Salesforce Technology & Scaled Health Protocols Help 5,000 Employees Get Together Safely

Salesforce recently welcomed nearly 5,000 employees from around the world to the Javits Center in New York City — and about 70,000 more online — to kick off the company’s new year. For three days, employees gathered in-person and virtually to connect to the company culture, align on its vision, and chart a course for the year ahead.

What’s the impact: Safety was Salesforce’s number one value while hosting the in-person attendees. The company deployed its new Safety Cloud, which streamlines COVID-19 testing and health status reporting on a single platform, to implement rigorous testing and other health and safety protocols before and during the event.

Using Safety Cloud scaled this process for more than 5,000 registrants, catching positive cases ahead of time and issuing Dreampasses that allowed attendees to enter the event freely following negative tests each day.

Driving the news: After two years of working remotely, Salesforce employees reported that getting together with their teams in person was a top priority. Salesforce responded, finding ways to empower teams to connect safely. Since August 2021, the company has used its events playbook to safely bring together more than 500 employees for its leadership team offsite, 2,000 people for Dreamforce in San Francisco, and 3,000 people for Dreamforce in NYC.

Scaled sequential testing is an integral part of the company’s strategy, with negative test results required for all attendees. At the company kickoff event, employees attending in person took COVID-19 tests in advance of the event and in their hotel rooms each morning, with results sent securely to Safety Cloud.

“Culture has never been more important. When we get together safely, we re-ignite our culture and leave energized and inspired,” said Sarah Franklin, President and Chief Marketing Officer, Salesforce. “By using rigorous protocols, sequential testing and technology like Safety Cloud, we were able to celebrate, learn from and connect with colleagues from across the globe, helping strengthen our personal and professional bonds and kick off what promises to be an amazing new year at Salesforce.”

The data: In total, Safety Cloud reported:

4,736 employees attended the event at the Javits Center.
57 total and confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 at the event – a 1.2% positive result, lower than the then-current 3.3% positive rate in New York City. Those with a positive test were not allowed into the event space but were provided with support services during their isolation period.
38 confirmed positive COVID-19 cases before traveling to New York City, who then did not make the trip.

Zoom out: Testing and automation are critical in bringing people back together safely at scale. With Safety Cloud, organizations of all types can easily scale COVID-19 testing and health status collection. It helps automate COVID-19 health and safety protocols, collect and verify health status like test results, vaccination records, and health attestations, and provide entry to the physical space based upon negative test results.