Trends, Product and Industry Insights to Help Create Your HR Tomorrow, Today.

All good business cases should have a plan, timeline, and budget that are realistic and defendable. You should also tie the plan to your company’s overall business strategy. Learn how to structure your business case with Matt Richards, Managing Director, KPMG LLC.

All good business cases should have a plan, timeline, and budget that are realistic and defendable. You should also tie the plan to your company’s overall business strategy. Learn how to...

Finance and human resources functions have traditionally run their own systems (often on-premises), data, and processes. Not only does this lead to process roadblocks (as described above), it creates challenges for senior leadership—who struggle with incomplete or competing views when trying to track budgets, salaries, bonuses, commissions, and benefits. Walk through the benefits of a join roll out with Oracle Partner, IBM.

Finance and human resources functions have traditionally run their own systems (often on-premises), data, and processes. Not only does this lead to process roadblocks (as described above), it...

In an increasingly competitive talent environment, companies need to do these 5 things to differentiate themselves.

In an increasingly competitive talent environment, companies need to do these 5 things to differentiate themselves.

In the Let Employee Engagement Be Your Digital Innovation Lab podcast, Emily He, SVP product marketing for HCM, and Jon Huang, senior director of product management, discuss the growing importance of emerging technologies in today’s human resources organizations

In the Let Employee Engagement Be Your Digital Innovation Lab podcast, Emily He, SVP product marketing for HCM, and Jon Huang, senior director of product management, discuss the growing importance of...

Future Talks -- a new video series featuring Oracle EVP of Apps - Steve Miranda, and Constellation Research Analyst and co-founder, Ray Wang. Discussing what's new in Oracle's cloud products.

Future Talks -- a new video series featuring Oracle EVP of Apps - Steve Miranda, and Constellation Research Analyst and co-founder, Ray Wang. Discussing what's new in Oracle's cloud products.

Oracle HCM Cloud 2018 Fall Product Update Key Innovations to Make Work More Human

Oracle HCM Cloud 2018 Fall Product Update Key Innovations to Make Work More Human

Esterline is a specialized manufacturing company principally serving aerospace and defense markets. Headquartered in Bellevue, WA—They have innovative products that help save lives, start Formula One race cars, revolutionize air travel, and change the face of how humans and machines interact. Oracle Senior Writer, Linda Currey Post, sat down with Shahbaz Alibaig, Esterline’s senior HR operations, HR technology, and global talent acquisition director, to discuss their CEO’s global vision to become “One HR, One Esterline” by leveraging Oracle HCM and ERP Cloud. Excerpt from the original Forbes article: Esterline’s HR team chose Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud to serve as the foundation of its new, global “One HR” strategy. “As a team, you can come up with a vision, you can come up with strategies, but you’ve got to have something that brings everything together. Vision without execution is hallucination,” Alibaig says. “That’s where Oracle HCM Cloud has been beneficial for us. It has enabled us to function as one HR enterprise, and it has made all of us realize, ‘Hey, we need to move to one standard—globally.’”  ... [Read More] Oracle HCM Cloud is gearing up for the 2019 Rubies Awards. If you know another superstar customer, like Esterline, nominations are open through December 21, 2018 and will be announced at next year's Modern Business Experience.

Esterline is a specialized manufacturing company principally serving aerospace and defense markets. Headquartered in Bellevue, WA—They have innovative products that help save lives, start Formula One...

After several years of budget austerity and hiring freezes, morale was low and frustration was high among Memphis city employees. One of HR’s first decisions was to replace the city’s hiring, benefits management, and other on-premises HR applications with a modern, cloud-based application suite, Oracle HCM Cloud.

After several years of budget austerity and hiring freezes, morale was low and frustration was high among Memphis city employees. One of HR’s first decisions was to replace the city’s hiring,...

Santander Talent Score: a solution that integrates predictive analytics and machine learning to engage the meritocracy as a fundamental piece in the process of incorporating talent into an organization.

Santander Talent Score: a solution that integrates predictive analytics and machine learning to engage the meritocracy as a fundamental piece in the process of incorporating talent into...

