Xerox announced the launch of its Team Availability App, a quick-to-deploy, real-time solution for organisations that need to understand employee availability and location. Knowing where and whether employees are working is critical to managing flexible work environments, where the percentage of employees sharing time between home and work locations grows. 

Organisations are actively supporting and investing in technology solutions for a hybrid workforce. A recent global business survey commissioned by Xerox shows 58% of respondents plan to change their work from home policy within the next year. This new acceptance of a hybrid workforce has also revealed technology gaps, with companies increasing investment in remote technology resources (55%) or a hybrid of remote and in-office resources (40%). 

"Managing a distributed workforce during a continued pandemic presents unique challenges no organisation has experienced before," said Joanne Collins Smee, executive vice president and chief commercial, SMB and channels officer, Xerox. "Organisations need to know who is available and where so they can make better decisions when allocating resources and work. This tool provides real-time knowledge to managers with distributed employee populations." 

Unlike other attendance management tools, which need to plug into IT infrastructure and take weeks to implement, the Team Availability App is ready in just hours. Once populated, the app provides authorised users with customisable and privacy-protected data for strategic decision making. Xerox is rolling out the app across the company to support its Path Forward plans to manage a phased approach to returning to the workplace safely. Xerox is leveraging the app with its own employee population to conduct daily health checks for exposure related to COVID-19. Tracking of this activity allows for a safe and phased return to the workplace. 

The U.K.'s prestigious Imperial NHS Trust was the first organisation to pilot the Xerox Team Availability App to access the status of essential workers across the Trust and its newly assigned locations at the height of the pandemic.

"It's important for a healthcare provider to know which caregivers are available when to support patients, and that's even more critical in a pandemic," said Linda Watts, joint clinical systems programme manager, Imperial NHS Trust & Chelsea & Westminster NHS Foundation Trust, head of health records, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. "The Xerox Team Availability App was deployed at lightning speed, and we got updates from staff on their availability in real-time. As a result, we could always make sure our patients were covered." 

The Xerox Team Availability App is a GDPR-compliant SaaS offering with a subscription-based model that allows customers to sign up for as long as required. It's available now on the App Store and Google Play Store.