Salesforce has launched Safety Cloud to help people get together safely. Data shows that getting people together safely and in-person is vital to building and maintaining a positive company culture. Analysts suggest it also supports employee retention and satisfaction, and business growth.
- In a recent Salesforce employee survey, 77% of employees said they want to get together in-person with their teams.
- According to the American Express Meetings & Events Global Forecast, 81% of meeting and event professionals expect their events in 2022 to have an in-person element.
- A Harvard Business Review survey shows that, while hybrid work may be here to stay. There is an emerging consensus among business owners and employees that they are looking to be back in the office three days per week, on average.
“Businesses around the globe are looking for the best ways for their employees, customers and partners to get together, safely,” said Bret Taylor, Co-CEO of Salesforce. “Testing is the path forward and Safety Cloud enables organisations of all types to take the complexity out of events. It brings people together again with confidence.”
The challenge of scaling health verification
Nearly two years into the pandemic, businesses and communities continue to grapple with flexibly scaling their health verification initiatives. This is needed to handle the ever-changing COVID-19 landscape without affecting business operations. Testing is a critical aspect of how people safely get together. To address this need, organisations require a robust platform to manage testing capabilities at scale is critical.
Safety Cloud enables organisations to safely operate in this new normal. Salesforce has used different features from Safety Cloud to reopen 84 offices globally and host two large-scale company events. This helps employees, customers, and partners feel safer. For Dreamforce SF and NYC 2021 alone, Salesforce facilitated more than 21,500 COVID-19 tests. The company verified more than 8,000 vaccine credentials, helping more than 4,500 attendees get together safely.
Helping businesses and communities get together safely
Safety Cloud supports integrations with at-home, pharmacy, on-site testing options, including CVS Health®, eMed, Cue Health, ixlayer, and Senneca DX. These supported testing options can be connected directly to Safety Cloud, making the testing experience easier than ever. In addition, Safety Cloud will support SMART Health Cards and EU Digital COVID Certificates. These are paper or digital versions of clinical information, such as vaccination history or test results.
Benefits of Safety Cloud
- Streamline COVID-19 testing and health status reporting with agility and security across one platform. For example, if first responders test positive through an integrated testing platform, they no longer need to visit a physical location to verify their health status in-person to get approval for paid leave. Test results are automatically loaded into the platform. This enables organisations to better track the availability of critical workers to ensure adequate staffing is in place.
- Build flexible, scalable protocols to bring people back together safely at events with evolving COVID-19 health and safety protocols. This includes testing and vaccine status requirements, identity and registration, and personalised communication journeys as public health guidelines change. For example, a business hosting a large-scale customer event can define and automate attendee testing protocols. This includes the sending of personalised emails about testing requirements and deadlines. Ultimately helping to identify positive COVID-19 cases before the event even begins.
- Automate workplace entry and combine identification and health status into a Dreampass — a secure, multifactor pass for validated access. For example, an HR team focused on getting its employees and contractors back to the workplace safely can now automate entry into a building with a secure digital pass once a negative COVID-19 test result is detected.
Challenging Times
Accenture has been using Salesforce to support its return to the workplace strategy. Anoter partner, Traction on Demand is using Salesforce to bring their employees and event attendees together safely.
Ryan Powell, Salesforce Innovation Lead at Accenture says, “This has been one of the most challenging years in recent history. Salesforce has been a key partner in helping us enable our return-to-work approach. This approach is grounded in the health and wellbeing of our people as the top priority,”
Enterprise Times: What this means for business.
Getting the balance right for an effective return-to-work approach is increasingly important for businesses irrespective of size or sector. Organisations have a responsibility to their employees, visitors and suppliers. At the same time, there are occasions where team work is really needed, to galvanise employees to achieve their best. Salesforce have been effective in this area.
More importantly, they have practiced what they preach as demonstrated in their own DreamForce events in San Francisco and New York, last year. Building on the company’s own experience and expanding on existing health and safety innovations announced in December. Safety Cloud helps businesses and communities better manage testing, health and entry protocols. The idea being to create safer in-person experiences at events and in the workplace. These are all sensible activities that all organisations should take to support and monitor. Covid-19 still stalks the homes, offices, warehouse, shops and factories across the globe. So, individuals and organisation still need to be diligent and prepared.