I need to admit that you can easily have a déjà-vu if you visit UNLEASH year after year. So was it Groundhog Day again? Monsters at the entry, stairways to the left, lobby, meeting area (if you would like to have a more detailed picture check my live streaming replay).   But, “what a difference a year makes!” With a white, modern, fresh, open spaces, and two stories!! So, Oracle was the only vendor with its own Executive terrace which enabled a fantastic view over the entire exhibition area. But this was definitely not the only reason why Oracle had continuously more traction at the booth in comparison with the other vendors. A new increased interest in Oracle HCM Cloud was tangible. The new "Enjoyable, Smarter and Supportive" release is grabbing more and more attention in the market. Oracle's new positioning in Gartner's Magic Quadrant as innovation leader in HCM Cloud reflects this well and helps to boost interest, too.    So, what is it that creates this interest? The new release of Oracle's HCM Cloud displays itself in an entirely new look and feel. You can scroll the front pages just as on LinkedIn etc. (we call this Newsfeed design). Intuitively everybody understands what to do. Complex drop-Down menus? No. Smart pre-selection of information narrows down the reasonable fields for a much easier navigation in the Suite, and this makes information finds you instead of the other way round. Chatbots, Machine Learning, AI - it is all integrated. And, it is fully mobile because it is ONE Cloud. You start a process on one device and continue on another. No problem. Data always real-time accurate. Or you just do workflows, which have been complex in the past, with a couple of clicks on your smartphone.   Additionally to the booth, we had a separate meeting area for executive 1:1s. With a couple of thousands HCM Cloud installations worldwide, you can imagine that our Oracle executives have a vast knowledge of projects: what went well, what could have been handled differently or how to approach a digital transformation whilst keeping everybody on board. June Farmer and Guy Waterman, both from Oracle US Product Strategy, did one executive meeting after the other, as did Daniel van den Broeck and Steve Fearon, Oracle EMEA Business VPs. Flanking the demos, this was a perfect occasion to have an unfiltered exchange on the managerial aspects of such projects. Besides the technology, the managerial side is equally important as is the adoption among the employees. And even beyond HCM: Think of connected enterprises, think of IoT and smart devices in your organization - your HCM system will need to "speak" with other areas of your business, e.g. your Resources Planning or Finance system or your Marketing and Sales systems. Agile enterprises appreciate and already implement this agility and ad-hoc insights which come along with it.   And even beyond these very beneficial exchanges on executive level, we tried to capture the most boundary pushing ideas in our Otalk studio. Otalks are TED talk like short video pieces, where we try to filter the essence of all the hundreds of great ideas which are presented all over the two days in dozens of smaller and larger sessions. Josh Bersin shared some newest findings with us, as well as some key partners of ours or influencers. Another highlight was my interview with the buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard ( https://www.matthieuricard.org/en). He added interesting perspectives on our responsibility to make something out of the new technological possibilities which we now have at our hands to make the world a better place. It was easy to engage with him once I told him about our mission to "make Work more human!". A very inspiring interaction.   I need to re-emphasize that in these two fully packed days @UNLEASH you can find an enormous amount of knowledge, interesting people and down-to-earth discussions. We wanted to share all of this via a 30 minute live streaming. Marc Coleman, the founder and father of UNLEASH was with us as well as I was interviewing some key people on their perception and experiences. I was told afterwards that we had a lot of attention especially from our key competitors doing this. For a good reason. We showcased  the beauty of our new UX is, how our prospects adopt it, as well as the integration of advanced technologies as AI and the power of an integrated cloud solution. Much to speak about,  and a lot of value coming with it for customers.   Demo after demo after demo. We are evangelizing it over and over again: the best software needs adoption, otherwise it is useless. The individual user is in the center of our new HCM Cloud. This needs to be experienced. Logically we demonstrated this live and directly to many interested people. We even had people queuing for demos and it came to a point where we had a hard time keeping to the schedule because people were so interested in the new easy-to-use, personalized and self-learning experience in HCM Cloud.    You can imagine that this is quite exhausting for everybody. For us, but for our customers and prospects too. So, what else would be a perfect closing of such a day then a good companionship, some drinks and a decent dinner with ongoing intelligent exchanges? In good tradition, we had our Cocktail Party at the Oracle Booth. And I can tell you it was packed! Directly followed by our "Oracle International Dinner". Around 150 top notch attendees have been our guests on a historic boat, the "Prins van Oranje". A fantastic place, great dinner and lovely guests. We continued discussing in a very informal and pleasant environment. Our executives shared their experiences, as did Product Strategy and our EMEA Thought Leadership team. A great occasion to network and create plans for your tomorrow, today.   You think this was it? This was only day 1!! Day 2 was great too. We continued Otalking, Exec Meetings, demos, etc. We had a very interesting panel discussion with two very convinced customers, Staples and Westmidlands Police, run by Bart van Keer. Overall, there are dozens if not hundreds of sessions. So, UNLEASH is not only very effective in terms of relationship building with executives, but also is a vast pool of great ideas. You will discover a couple of these when we will release the Otalks online soon.   So, what was the difference? It was the vibe and attitude all around our booth. The new release of our HCM Cloud, as well as the very positive market perception (Gartner Magic Quadrant), changed something. I won’t be able to quantify this, but everybody radiated a lot of energy. A new confidence was there and that resonated with our customers.   Two exhausting days, but as far as I know, a great success for us and a great benefit for all our customers and prospects. We can be proud of this team and community. I am.     Joachim Skura HCM Strategy Director  

