Workday, IBM Roll Out Solution to Aid Workplace Reopening

Workday and IBM announced a joint solution that combines their technologies to help businesses plan and monitor workplace reopenings. Their approach combines planning capabilities with employee, health and workplace data, the companies said. 

At the core of the package is Workday Adaptive Planning, which offers planning and modeling capabilities, and Workday HCM, which provides data and analysis around employee sentiment. It’s joined with IBM Watson Works, a suite that uses AI models to help companies determine when to bring workers back and help manage employee access.   

Going forward, Workday and IBM Services will work with customers on planning, program and implementation tasks.

Data-Influenced Workplace Reopening

Workday and IBM said their solution is designed to facilitate return-to-workplace planning that balances workspace demand with reduced capacity. Their approach incorporates continually changing data, which can be gathered from multiple sources. Using the tools, employers can:

• Model site capacity and evaluate employee roles and eligibility for return. By examining different scenarios, employers can anticipate demand for space and consider its use in the context of reduced site capacity driven by safety guidelines. 
• Assess community risk and workplace readiness. Identify Covid-19 trends for each location, as well as where workers live, as they plan facility re-openings.
• Manage PPE supplies by tracking availability and use by location.
• Monitor workforce sentiment and model scenarios using data on workers’ preferences, sentiments and concerns, gathered from survey data and stated preferences.
• Compile and publish site-readiness and safety data and use it planning. Employers can also review community risk trends and assess workers’ self-reported health status.

Workday’s Kshitij Dayal, general manager for planning products, said the companies’ solution will help companies manage “the complexities of integrating real-time site and worker data in a way they’ve never needed to before.”

“By partnering with Workday on a joint solution, we’re extending the capabilities delivered by Watson Works to help customers gain greater agility to respond to ever-changing working conditions and evolving business needs,” said Kareem Yusuf, general manager of AI Applications at IBM Cloud and Cognitive Software.

Workday had already announced an integration with Salesforce to help joint customers plan for safe reopening. That integration links the platform with Salesforce’s Work.com, which includes tools for employee wellness assessment, shift management, contact tracing and emergency response management.

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Image: IBM