Enterprise SaaS Workplace Safety Salesforce

Salesforce —
Success From Anywhere.

Designing a safe, flexible, and purposeful return to office experience for 79,000 Salesforce Employees during the Covid-19 global pandemic.

79K
Employees Served
84
Global Offices
6
Design Sprints
58
Hours of Research Conducted
5
Pilot Regions
Salesforce Success from Anywhere
Client
Salesforce
Role
Executive Design Director, IBM Consulting + IBM Garage Program Lead
Scope
79,000 employees, 84 offices, global deployment
Deliverables
Global Pandemic return-to-office program design and validation
Methods
Agile Design Sprints Stakeholder Co-Design Compliance Mapping Accessibility Enterprise Design Thinking

The Challenge

During the COVID pandemic, when Salesforce began planning its return to the office, it faced a challenge no enterprise had solved at scale: how do you design a safe, flexible, purposeful in-office experience for 79,000 people across five countries with wildly different cultural expectations around work?

Existing tools were clunky and friction-heavy — employees described the return-to-office experience as "convoluted and annoying." With a no-show rate above 20%, leadership knew that a better experience wasn't a nice-to-have. It was critical to maintaining culture, collaboration, and connection globally.

Salesforce Success from Anywhere

The solution

We designed a research-first, global-first return-to-office experience backed by real employee insights. Across 6 agile design sprints, we conducted 50+ research interviews across five countries and seven distinct roles, developed geo-specific personas, and validated prototypes through rapid iteration cycles.

This wasn't a generic template adapted for regions. This was a framework built on the insight that employees in Tokyo have entirely different return-to-office concerns than those in San Francisco. We built regional nuance into the design from the start — not bolted it on at the end.

Salesforce Success from Anywhere research
Geo-specific Personas and Insights Built from 50+ Interviews in 5 Regions

What I did

As Executive Design Director and IBM Garage Program Lead, I built and led a research-first program that moved beyond surface-level feedback to uncover the behavioral and cultural patterns that would shape a globally scalable product.

🏗️
Designed a Research-First Program Structure

Built a structured 6-sprint framework that front-loaded discovery before a single screen was sketched. Sprint 1 was dedicated entirely to generative research — establishing the behavioral and cultural foundation every subsequent decision was built on.

🌍
Delivered Geo-Specific Research at Scale

Led 50+ employee interviews across five countries and seven distinct roles — embedding in each region to understand how local culture, commute patterns, and work norms shaped return-to-office expectations. Global design, grounded in local truth.

🎯
Translated Research into Product Strategy

Synthesized all insights into a coherent product vision Salesforce could take to market. Three design principles — Purposeful, Flexible, and Safe & In Control — became the north star for Safety Cloud's positioning and feature prioritization.

🧪
Solved the Ecosystem Question Through Testing

Conducted Sprint 5 ecosystem analysis with 17 users across three geographies, testing the app, Slack, and Google Calendar side by side — directly shaping Safety Cloud's decision to build a dedicated, mobile-first application experience.

🗺️
Created the Golden Thread Service Blueprint

Synthesized all research, prototypes, and learnings into a comprehensive service blueprint that aligned Salesforce's global leadership, product, IT, HR, and facilities teams around a single shared vision — becoming the roadmap for Safety Cloud development.

🚀
Drove Prototype Validation to Product Launch

Facilitated final user testing and directly socialized findings with executive leadership and product teams. The validated prototypes became the proof of concept that justified Safety Cloud's investment and shaped the February 2022 launch.

What we delivered

Three principles. Five experience moments. One coherent journey.

From the research, we defined three design principles used as decision filters across every sprint: Purposeful — every trip needs a "why"; Flexible — serve remote, hybrid, and in-office employees equally; and Safe & In Control — transparency builds confidence, not mandates.

These principles mapped directly to five experience moments we designed end to end:

Five experience moments

01
Onboard
02
Plan
03
Arrive
04
Work
05
Depart

The final validated experience included personalized desk booking with interactive floor maps, teammate visibility integrated with Slack and Google Calendar, seamless health and safety flows, and workspace manager dashboards — all connected through a Golden Thread service blueprint that aligned Salesforce's global leadership, product, IT, HR, and facilities teams around a single shared vision.

The result was a blueprint that could be adapted, scaled, and referenced for any enterprise wrestling with the same challenge — and became the foundation for Salesforce's commercially-launched Safety Cloud product.

Salesforce Success from Anywhere
Five Experience Moments. One Seamless Return-to-Office Journey.
Salesforce Success from Anywhere v8
Seamless check-in and guided wayfinding
Salesforce Success from Anywhere v9
Real-time Analytics Dashboard for Facility Managers

Product features and benefits

✅
Health Attestation & Check-In

Frictionless daily health check-in for employees — with smart routing based on attestation status, reducing physical congestion and enabling facility teams to proactively manage capacity.

📅
Desk & Room Booking

Integrated workspace booking that enforced distancing policies automatically — letting employees plan their office days with confidence while giving facility managers real-time floor visibility.

📊
Facility Management Dashboard

Real-time occupancy monitoring, capacity enforcement, and incident response tools — giving facility managers the visibility they needed to run safe buildings without manual coordination.

🔒
Compliance & Audit Reporting

Aggregate wellness data, contact tracing logs, and compliance reports — giving HR and legal teams audit-ready documentation that held up to regulatory scrutiny across all jurisdictions.

Measurable impact and value delivered

From employee research to enterprise product.

On February 1, 2022, Salesforce launched Safety Cloud — a comprehensive platform that translated our research findings into a scalable product for enterprises worldwide. The platform enabled organizations to manage COVID-19 testing, health status verification, event entry protocols, and workplace access control from a single unified experience.

Salesforce Safety Cloud Video

How our research shaped Safety Cloud

The three core design principles we validated through employee research became the architectural foundation for Safety Cloud:

🎯
Purposeful

Clear health & safety context — not mandates. Users understand the "why" behind every protocol.

🔄
Flexible

Works for events, workplaces, and mixed scenarios — adapts to evolving guidelines without friction.

🛡️
Safe & In Control

Secure credential verification and transparent health status integration — confidence through clarity.

79K
Employees Served
84
Global Offices
6
Design Sprints
58
Hours of Research Conducted
5
Pilot Regions
"Oh my God, this is exactly what I would want to see… This is like selecting a seat on an airplane and gives me all the information I need to make an informed choice."
— Operations Director, Salesforce
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