I need to admit that you can easily have a déjà-vu if you visit UNLEASH year after year. So was it Groundhog Day again? Monsters at the entry, stairways to the left, lobby, meeting area (if you...

If you’re a human resources pro or recruiter trying to find the right candidate for a job today, you know how competitive things are. It’s a huge challenge to find the handful of people who have the right skills and background, and you can’t rely on them finding you: You need to be proactive, and that means you need to quickly know who’s out there, both external candidates and talent within your own organization. In a world where opportunity has to find talent, not the other way around, HR has become one of the most vital functions in the enterprise. It also has to work differently – smarter and faster. That’s why Oracle is expanding our partnership with LinkedIn to reimagine this aspect of HR for the future. With our recent announcement, we’re more powerfully connecting Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud and Taleo Enterprise Edition with LinkedIn to uniquely deliver a unified talent marketplace for customers. Inside Out: the Employee View It’s well documented that a role’s best candidates typically come from within the organization.  Based on our conversations with customers, talent development and internal mobility are key priorities for many of the world’s leading enterprises. That’s why we’re excited to be rolling out Talent Profile Import, which allows employees to import key elements of their LinkedIn profiles into their Oracle HCM Cloud Talent Profile.  Coupled with expanded integrations with LinkedIn Learning, these will be key enablers for our customers’ development and internal mobility initiatives and will allow their employees to explore and realize their career aspirations. Unifying External and Internal Talent Pools: the Recruiter View LinkedIn is a robust talent marketplace that’s fast approaching 600 million profiles. The problem for recruiters is streamlining the process of finding the best candidates from disparate sources. Our work with LinkedIn means that you’ll get a unified view of the best potential candidates, regardless of source.  More specifically, recruiters will be able to search LinkedIn members and see those that best match a job requisition or project directly from within Oracle Recruiting Cloud or Taleo Enterprise Edition.  A Whole New Experience: the Candidate View Even with the rising importance of opportunities needing to find talent, it remains critically important to enhance the experience for external candidates and to help them have the best shot at getting the job.  Now, during the apply process, they’ll be able to see who in their LinkedIn network is the best contact to refer them in and initiate a request for referral. I couldn’t be more excited about our expanded relationship with LinkedIn as we look to deliver on key priorities for our mutual customers.   

If you’re a human resources pro or recruiter trying to find the right candidate for a job today, you know how competitive things are. It’s a huge challenge to find the handful of people who have the...

