Salesforce San Francisco Office Reopening In May With ‘Volunteer Vaccinated Cohorts’

‘Salesforce offices have always been iconic, not only in their location and how they look, but more importantly in how they enable collaboration amongst their employees,’ says Eran Gil, CEO of Salesforce Platinum Consulting partner AllCloud.

Salesforce will reopen its San Francisco headquarters and offices in Palo Alto and Irvine, Calif., in May with a volunteer program wo while allowing employees to work from home through at least Dec. 31.

The company has already opened 22 offices, according to a Tuesday blog post by Brent Hyder, Salesforce’s president and chief people officer.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve safely had business-critical employees onsite to keep our operations running successfully,” Hyder said. “Now we’re using those learnings to inform our reopening efforts in the U.S. and in other parts of the world — not just at Salesforce, but to help our customers and other organizations looking to safely reopen.”

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Along with reopening, Salesforce will introduce a program called “Volunteer Vaccinated Cohorts” at Salesforce Tower San Francisco and its Palo Alto and Irvine offices. The program allows fully vaccinated employees to voluntarily join groups of 100 or fewer people on designated floors in certain offices, following safety protocols and health mandates. The company will have COVID-19 testing on site mandated twice weekly and COVID-19 “health officers” to assist employees and ensure the company follows safety measures.

Salesforce is following a phased reopening plan, starting with 20 percent capacity to 75 percent capacity, including vaccinated and non-vaccinated employees, depending on COVID-19 data and local guidance. Seventeen offices, most in Asia Pacific, are at this stage.

The third stage of reopening is 100 percent capacity with testing available “where possible.” Five offices, including Sydney, are at this stage. Salesforce’s investment in hybrid work has included a suite of products through Work.com to manage capacities, accounting for physical distancing and elevator bottlenecks. Employees can use Work.com to complete health check-ins and schedule office time. The company has also released a playbook for other companies to copy Salesforce’s reopening strategy.

Last year, Salesforce Platinum Consulting partner AllCloud became one of the first solution providers to participate in Salesforce’s Work.com project geared to enable businesses to safely continue operations amid the COVID-19 outbreak. AllCloud, No. 175 on CRN’s 2020 Solution Provider 500, has offices in the U.S., Canada, Israel and Europe.

On Tuesday, AllCloud CEO Eran Gil told CRN that Salesforce employees returning to the offices is important.

“Salesforce offices have always been iconic, not only in their location and how they look, but more importantly in how they enable collaboration amongst their employees,” Gil said. “Being an industry leader that‘s not afraid of firsts, it’s not surprising to see Salesforce opening their offices and providing that means of collaboration for those employees that wish to do so while still ensuring a safe and healthy environment for everyone. I think we will see many other tech giants following shortly.”

Gerry Szatvanyi, founder, president and CEO at Salesforce Platinum partner OSF, said Salesforce’s strategy was a testament to the company’s core mission.

“Salesforce treats its people very well and is mindful about its working environment,” said Szatvanyi. “The fact that it‘s opening now is a testament to this attitude. With vaccinations going up and new cases and deaths going down, we have a much safer work environment and I believe we are ready to open - albeit cautiously - our offices.”

In February, Salesforce said most employees worldwide will still have the option to work from the office one to three days a week.

Salesforce joins other vendors including Microsoft and Google in releasing new details on returning to work as COVID-19 vaccines continue to be dispersed worldwide.