Leveraging Work.com to get safely back to work

As organizations move beyond the COVID-19 stabilization phase, they are being pressed to define their new operating normal. For some, this involves re-opening locations and bringing employees back into the workplace. For essential businesses that have remained open the past few months, it means reviewing the processes currently in place and adjusting to meet safety, productivity, and scalability needs. 

Many organizational leaders view the pandemic and the fallout as a pivotal moment that will dramatically alter their industry landscape. 65% of C-suite executives we surveyed believe their organizations will need to work faster and with more agility to survive, and 29% said their biggest restart challenge will be managing their business through social distancing measures. We believe the best safe workplace strategy is employee-focused, enabled by technology, and can adapt to support immediate operational needs and future business growth. 

The blueprint of short-term operations may look different based on industry, company size, or geographic distribution. But all organizations will face some common challenges in the long term, including:

• Strategic location reopening 
• Prioritizing employee safety and health 
• Enabling remote or hybrid working capabilities 
• Meeting new customer requirements and expectations 
• Business sustainment and growth
• Planning for rapid response during future uncertainties 

In the early stages of the pandemic, many organizations implemented reactionary yet necessary solutions - many of them manual or with limited capacities. Organizations are finding that they now need more scalable and sustainable solutions to elevate their safe operations. Work.com is a new platform aiming to meet those needs. 

What is Work.com? 

Work.com is a new Salesforce solution designed to help organizations reopen safely and productively while keeping employees, customers, and the community informed during and after the pandemic. 

Work.com enables rapid response planning for emergency scenarios such as natural disasters or additional COVID-19 waves. The Work.com suite of capabilities will allow organizations to better navigate and quickly emerge from emergencies by providing visibility into employee health status and helping to execute essential functions to keep employees safe. The core capabilities of Work.com include: 

• Workforce Command Center 
• Contact Tracing 
• Employee Wellness Checks 
• Workforce Reskilling 
• Shift Management and Planning 
• Emergency Response Management 
• Rapid Crisis Response
• Volunteer and Grants Management 

Pairing strategy and technology to drive safety and growth 

As a Salesforce Platinum Consulting Partner also specializing in customer experience and operations excellence, West Monroe is uniquely positioned to help businesses address areas of reopening concern, strategies to operate safely and productively, and to meet evolving customer needs. We believe a strategic lens on five focus areas, enabled with a solution like Work.com, can help organizations create a safe workplace and position themselves for growth: 

1. Stand up a health and safety taskforce - This taskforce will be instrumental in defining and implementing safety policies and procedures and managing communication to employees and customers. The Work.com Workplace Command Center, COVID-19 Data Platform, and Emergency Response Management tools can enable these activities. 
2. Listen to employees - Create multiple avenues such as meetings, townhalls, surveys for employees to share feedback. Respond to employee concerns and incorporate their feedback to enhance reopening plans. The Employee Wellness Checks component of Work.com and Salesforce platform capabilities can be used to assess employee health and ability to return to work. 
3. Implement a scalable solution - It will be essential to re-imagine processes to meet the needs of customers and employees, and smart technology investments can handle and enable many key functions such as wellness screenings, contact tracing, and schedule management. Work.com Contact Tracing and Shift Management and Planning are solutions designed to help organizations quickly and safely scale their workforce. 
4. Communicate and train - It is essential to keep employees informed, empowered, and grounded with information about business performance and new health and safety procedures. They will also need information on helpful resources and training on the new ways of operating. Invest in tools, such as the Work.com Employee Reskilling solution, to streamline communications and enable fast and easy upskilling.  
5. Develop long-term strategic vision - The economic impacts brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic will have lasting impacts, many of them permanent. Organizations need to be thinking about how they operate beyond just initial reopening or restructuring. A strategic focus must be placed on long-term health and safety, business continuity, employee productivity, and communications.

We can help 

Safe reopening and rehabilitation will be a journey, and organizations with the right people, process, tools, and information in place will be better prepared to thrive in the weeks, months, and years to come. The world needs safe operations for employees, customers, partners, and the communities they operate in - but to sustain and grow, organizations must develop a comprehensive approach to defining and executing their operations of the future. 

Contact Leann Landry to learn more about how we’re helping clients get back to work with Work.com.