Written by: Jeff Haynes, Director, Baker Tilly Human Capital Consulting Practice From shoulder pads to big hair, John Hughes movies to Madonna, the 80s gave us some iconic trends. One of which was the most popular hairstyle– the mullet – that will haunt every family portrait until the end of time. It turns out that the mullet actually makes for a pretty good metaphor when it comes to human capital management (HCM) implementations. The phrase “business in the front, party in the back” has historically described the infamous hairstyle, but as it relates to HCM implementations, consider the following: A successful transformation requires a compelling business case to justify the first steps – business in the front – and an enduring governance model to continuously measure and sustain that business case for the organization – party in the back. Quantitative and qualitative measures of success The art of combining a financial return (hard data) with human resource (HR) effectiveness (soft data) can be difficult to quantify, and frankly, sometimes difficult to swallow. From a quantitative perspective, there are a number of hard dollar savings to gain from moving from an on-premises solution (come on, it’s not the 80s anymore!) to the cloud: Eliminating HCM servers and maintenance HCM server upgrade cost avoidance Lessening/eliminating HCM application/software support, maintenance and updates Reducing overhead support costs (patches, IT overhead, IT chargebacks) For more qualitative measures, organizations will look for a return on leveraging technology for more efficient and effective HR programs. This criteria might include: Reduction in onboarding time Reduction in voluntary turnover Improvement in strategic workforce planning Elimination of manual/email/spreadsheet based processes Capturing these measures and criteria, designing the processes to improve it, and building the tools and capabilities to measure it during implementation, will enhance the governance framework and drive the organization toward successful outcomes. Now that you’ve taken care of business up front, it’s time to party (or in other words, after the implementation is underway, it’s time to focus on governance). This is where an organization builds the muscles required to sustain themselves in this new cloud environment and realize the benefits and value that they are banking on. Baker Tilly takes an approach to governance that drives successful outcomes from organizational alignment, ongoing solution support, maintenance and enhancement. We strongly emphasize this because we often see it as a common misstep in the marketplace - where organizations have moved to the cloud but were not properly equipped to sustain themselves post implementation. 4 key dimensions of governance and the interplay between them Structure: Just like any good mullet needs structure, an enduring governance model needs continuous assessment of the organizational alignment of the solution. Solution support: In the same way your favorite hairspray keeps your ‘do in place, an organization needs to build end-to-end support processes to get the most out of the investment and the continuous R&D reflected in multiple updates per year. Maintenance: Just as you’d comb your mullet to keep those locks tame, your governance model should provide tools and templates to support continued maintenance and upgrades. Enhancement: Like teasing your hair to create that ideal 80s volume, building the ongoing relationship with the client’s technology vendor (Oracle) to play an active role in the HCM cloud ecosystem, is important to ensure innovation for the future. Learn more at Oracle OpenWorld  Our clients have success with HCM Cloud by establishing a business case that measures success and alignment to business outcomes, which then leads to a tailored implementation, supported by a foundational governance model that ensures continued support and innovation. To learn more about our approach, we hope you can join us at Oracle OpenWorld for our session, Business in Front, Party in Back: A Business Case for Success in the Cloud [4] Monday, Oct 22, 11:30 am - 12:15 pm | Moscone South-Room 208, to hear how Creighton University built an effective business case to justify its move to Cloud and an effective governance model that is supporting Oracle HCM Cloud for long term success.

Written by: Jeff Haynes, Director, Baker Tilly Human Capital Consulting Practice From shoulder pads to big hair, John Hughes movies to Madonna, the 80s gave us some iconic trends. One of which was the...

