Workday & IBM offer AI solution for safe return to work

Workday and IBM have announced a joint solution to help business and organisation leaders plan, schedule and monitor a safe return to the workplace for employees. The integrated planning solution combines the “power of Workday and IBM Watson-Enabled AI” to help organisations reopen safely amid the pandemic.

As organisations begin to address how to prioritise safety in bringing employees back to the workplace, they must consider a myriad of factors, including health, local guidelines, governmental policies, employee sentiment, facility readiness and personal protective equipment (PPE). Every organisation has a unique strategy that must be mapped to their specific facilities and workforce requirements, according to IBM and Workday. So they have joined forces to provide a solution that will not only support, but accelerate the return of customers and employees to their workplace.

SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION

“Today’s CHROs are now challenged with managing the complexities of integrating real-time site and worker data in a way they’ve never needed to before, moving workforce planning from strategic to mission critical nearly overnight,” commented Kshitij Dayal, General Manager, Planning Products at Workday. “Combining the power of Workday – including Workday Adaptive Planning to create comprehensive plans and models – with IBM Watson Works can help accelerate customers’ return to workplace planning with a sustainable solution to balance workforce and workplace supply and demand in the ever-changing world.”

The integrated Workday and IBM solution is designed to deliver comprehensive return to workplace planning that balances workspace demand, by location and site, against the supply of reduced facility capacity. It can help businesses and organisations to:

• Model site capacity and evaluate employee roles and eligibility for return to the workplace. Model scenarios to plan the demand for workspace against supply, given reduced site capacity based on health and safety guidelines, and model prioritisation of the return of workers based on job roles and eligibility. 
• Assess community risk and workplace readiness. Identify COVID-19 trends for each business location and where workers live to enable site leaders, HR leaders, and workforce and workplace planners to use data-driven insights to help make decisions and plans around facility re-openings. 
• Plan for critical supplies. Track critical supplies by location to help ensure there is enough PPE – such as masks, gloves, and sanitizer – available for workers at each location and to maintain inventory. 
• Evaluate workforce sentiment to inform return to work demand. Model return-to-workplace scenarios using data on workers’ preferences, sentiments, and concerns, gleaned from survey data and their preferences for work location such as on site, work from home, or hybrid. 
• Continuously provide site readiness and worker health and safety data to customers to inform return to workplace plans. Leverage community risk score trends in real time to help leaders make timely decisions to sequence the return to the workplace. As an extended capability, customers can also assess workers’ self-reported health status and ongoing eligibility.

PRIORITISING STAFF SAFETY

“Keeping employees safe during the return to workplace process is of critical importance to business leaders across industries,” stated Kareem Yusuf, General Manager, AI Applications at IBM Cloud and Cognitive Software. “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.

“Together we are helping organisations overcome the complexities involved in continuous planning to ultimately improve workplace readiness.”

For more information about the integrated solution, click here.