After the launch of several back-to-work products in the last few months comes the announcement of a strategic partnership between CVS Health and Salesforce. The companies plan to integrate Work.com and Return Ready to support enterprises and academic institutions reopen responsibly.
Office buildings across the world have been closed for months due to COVID-19. Employees have set up virtual offices and adjusted to working from home. However, as the lockdown rules ease, offices are slowly coming back to life. Months later, governments globally have lifted stricter quarantines enabling companies to navigate better ways to reopen their business and safely bring their workforce. But are we prepared to welcome the change just yet?
According to a Future of Work report by Xerox, 82% employees will return to physical workspaces within 12 to 18 months. Tech giants, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Microsoft have extended their remote work policy. However, several enterprises and SMBs plan to bring their workforce back with safety as their top priority. And very soon, most American companies are going to tell their employees to leave home and return to work.
Several tech companies have invested their capital and resources in developing back-to-work products and apps. Over the last few months, multiple tech companies have announced the launch of back-to-work solutions ranging from collaboration to employee engagement platforms to thermal screening solutions. Some of the prominent tech and healthcare vendors including IBM, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Siemens, Microsoft, UnitedHealth, VitalTech, and Verily have established the foundation for a resilient digital workplace that also supports the new normal working model. While most of these enterprises were already offering smart solutions, the focus has now shifted to making workplaces safe by ensuring minimal physical contact.
As employees prepare themselves to get back to work, employers need to ensure that they make the transition as smooth as possible. A growing number of companies have adopted return-to-work tools in their strategy to ensure that employees have a positive outlook towards coming back to work. The American Staffing Association Workforce Monitor online surveyOpens a new window conducted by The Harris Poll reports that 79% of US employees are satisfied with their employer’s return to work plans during COVID-19.
This week, CRM giant Salesforce inked a partnership with CVS Health to enable enterprises and educational institutes to return to work amid COVID-19. The partnership will integrate their individual platforms into a unified testing and monitoring program which can be accessed through the Work.com Workplace Command Center. The combination of the Salesforce Work.com platform and CVS’s Return Ready testing solution will provide a comprehensive plan to return to work and campus safely.
Troyen Brennan, M.D., M.P.H., chief medical officer of CVS Health, saysOpens a new window , “While COVID-19 testing is an important tool to reopen worksite and campus locations responsibly, a comprehensive strategy requires wellness monitoring and contact tracing to help prevent an on-site outbreak and spread of the virus. While there are a lot of COVID-19 tools hitting the market, the Work.com capabilities use the latest science and technology, and we believe together, with our Return Ready testing solution and clinical protocols, we can help our customers activate a comprehensive plan to return and maintain critical populations on-site.â€
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How Will Organizations Benefit from this Coalition?
Salesforce launched its Work.com platform in May this year. This platform focuses on on-site visitor management, business continuity, and supply chain management. On the other hand, CVS Health rolled out Return Ready, a COVID-19 testing platform in June. It was launched to help organizations test their employees through licensed professionals at the workplace or at a CVS Pharmacy drive-thru testing location.
Organizations and schools can leverage the combined offerings, which resonate with the strengths of both the companies. Salesforce Work.com will deliver workplace operations and data insights and Return Ready by CVS Health promises customizable COVID-19 testing solutions. Additionally, the partnership provides various other solutions, such as wellness monitoring, reporting, manual contact tracing, and shift management, which will enable organizations and educational institutes to reduce the risk of coronavirus transmission.
Dr. Ashwini Zenooz, chief medical officer at Salesforce, shares, “Testing and manual contact tracing are key factors for organizations to reopen their shared locations and other shared spaces safely. Together, Salesforce and CVS Health can help organizations access solutions and services to help decrease the risks that individuals face as they transition back to their worksite and campus locations.â€
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