The top sectors offering such work are health care, computer/IT, education/training, sales, customer service, finance and travel/hospitality of the 19 industries represented on the list.

Five of the fastest-growing remote career categories are therapy, virtual administration, client services, tutoring, and state and local government, the analysis of the list indicated. The 20 most common telecommuting job titles include teacher, writer, developer, analyst, sales representative, nurse, accountant and program manager.

Five companies are fully remote, and 30 are newcomers to the list.  Xerox – along with Kaplan and UnitedHealth Group - are among the 29 companies who have made the list every year since 2014.

Each year for the past five years, Flexjobs listed the 100 companies that posted the most remote-friendly job openings throughout the last year. Remote-friendly means the openings must offer some level of telecommuting (the levels on the Flexjobs site are 100 percent, mostly, some, or optional telecommuting).

Last fall, Working Mother magazine reported that Aetna was offering "working-mom-friendly perks, like a work-from-home program that more than 43% of its employees participate in."  According to Aetna’s career website, Working Mother pointed out at the time, the company had openings for 222 jobs that can be done remotely from home. "The jobs are based across the country and are available in a range of fields, including marketing, management, information technology and more."