Apps you may need as you return to an office

You will deliver all this information through whatever designated app or web portal the company is using, some developed internally, others from outside vendors. For example, to start using

the free ReturnSafe app that you fetch from the App Store or Google Play, you must enter a unique workplace code from your company. You then can upload vaccination cards, test results and

other information your company requires, which ReturnSafe can then verify. “As COVID becomes endemic over the next year or two, we’re going to shift in the way employers and employees

capture health data in the enterprise,” says Jason Story, cofounder of ReturnSafe. The Austin, Texas-based company lists clients such as Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Kroll, the Leukemia

& Lymphoma Society, the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association and Sesame Workshop. Employees using the IBM Digital Health Pass, also available free in the app stores,

present a QR code provided by their organization inside a digital wallet. You’ll scan that code when arriving at work. ADP, which handles the human resources and payroll functions at many

companies, added its own set of “back-to-workplace” features for clients, including compliance and readiness surveys that help the firm assess employee availability along with their

vaccination status. Based on the results, companies may move staff around to different offices or put hybrid workplace solutions in place. A question in the free ADP mobile app asks

employees whether they feel “confident/safe,” “somewhat nervous” or “anxious/unsafe” about returning to the workplace. And just before the return, people may be asked if they’ve had a fever,

cough, shortness of breath or other symptoms within the past 24 hours.  PRIVACY IS PARAMOUNT Chief Executive Sebastian Seiguer of Emocha Health, a Johns Hopkins spinoff that also produces a

health screening app, concedes that “the protocol and the technology needed” to store vaccination cards and such “is not rocket science.” But privacy is paramount. “If you tell an employee

to send you their very personal medical information in a way that you haven’t secured and that gets lost, you have a huge issue," he says. "[You have] an obligation to the employee

to protect their data.” Emocha counts the Warby Parker eyewear chain, the Clark County School District in Las Vegas and AARP among its clients. When you check in with the Emocha app at the

office, your phone will display a yellow, green or purple badge. Yellow signifies something of concern showed up in your data, meaning you should not be allowed into the office. Green means

you are good to go. And purple means you’re good to go and vaccinated. ;If you tell an employee to send you their very personal medical information in a way that you haven’t secured and that

gets lost, you have a huge issue.; — Sebastian Seiguer, Emocha Health “Some [organizations] don’t want the employee to disclose [this] status in front of other people,” Seiguer says. “In

other cases, this is actually used for some kind of access control.”