Using technology to help businesses reopen safely. https://accntu.re/3sduWRu

1. STORIES
Using technology to help
businesses reopen safely
Platform-
powered IT

2. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Catalyst
for change
Technology has been instrumental
in helping organizations to
weather the pandemic storm. From
enabling remote work, to
dovetailing with human ingenuity
to provide a vaccine in a timely
way, technology has proven itself
to be a catalyst for change.
Now, as organizations emerge from
this health and humanitarian crisis
across the world, technology is
helping businesses to reopen safely.
What’s more, technology is offering
an opportunity to discover “why”
people decide to visit the office,
not simply “when.” Collaborating
with our tried and tested
technology partner Salesforce,
we’ve extended its existing
solution Work.com—a purpose-
built app to protect employees and
customers with safer
workplaces—to meet our specific
needs. We wanted to improve
case management, arrange office
visits, enhance analytics and
records and make sure that
people can collaborate fully while
following the correct health and
safety protocols and protecting
sensitive and private data.
By aligning with a technology
solution that can support our
business through these tough times,
we have been able to develop an
integrated approach that can be
customized locally to better fit the
needs of individual offices.
And we can better ride the wave
of a changing landscape as we
embrace demands around testing
and vaccine requirements alongside
easing the transition to a new model
for the future of work.
“Economies across the
world recognize that
COVID-19 is going to
continue to disrupt our
lives for some time to
come. With this platform-
powered approach, we’re
not only simplifying a
return to the office,
but also protecting the
safety and well-being of
our people.”
ARLIN PEDRICK
Chief Security Officer, Accenture
Call for change

3. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Frictionless
experiences
When tech meets human ingenuity
Early in the pandemic, we developed a detailed plan on
office safety protocols. But we knew we needed to scale
that plan for higher volumes of people returning to
offices as the pandemic abated.
In particular, we wanted a solution to support our safety
protocols through close contact management, wellness
surveys, managing capacity for an office and supporting
vaccination, testing and upload. We needed to be able to
customize the solution by location across the world. And
we had to enable new ways to support our people and
our business in response to the ever-changing nature of
the pandemic.
Already teaming with Salesforce in other areas of the
business, we decided to customize its Work.com solution
and integrate it with our other tools and platforms so that it
could support the return to office experience. The cloud-
based digital delivery platform consists of six modules: case
management, capacity management, wellness surveys,
experience cloud, command center and vaccination tracking
(Figure 1).

4. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
When tech meets human ingenuity
Figure 1. Powering our return to office
We began by initiating the case
management aspect of the app in November
2020 to document and track those exposed
to COVID-19 once a case is reported. We
customized the standard Work.com solution
to introduce the use of case objects, such as
service cloud, to support our business needs.
Service cloud enabled us to take advantage
of features such as case management,
queues, email templates, activity tracking
and follow-up processes to support the
health and safety of our employees. The
case management approach was rolled out
in just 10 weeks across the majority of our
offices worldwide.
By March 2021 we were using the solution
for additional features including office visits,
capacity planning and returning to the client
in a limited number of geographies. We
needed to take into account all the variables
of running our global business—different
languages, working styles, cultures, legal
and data privacy variations.

5. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Here’s some of the solution functionality and
how it impacts the return to office process:
When tech meets human ingenuity
The capacity management module was the biggest
deviation from the standard Work.com solution. Based on
how we operate, we wanted a capacity-based approach so
that employees could request a type of workspace for a
given location, date and time. Once this has been initiated,
we need to route these requests so that the location
geography can review and approve the business needs
while meeting local capacity guidelines for that particular
office. In this way, we can better plan resource capacity to
ensure the maximum capacity isn’t exceeded and spread
out our workstations.
Employee wellness surveys are used throughout the
process to support approvals of who can enter the
Accenture offices. Every employee and visitor, subject to
local guidelines, receives a health survey for every visit; this
enables us to address health and safety issues and advise
on our standards. We even integrate these surveys with our
check-in kiosks to facilitate a smoother, touch-free check-in
process. Many countries use the global survey but we are
also able to customize the questions and responses at the
country level to comply with legal, regulatory and policy
specific needs.
We also introduced the experience cloud capability in
Salesforce to create a central, customized landing page.
This page enables Accenture people to make and edit a
reservation request, upload vaccine records and test results
and search for the status in the majority of Accenture
office locations.
Our command center provides real-time dashboards to
display and aggregate metrics and enable the Accenture
leadership to make decisions that are quick and effective.
Some of the metrics in the command center include the
number of cases reported across regions and aggregated
globally and office status (how many people are requesting
entry to our facilities and which requests are approved).
More recently, we’ve added vaccination and test tracking
that indicates the number of vaccine records and antigen
test results uploaded securely in line with country-specific
guidelines and where required by local protocols.
To create a frictionless experience, Accenture built-in
several ways to complete each step in the return to office
process. Let’s imagine following employee Peter from
Chicago, Illinois, United States. He initiates a return to
office request which is automatically checked against open
cases to ensure compliance, manage test results and
vaccination records and is routed for approval and
capacity management purposes. He is notified of the
return approval and given an approval number.
Following the approval email, Peter can click on a link and
is directed to an Accenture chat bot which has
prepopulated information to make a room reservation. By
integrating with Microsoft Teams, how Peter normally
works, he’s able to easily make choices around his visit
period, the floor and type of space. In locations where
required, a wellness survey is sent prior to check-in to
ensure compliance with health and safety.
Once Peter is within half a mile of the office, he checks in via
a mobile app, by email, or using a QR code that is scanned
at the office kiosk. Whichever method is selected, the check-
in process is automated. The system lets the onsite
workplace team know that Peter has checked in, helping
to support office safety by confirming who is in the office
and when.

6. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
The role of change
and adoption
When tech meets human ingenuity
Accenture takes a human-first
approach, inspiring Accenture
employees to embrace change,
adopt new behaviors and make full
use of technology to deliver the best
value. This modern change
management approach is the
foundation of our change and
adoption strategy for the return to
office program. We focused on
stakeholder engagement, making
sure that leaders understood their
role in sponsoring change in their
own country. Marketing and HR
teams were tasked with sending
clear communications to our people,
while all stakeholders were informed
about new processes, tools and
system enhancements.
We adopted an approach where
continuous improvement means
we can easily adapt to feedback or
changes in process requirements.
We set up a Yammer community for
workplace teams to share feedback
on office experiences and track
what’s happening.
And we made sure that our global
approach to change and adoption is
locally influenced and led. From
stakeholder engagement sessions to
communications and training, we’ve
tailored global requirements to local
needs, making the content more
relevant to people’s experiences.
Technology adoption is only as
successful the people who use it.
We keep a close eye on the metrics
behind the response to our return to
office processes and share them
with leaders to inform and
encourage compliance.

7. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Centralized
and flexible
A valuable difference
By adapting the out-of-the-box Work.com
solution we have been able to develop one
unified, integrated approach that makes
use of our existing standards and tools.
For instance, we integrate with Microsoft
Teams to provide a chatbot experience
that enables our people to make room
reservations, integrate with the check-in kiosk
application and send wellness surveys to
everyone, including visitors, among other
activities. All of these functions are easy to
initiate on a platform that is secure, scalable
and able to grow.
We looked at processes that can realize quick
wins, such as case management which we have
deployed in many locations to achieve the most
value as quickly as possible. In just over a year,
we have created a groundbreaking solution that
serves multiple business departments. A
centralized platform offers a coordinated
approach that is closely aligned with our strategy
and business objectives—in particular,
supporting the safety and well-being of our
people. What’s more, we’ve implemented the
solution in 40 countries and enabled more than
400 locations with a digital check-in tool.

8. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Accenture has evolved the Work.com
solution to achieve:
A valuable difference
Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Global plus local benefits—we have moved carefully and thoughtfully with global
recommendations that can be adapted at a local level to plan and prepare for office visits.
Boosts to buy-in—visible leadership buy-in and regular communications have helped to
reassure and inform our people quickly.
Customization and collaboration—the solution has been adapted to focus on the universal
safety of our people, in the office or in remote work environments.
Tech-enabled scale—we provide enhanced experiences, support and resources for our
people across the world.
Greater flexibility—we prioritized functionality based on business need, using our own
methodologies where necessary to gain value sooner.
Going forward, we are tackling other aspects of the work environment, such as how we
support our delivery centers and further automate certain features. Also, we aim to enhance
the flexibility of the solution and undertake regular checkpoints to be sure we remain aligned
to the overall Accenture strategy.

9. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Copyright © 2022 Accenture.
All rights reserved.
Accenture and its logo
are trademarks of Accenture.
About Accenture
Accenture is a global professional services company with leading
capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Combining unmatched
experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries,
we offer Strategy and Consulting, Interactive, Technology and
Operations services — all powered by the world’s largest network of
Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. Our
699,000 people deliver on the promise of technology and human
ingenuity every day, serving clients in more than 120 countries. We
embrace the power of change to create value and shared success
for our clients, people, shareholders, partners and communities.
Visit us at www.accenture.com.
Contact
Deb Exstrom
Managing Director
Human Resources
Global Strategic Programs
Arlin Pedrick
Chief Security Officer
Lisette Smyrnios
Managing Director
Global Workplace
/deb-exstrom
/arlin-pedrick
/lisette-smyrnios
Melissa Summers
Managing Director
Global IT
Corporate Technology
Sara Lake
Director
Global IT
Corporate Technology
Jason Pucker
Director
Global IT
Corporate Technology,
Journey & Change Management
/melissa-summers
/sarah-lake
/jason-pucker