Hiring good employees can be expensive. We recently took a look at just how costly it can be, and the numbers should be sobering for any HR professional or finance executive. It can cost between 10 and 30 percent of his or her annual salary to replace a departed employee making less than $75,000 a year, and high-skilled demanding jobs can cost employers up to 200 percent to re-staff after a valuable employee heads for “greener” pastures. Oracle CEO Mark Hurd understands the importance of low turnover for the bottom line as well as any executive. Oracle has almost 140,000 employees, which means that small changes can have huge impacts when it comes to employee satisfaction, job performance, and retention. It’s very much in his interest to ensure that Oracle’s employees feel like they’re part of something great, and creating that atmosphere has to begin on day one of every new hire’s tenure, no matter where they work or what they’ve been brought on board to do. Early in his tenure, Hurd discovered something problematic about Oracle’s onboarding processes: they weren’t consistent, they weren’t comprehensive, and they just weren’t working to get most new hires up to speed. At least, that was the opinion of Oracle employees surveyed on previous onboarding practices. Hurd discussed this particular issue at length during his keynote speech at Oracle’s HCM World conference this year: “We have to do our best to make it easy to assimilate into the company. We had 35 percent favorability, if I remember right... about our onboarding. So it figures I had the easy part of this. I got the data and didn't like it, and I told [Oracle EVP of Human Resources Joyce Westerdahl] to fix it. Somebody on Joyce's team did a lot of work to start to get common website capability, common training capabilities. ‘How do you join a company and get a PC?’ ‘How do you join the company and get a mobile phone?’ ‘How do you get an employee number? How do you get a badge?’ All of this stuff sounds so rudimentary, but it was taking weeks for some of this stuff to get done. And in the meantime, the employee's unmotivated and doesn't understand where the resources are. I think in our last couple of surveys we raised that from 35 percent favorable to around 80 percent favorable, just by the work that was done. That's a really good example for us, to our people. We listened to you, we evaluated what you said, we acted, and we got a better answer.”                                       Onboarding can be one of the most critical times in an employee’s tenure. Their experience in those first few days sets the tone for how they perceive their new employer and their new coworkers. A smooth and effortless onboarding experience sets both employer and employee up for success, while a rocky start can leave a new hire wondering just what they’ve gotten themselves into. The data shows, time and time again, that a great onboarding process will more than pay for itself over the long run:   Up to 20 percent of turnover happens in the first 45 days of employment Standard onboarding processes lead to 54 percent greater productivity in new hires Companies lose up to 2.5 percent of their revenue to new hire learning curves Good onboarding results in 18 percent greater new-hire goal achievement   At Oracle, we’ve done more than improve our onboarding practices — we’ve taken what we’ve learned and used it to build a complete onboarding solution as part of our Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud. The technology behind this solution works not only with brand-new employees, but with employees moving into a new role in the same organization. It even covers “pre-boarding,” that period of time between accepting a job offer and showing up at the office for the first day of work. Acclimating new hires to the company culture and introducing them to their peers in advance can further speed and streamline the transition from first-day jitters to all-star performance. Would you like to learn more about how we turned our CEO’s insight into actionable processes, and how we can put those processes to work for you? Click here to get started.

Hiring good employees can be expensive. We recently took a look at just how costly it can be, and the numbers should be sobering for any HR professional or finance executive. It can cost between 10...

There are some Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud customer stories we have the honor of sharing, that surpass all metrics, all odds, and make you forget about technology for a second. Cantor Fitzgerald, the global financial services firm, is one of them. Oracle Senior Writer, Linda Currey Post, sat down with Michael Chang, Cantor Fitzgerald's director of human resources operations, to discuss overcoming the loss of 68% of their workforce on 9/11, and how they are currently thriving as a business and adopting new cloud technology to enable their transformation.  Excerpt from the original Wall Street Journal article: Cantor Fitzgerald, the global financial services firm, suffered catastrophic losses on September 11, 2001, when an airliner hijacked by terrorists hit its headquarters in the north tower of New York’s World Trade Center. More than 60 percent of the company’s workforce at the time—658 people—perished. Seventeen years later, the firm is flourishing. With a new headquarters in midtown Manhattan, CantorFitzgerald now employs more than 12,000 people, who work in 60 offices in 20 countries. Under the leadership of chairman and CEO Howard Lutnick, the firm, which provides investment banking, prime brokerage and commercial real estate services, has also become a philanthropic force. The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund has distributed $320 million in support of both the families of employees who were killed on 9/11 (including the chairman’s brother, Gary), as well as other victims of terrorism and natural disasters. And every year on 9/11, which the firm now calls Charity Day, the company donates its revenues and its traders donate their commissions, raising $147 million so far for nonprofit agencies that can apply for grants. Celebrities including Lady Gaga, Jake Gyllenhaal and Eli Manning have joined the traders in calling customers to encourage them to complete more trades and raise more money. New HCM System Tracks Growth  Cantor Fitzgerald’s entire trading business depends on robust technology. It was an electronic trading pioneer in the 1990s with its eSpeed platform, taking that e-trading subsidiary public in 1999. It also moved recently to a state-of-the-art human capital management system, choosing Oracle HCM Cloud to help the firm keep pace with its frequent acquisitions and the resulting growth in the number of employees, says Michael Chang, Cantor Fitzgerald’s director of HR operations. When Cantor Fitzgerald acquires companies, Chang says, their employee records are often difficult for the headquarters HR team to access. “Now we can put all our employee data into one global single instance of Oracle HCM Cloud, which allows us to apply analytics to get accurate insight into who our employees are, where they are and the lines of business they support,” he says. Want to learn more? Find where Cantor Fitzgerald is today with their cloud upgrade in the original article by Currey Post on WSJ.com.     

