New Delhi, April 14 (IANS) Leading companies from multiple industries including Accenture, Lincoln Financial Group, ServiceNow and Verizon on Tuesday joined forces to launch an employer-to-employer initiative that brings together companies laying off or furloughing people with those companies in urgent need of workers.

Called "People + Work Connect", the platform built by Accenture is aimed at keeping people employed during the COVID-19 crisis.

"By providing real-time visibility into which companies need people and where, People + Work Connect is designed to lessen the economic and societal impacts of the virus and help us work together to make a difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people," Ellyn Shook, Accenture's Chief Leadership and Human Resources Officer, said in a statement.

From idea to launch in just 14 business days, the initiative is rapidly attracting a range of companies.

To date, participating companies include ADM, Baxter, Blue Apron, Cargill, Frito-Lay, Lincoln Financial Group, Marriott, Mondelez International, Nordstrom, ServiceNow, Walmart and Zenefits.

Additionally, more than 250 companies are expected to onboard over the next week, and the platform will soon add public sector jobs, Accenture said.

The business-to-business platform enables companies that are best positioned to rapidly share the experience and skills of their laid-off or furloughed workforces to connect at no cost with other companies on the platform that are seeking workers.

The platform is global and cross-industry to maximise the ability to deploy people with similar skills in one industry into other industries where jobs are being created.

Ultimately, this will shorten the complex, often lengthy cycle of unemployment for people. The analytics-driven platform pools non-confidential and aggregated workforce information by categories such as location and experience.

The CHROs (Chief Human Resources Officers) who are leading People + Work Connect came together to create a collaborative, inclusive community to help put people back to work quickly in areas of new opportunity.

--IANS gb/na