10 Years of CAREforce: What Salesforce Has Learned About Building a Safety Culture

He almost skipped the class, and that could have been a tragedy. Dan Krewson took the simple action of signing up for first-aid training through a Salesforce program called CAREforce. But the day arrived and work got super busy. Did his supervisor want him to skip the class to focus on work? No, said his boss. It's important; go take it.

That same evening, his wife had a stroke. "Thanks to what I learned during that class, I was able to get her immediate medical attention," Krewson later recalled. "I'm eternally thankful to him for saying that. It just shows the culture in this company is really about caring for other people and taking care of one another." His wife has since made a full recovery.

Another former Salesforce employee attended Salesforce's Emergency Preparedness Week and changed all of her fire alarms and extinguishers as soon as she got home. Shortly after, her husband used the extinguisher to put out a fire that could have burned her house to the ground.

I've never been more proud to be part of an organization that protects its people as fiercely as it protects its technology.

These stories - and there are hundreds of them - are born out of an employee engagement program that quietly, persistently equips people to show up for themselves, for their families, and for each other through simple actions. That's the heart of CAREforce, Salesforce's global health and safety program, which turns 10 years old this month. Over the past decade, it's grown from scrappy beginnings into a global movement that spans multiple continents and has touched tens of thousands of employees along the way. This is the story of how it happened - and what comes next.

The genesis

CAREforce grew out of a simple observation. A decade ago, Karl Huntzicker, VP of Global Health & Safety, recognized that traditional safety models - rules, compliance checklists, the occasional mandatory training - weren't built for a modern technology company. Employees didn't see themselves as safety actors. "They care about each other; they care for their safety," he recalled, "but they really didn't have the means to turn that into action. For our program to be successful, employee engagement was essential. However, we quickly realized that traditional means of engagement were ineffective. We knew every employee cared, but the challenge was turning that inherent care into active engagement. The answer? Simple actions."

That insight became the founding principle of CAREforce: Don't broadcast rules.
Equip every employee with the tools, education, and resources to care for one another - building a Salesforce where people don't just show up for work but show up for each other.

CAREforce is organized around four calls to action:

Communicate. Employees are empowered to report unsafe conditions, accidents, and near misses and to keep emergency contact information current - a small step that can matter enormously in a crisis.

Assist. This call to action is about building a genuine culture of mutual support and looking out for one another, backed up by real resources: international medical and security assistance for traveling employees, evacuation support, and a Hardship Relief Fund for those facing unexpected personal crises.

Respond. Empowering employees with the knowledge, tools, and resources to take lifesaving action when it matters most - from knowing evacuation routes and keeping emergency kits at home to volunteering as part of onsite Emergency Response Teams.

Educate. Equipping every employee with the knowledge and skills to prevent incidents before they happen - through accessible, continuous learning that spans mental wellbeing, workplace safety, self-defense, and more.

A decade of impact

In FY26 alone, CAREforce held over 700 trainings attended by more than 27,000 employees. Global campaigns around Emergency Preparedness Month engaged more than 5,000 employees through onsite fairs and events. Blood drives at Salesforce offices worldwide brought in over 2,400 donors, with the potential to save up to 5,825 lives. And 97% of employees in a Great Place to Work survey agreed that Salesforce is a physically safe place to work - the company's highest-rated statement across all countries and demographics.

But some of the most telling numbers are about what happens when employees hit hard times. Among CAREforce Hardship Relief Fund recipients, 90% have expressed a desire to continue their employment after receiving support, and 87% have maintained productivity after receiving assistance grants.

This culture of empowered care has become one of Salesforce's greatest assets. As Rhonda Michalec, the leader of Global Recruiting for Technology, Product, and Customer Success, notes, CAREforce is a significant competitive advantage. "It's pretty darn incredible to work for a company where you can personally feel that someone's looking out for you, looking out for your safety, for your wellbeing," she said. "And not just while you're at work but for your families, for the ones that you love the most, and your time that's even away from the office. It is truly a reason people join Salesforce."

One example: When Mallikarjuna Burra and his family were in a serious car accident in March 2025, his leadership escalated the situation to CAREforce in minutes. The CAREforce team maintained constant contact, helped coordinate complex logistics, worked to adjust insurance coverage for mounting hospital expenses, and processed a hardship relief grant for additional medical costs. "You turned one of the most traumatic days of our lives into a story of support, compassion, and community," Burra said afterward. "I've never been more proud to be part of an organization that protects its people as fiercely as it protects its technology."

What comes next

Over the years, CAREforce has evolved to meet employees wherever they are - from email to Chatter to Slack. Now, as Salesforce leads the shift to the Agentic Enterprise, the program is evolving again. Safety guidance, hardship resources, and emergency response tools are being woven directly into the employee experience through Slack and the AI-powered tools employees already use every day - so that taking that "simple action," the kind Krewson took in 2017, is easier and more intuitive than ever.

That evolution runs on three tracks. The first is operational: The Global Safety & Security team manages all day-to-day casework - employee injuries, illnesses, workplace incidents - in Agentforce Service, giving the team a single source of truth for every case and built-in service level agreements to ensure no one falls through the cracks.

The second is ambient: Through Slackbot, Salesforce's AI-powered superagent, employees can ask directly for weather and disaster safety resources, ergonomics tips, emergency procedures, and more and get a grounded answer instantly - no separate app, no hunting through an intranet.

The third track is proactive. Using Slack, Salesforce now delivers targeted, regional safety messages to employees in high-risk areas ahead of major seasonal threats - tornado season, hurricane season, extreme heat, wildfires - getting critical information to people before disaster strikes, not after.

By putting safety guidance, hardship resources, and emergency response tools directly into the hands of every employee instantly and intelligently, Salesforce is making it easier than ever for an employee to take that "simple action" that changes everything.

"A program like this has certain compliance elements, of course," said Sabastian Niles, President and Chief Legal Officer. "But what strikes me most is that you also see it as a genuine commitment to our people and to each other. That mindset is always what makes the difference. It's what allows Salesforce to operate with integrity everywhere we do business."

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