Safety Check for Workplace to make it easier to help people in a crisis

Two-year-old team communication platform Workplace by Facebook, launched a safety check feature to help Workplace groups and HR professionals ensure the safety of their employees.

More than 30,000 businesses are using Workplace as an internal communications tool. It is akin to Slack, Salesforce, and Microsoft. Facebook’s Workplace has doubled its number of users in the last few months, said Julien Codorniou, Vice President of Workplace by Facebook.

HR officers can monitor whether their employees are safe --especially during emergency situations. With Workplace Chat, notification, and an email, HR team can connect with the employees who are in a crisis situation. 

It is sort of a virtual attendance system the employee can check-in and inform the employer that she or he is safe. Right now, the Safety Check for Workplace is in beta phase wherein a small group of customers is testing out the feature.  

Another feature that is designed to connect employees and employers within an organization in order to bridge the communication gap, is the group voice and video chat facility. With more organizations adopting a remote workforce, the need for face-to-face interaction is still strong.

Voice and video chats help in building the direct connection in a remote workplace and also interact with global teams easily. Walmart, Starbucks, Delta Airlines and Virgin Atlantic are among the companies using the Workplace tool, says Facebook in a blog post.

The spark to develop Safety Check feature originated in a company-wide hackathon in London. It also happens to be the first engineering product of Facebook that started out overseas. The original engineering team manages the whole tool, software and product development of Workplace.

The line of new customers of Workplace includes Vodafone, GSK, Telefonica and Chevron. Safety Check for Workplace is currently used internally and by a small group of beta customers. Overall, Facebook said there are 30,000 companies currently using Workplace, with new customers Vodafone, GSK, Telefonica, and Chevron announced today.