There are some Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud customer stories we have the honor of sharing, that surpass all metrics, all odds, and make you forget about technology for a second. Cantor F...

Written By: Lauren Antone, HCM Cloud Associate Product Marketing Manager at Oracle How to effectively manage your talent continues to be a hot topic discussed and explored by organizations. By now companies are familiar with the popular buzz-phrase, "employee engagement." Organizations understand the importance of defining their workplace culture and hiring the right talent with key skills and personal goals that align with those of the company. They are even taking that extra step and investing in their employees’ experience, because employee satisfaction is the key to increasing employee engagement, retention, and productivity, right? And yet, here are three shocking statistics you need to know about your workforce: Only 33% of employees report being engaged at work 70% of employees say they are dissatisfied with future career opportunities within their organization 93% of millennials left their employer the last time they changed roles While workplace culture and employee satisfaction are critical components to engagement, there is still a disconnect between employees and their workplace. Where is the millennial voice in this conversation? As a millennial working in Silicon Valley and human resources software, I've seen firsthand how companies struggle with effective talent management within their organizations. For Bay Area companies, the competition to attract and retain talent is fierce—especially when your competitors offer everything under the sun to get talent through their door. I've witnessed my peers recruited to companies by attractive work perks and a laid-back culture, promising work-life balance and fun! For a while this works. Who doesn’t love free meals, working remotely, and taking a break with furry office friends? However, despite these attractive incentives, these same peers never stay longer than a year or two. So, what gives? This is because employee satisfaction does not guarantee engagement, and your disengaged employees are already looking for their next career move. Millennials are among the lowest percentage of engaged employees, and from this we've gotten a bad rap. We are often stereotyped as impatient, selfish, and disloyal job-hoppers. Truthfully, job-hopping has become the norm for the rapidly growing millennial workforce, and according to a LinkedIn survey, it's nearly doubled in frequency over the last 20 years. But what our "disloyalty" reveals is that our professional needs are not being met. There is a misalignment between organizations’ perceptions of what millennials value and what we actually value that is perpetuating this behavior. So, without further ado, here it is: Everything your company needs to know about what your millennial workers really want and how to engage us, shared directly from a millennial herself.  Millennials want a defined career path with advancement opportunities. If a company can't provide this, it’s already lost us. Future career opportunity is one of the top three global drivers of attrition. Millennials highly value a job that will accelerate professional and career development. Perhaps it’s the stage of our lives that we are in, but this can be a big miss for organizations that are not prepared to show us what’s next. Six months ago, I was at a crossroads in my career, thinking critically about my future. Oracle provided a clear roadmap of career path opportunities and the key competencies required for advancement in roles of interest, preventing me from seeking outside opportunities and enabling me to successfully transition to my desired role. Companies that offer career mapping are on the right track! Your millennials will feel empowered about their career decisions and more motivated in their work when they understand the criteria your company has set on what it takes to advance.  Millennials want a coach, not a manager. Ambitious as we are to advance our careers, we want a “coach” who can help us learn and grow in our current role. More so than other management styles, coaching helps employees understand what needs to be done and unlocks their willingness and potential to learn from failure. Begin with a discussion around goals. According to a Gallup survey, employees are almost three times more likely than others to be engaged when they’ve had a conversation with their manager around goals and successes in the last six months. Managers that set well-thought-out goals provide clarity for expectations and measuring success, allowing millennial workers to develop professionally. We can understand our strengths and weaknesses and feel accomplished when we succeed, which leads to greater engagement. But don’t forget the millennial has goals too! We want to share our professional aspirations with our managers and have a say in setting performance expectations that are fair but challenging. My best managers have always taken the time to understand my personal goals and worked with me to align them with the business objectives, resulting in greater motivation and productivity. Millennials want feedback. All. The. Time. Surprise! Along with collaborative goal setting, we want feedback from our managers 50 percent more often than other employees, and as frequently as once per week. We are the digital natives, and as such, we are used to getting instant feedback at the touch of a button in order to learn and grow. Yet only 17% of millennials strongly agree they receive routine or meaningful feedback from their manager.   Annual performance reviews and quarterly check-ins aren’t enough to keep us engaged. Ongoing feedback from management enables us to see how our daily performance aligns with our goals, and supports our professional development (which we already know is a top priority for millennials). As a millennial, I can tell you that I appreciate the time my manager makes to provide an open-door policy for continuous feedback. Getting the managerial perspective not only provides direction, but it speaks to the quality of my work and enables the sharing of knowledge for professional growth. For me, this is a motivator to keep elevating my performance and keeps me happy and engaged. HR leaders and managers need to be proactive with their engagement strategies and development opportunities if they are to retain their millennial workers. As one of these leaders, begin by showing your workforce that they have a future with your organization where they can learn, develop, and succeed. For additional information on how to engage your millennial workforce with impactful talent management, visit the Oracle Talent Management Cloud homepage.

