Citrix has 60 offices in 43 countries with a total of 83 buildings. To deliver a great employee experience across that footprint, especially now, it’s critical for us to meet our employees where they are and prioritize local safety requirements in our ever-changing work environment. As a part of this effort, we announced our new Back to Office resource center in June as companies around the world started to prepare for the new normal of serving employees both in the office and remotely.

The majority of our workforce are still working safely from home, but we do have a small amount of offices open in the areas of the world where COVID-19 is under control so employees can connect in person, in the office, or from home, depending on the individual’s needs.

At Citrix we try to find ways to leverage our own technology to solve new and emerging business challenges. As part of our back-to-office efforts, we’re using Citrix Workspace to deliver the right tools for our employees to feel safe and to ensure they meet self-certification and feedback requirements before entering one of our offices. We have developed a back-to-office workflow that we’re leveraging ourselves and using as an example to show customers how they can support a safe, secure, and modern employee experience.

Because we can quickly create and deploy workflows, our IT, Facility, Compliance, and HR teams are always in compliance with ever-changing requirements and can meet employees where they are. There’s no need for an employee to access another platform or app to submit feedback or to certify that they comply with local safety requirements. It’s all done in the context of Citrix Workspace from the web, a desktop machine, or the mobile app.

Here are a few highlights from Citrix leaders who are overseeing our internal deployment.

“Having an app to ensure employees thoughtfully check health status prior to entering our sites is a key part of delivering a healthy and safe environment.” — Jenna Geigerman, Director of Facilities and Real Estate:

“I am truly excited that we can leverage Citrix technology for the Return-to-Office project. The microapp was easy to implement. The Citrix Workspace App helps raise awareness of Citrix’s Return to Office Health and Safety Protocol and gives assurances to our employees that everyone in the office adheres to the same standard.” — Angie Au-Yong: VP, Chief Compliance Officer

We’re using Citrix’s microapps service in combination with our work management solution Citrix Podio to capture records for employees and keep data in a safe, compliant environment to support the best possible employee experience, alongside business requirements for the right level of auditing and reporting. Employees can use Citrix Workspace to self-certify that they comply with our safety requirements before entering an office. We also offer a public webform for contractors or visitors to certify, without using the internal Citrix Workspace app.

The employee experience is trust based — with the ability to certify to health guidelines using a quick action, localized depending on country and local requirements. In this way, employees only need to select their location and will get a custom health statement based on their country with the option to “agree” and get a certificate in the Citrix Workspace mobile app or email to verify agreement. Here what some of our colleagues around the world are saying about the app:

”It was great we could use our technology not only to enable people to work from home, but also to return to the office when possible. With the app, employees are reminded on daily basis to assess their health and other risk factors to make sure they do not put their colleagues at risk. The app does exactly what we planned — it serves as a self-certification. It encourages individual responsibility, clearly states the conditions, and quite simply allows everyone to perform all steps.” – Simona Koszty, HR Business Partner

“The response Citrix itself had in the context that was changing from one day to another was a true testimony of business agility for me. As the rules and regulations changed from geography to geography — thus from one Citrix office to another — the moment we were able to enter the phased return to the office (in Prague), we had the “protocol” and company support in the shape of a microapp ready. With a matter of few simple clicks, we could take our bit of responsibility while feeling ‘taken care of.’ The worry would stay on the other side of the door, and we could proceed to just do our best work.” — Danijela Nandi, Senior Product Manager

Next to the internal rollout, our open platform capabilities enable partners to deliver custom solutions for customers around the world. Learn how Citrix Solution Advisor Brick Bridge Consulting is using Citrix Workspace to deliver a back-to-office solution:

Other examples include our longtime partner HPE PointNext, which developed a back-to-office solution leveraging Citrix and their own technology services to enable intelligent office and facilities management.

In addition to the self-certification app used internally at Citrix, we are rolling out options to broadcast training information and streamline communications and are leveraging Podio to surface quick polls and surveys in Citrix Workspace to help users discover relevant information for their work and submit feedback using a quick action. I look forward to sharing more detail on these use cases in a future blog post.

We want to learn more about how we can help support your workforce and help you to offer the best possible employee experience. And I hope it was helpful to learn about how we’re levering our own technology at Citrix to empower our employees. Make sure to check out our Back to Office resource center for more information.