Tyson Foods: How OLOID and Okta Transformed Frontline Login

At the recently concluded identity event - Oktane22, OLOID successfully presented a unique solution of converging the physical identity with digital credentials to give a passwordless means to deskless workers to login into employee applications and other interfaces.

While passwordless solutions for knowledge workers are not new, the passwordless login experience for deskless workers such as factory workers, drivers, warehouse workers, etc. remains neglected by the tech solution providers. Digital adoption among deskless workers is low because of multiple reasons, such as the lack of a data-enabled smartphone or language barriers. For many, it is the inability to remember usernames and passwords, especially when combined with complex password policies.

Tyson Foods, a Fortune 500 manufacturer, faced similar challenges. Tyson Foods is a large employer of deskless workers, and a huge section of that workforce is non-English speaking, who find it difficult to follow login instructions and use usernames-passwords to gain access to the employee applications on shared systems. The language barrier in combination with a lack of technical know-how resulted in low adoption into employee applications, such as Payroll, HR, IT, etc. They, eventually, caused delays, surging IT costs for reset passwords or login support.

And that’s where integration between OLOID and Okta, which is the world’s leading identity platform, came into the picture to simplify this complex problem. They created an effective framework by seamlessly connecting physical identity credentials such as badges and biometrics with digital authentication.

At Oktane22, Robert Fowler, Global Director for IT at Tyson Foods, spoke in detail about the challenges and the OLOID-Okta solution that benefitted the organization by creating a frictionless solution for the workforce that is not tech-savvy.

Mr. Fowler said the friction to authenticate their frontline (non-English speaking) workers to get in through the front door was too high. “At Tyson, we have a diverse workforce. Language is a challenge, and sometimes access to technology is a challenge. There are limitations as far as being able to bring any personal device to the plant. So we had  to figure out how we do better for our frontline team members because if we are going to teach them English as a second language, we have got an app for that. But the first thing you tell them is ‘go set up a complex password’, how do you even communicate,” Mr. Fowler said.

“The next problem was self-service password resets. Many of our frontline team members don't even have email addresses. So we tried one-time password cards. We were going to attach those physically to our entry badges. We also looked at this grid part of technology where you choose a grid and then enter the numbers. We looked at UB keys. We even did our own PoC with Amazon Facial Rekognition to build out the solution. What we needed was a solution for our frontline team members without passwords. That's where we've partnered with OLOID. We've been working with them on some other projects and they helped us with this solution. It's pretty simple. You just click the sign-in with the face; Allow the camera; It verifies; I do my MFA (multi-factor authentication); I am at the Okta login screen. It works on pretty much any device that has a camera,” he further explained.

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The OLOID-Okta Integration

The OLOID-Okta integration improved the overall experience for the Tyson Foods workforce. OLOID along with system integrator Optiv provided a simple and secure Facial Recognition solution with liveness detection, and a custom domain for the team members to seamlessly log in to their employee dashboard. The workforce was also given an option to ‘login with face’ on the Okta landing page along with the option to use their traditional username and password login. The simplicity of the solution led to greater adoption of employee applications and a substantial reduction in IT-support hours and costs.

The integration also provided an opportunity to connect the facial Identity of the workers with their physical badge ID, thereby further simplifying the user experience, solving multiple use cases, and improving additional enterprise-wide benefits.

“We have a variety of use cases for OLOID within our facility. Some of it is as simple as ‘I need to go view my paycheck, maybe I need to go apply for another job (on-site), change my benefits, or enroll annually in my benefits’. We have other use cases where there are job instructions on a tablet on the plant floor. The workers can't take personal devices onto the plant floor for food quality and safety issues. And so now they have tablets where they can use facial authentication, and they can get job instructions,” Mr. Fowler said.

Mr. Fowler also highlighted that Tyson Foods will continue the digital transformation and will use technology to enable their frontline workers to authenticate quickly without any friction. He further added that the OLOID-Okta integration benefited the company.

“I have a responsibility to enable our 140,000 team members to benefit from working at Tyson Foods because it's a great place to work as we continue to raise the bar on what our team members are going to be able to do, how they can learn, how they can use technology. And it (the OLOID-Okta integration solution) allows us to be able to help our frontline team members to learn, use technology, access apps, view their payroll, follow job instructions, and use apps that help them see all the lines. There are amazing things that we are able to do with our frontline team members to enable them to enjoy their work and to make Tyson a great place to work,” Mr. Fowler said.

The Okta-OLOID solution was received positively at the event. To know more about this cyber-physical convergence solution, write to us at info@oloid.ai.