Written By: Lauren Antone, HCM Cloud Associate Product Marketing Manager at Oracle How to effectively manage your talent continues to be a hot topic discussed and explored by organizations. By now...

Managing human resources for a large enterprise can be incredibly challenging. Hiring one new employee often involves a half-dozen or more steps, spread out across weeks or months. A company like Oracle needs to hire thousands of people each year—if hiring processes were conducted manually for every applicant, it would leave the HR department no time to do anything else. Employees also need to be paid, their benefits must be properly allocated, and their performance needs to be tracked so management can offer promotions and bonuses to the most deserving people. The challenge of human capital management (HCM) can overwhelm startup HR leaders even at smaller scales, particularly if they’re overseeing rapid expansion. While HCM applications like Oracle HCM Cloud can greatly streamline simpler tasks, an “unintelligent” HCM solution simply isn’t enough to address the myriad challenges today’s enterprise HR departments must tackle every day. That’s where artificial intelligence (AI) comes in. AI innovation can help HR departments manage recruiting, onboarding, retention, performance tracking, and a range of other critical employee oversight and optimization functions. Oracle has integrated AI into many parts of its HCM suite, and this has already resulted in internal successes, as CEO Mark Hurd noted at the SuiteWorld18 conference: If I asked our head of HR, "Would you like an AI application?" I'm not sure what she'd say. But if I told her that I could help her do a better job of recruiting the 2,000 college kids we recruit every year, by knowing things like whether their GPA would do a better job predicting their future success at Oracle, or the school they went to or their major or any of these hundreds and hundreds of correlations... she's going to buy that every single day. To put this into perspective, Employment Background Investigations found that last year, the average job opening attracted 250 applications, with only two percent of those applicants even called in to an interview. For an enterprise company, hiring 2,000 employees could require drawing from a pool of as many as 500,000 applicants -- that’s more people than live in the cities of Atlanta or Miami. The company would need to conduct roughly 10,000 job interviews to find its 2,000 new hires. That’s a lot of work for an HR department. It would simply not be possible to sift through a half-million prospective applicants by hand. Winnowing the field down in a viable way, based on AI analysis, provides enormous benefits to busy HR teams of all sizes. Recruiting is challenging enough, but retaining and rewarding employees in large organizations can be still more difficult. Employees must be made to feel like they’re part of something worthwhile from their first day on the job. An effective onboarding program can make all the difference between a new hire becoming a loyal contributor and quickly burning out and leaving the organization. A study by the SHRM Foundation discovered that a good onboarding program can make new employees 69 percent more likely to stick with their new employers for up to three years. AI helps HR teams provide customized onboarding and training programs that address each new hire’s strengths, weaknesses, and particular operational requirements. Hurd aptly compared this ability to personalize training programs to the potential of individualized drug development at Oracle’s 2017 HCM World conference: There's going to be one drug discretely prescribed for our chemistry as individuals. Same thing's going to happen as we start to evolve here in HR. We're going to get more prescriptive and more specific about individuals and how they specifically work, grow, and develop. Another added benefit of AI-enabled recruiting and onboarding (among other functions) is the AI systems’ abilities to identify and analyze patterns in the use of these tools. The results of this analysis can help HR leaders improve their organizations’ use of the tools, by identifying and improving methods and processes that work and eliminating those that don’t. By deploying AI innovations to handle enterprise-scale HCM challenges, human resources teams can better manage their workloads and better respond to the individual needs of their workforce in an effective and personalized way. These same innovations can help the HR work of companies at all sizes by addressing routine challenges and allowing HR professionals to focus their attention on the big picture. Learn more about how AI in the workplace can help Make Work More Human for your organization. 

Managing human resources for a large enterprise can be incredibly challenging. Hiring one new employee often involves a half-dozen or more steps, spread out across weeks or months. A company like...

Written by: Stafford Burt, Senior Principal Sales Consultant, Oracle Less than five years ago only a very few people had smart phones and mobile apps were a very new concept. Fast forward three years and few people would have believed you if you’d said you’d have a device under £50 ($75) in your home that used natural spoken language to perform a huge variety of tasks—"Alexa what’s in my Diary today", "Siri book me a Lyft". This was the kind of thing we’d only ever seen on Star Trek. Now imagine what things will be like two years into the future for your human resources team; will voice activated chatbots using artificial intelligence (AI) completely replace screen-based user interfaces (UI)? "Alexa which payroll items were out of tolerance?," "Siri book me on PRINCE2 training in June." How about in five years? Will screens be a thing of the past, will pretty much all HR transactions be run by AI with human intervention only required to manage the few exceptions in the processes? Oracle HCM Cloud has begun to introduce a new Responsive UX because large-scale mobile deployments need to be simplified. It all starts from the new homepage, a ‘Newsfeed’ style design that looks like familiar apps, such as Facebook and BBC, presenting a long vertical page feed of information. For employees and managers they will also get the new responsive designs for all self-service transactions as well. Frankly, reliance on mobile apps restricts our flexibility to innovate, quite literally, it holds back our imagination, which is key for delivering a best-in-class SaaS cloud platform. Our move to a highly adaptive Responsive UX is a move to the most flexible and innovative HCM cloud software available today and should see us in good stead for the future. "Beam me up Scotty!              5 Reasons Why Responsive UX is already better than a mobile app: 1. Flexibility—Ever tried changing a mobile app? Unless you’re a Java, or iOS expert—good luck. However, adding or removing a function in an adaptive UX is as simple as changing a configured menu item in a user’s role-based portal, changing the colours, logos, fonts, texts, wording, etc., is a simple business configuration.  2. Portability—Ever been asked "does that work on a Windows phone?" or worse "Blackberry?" The answer with Responsive UX is yes, as long as it’s got a browser it works. Currently, Android and Apple dominate the mobile market but we’ve all seen how rapidly things in that market change—increasingly we’re using wearables and voice activation let the device do the heavy lifting, on the technology we’re just going to plug into it!       3. Security—How do you cope if an employee loses their device or leaves the organization? How do we get the app switched off? In reality we talk to Mobile Device Management tools, but few of us are deploying or using these tools. With Responsive designs its simple; users login just as they do on their laptop and if the device is lost, no data is stored on the device, ergo no risk. 4. Ownership—Employees are often asking about bring your own device (BYOD) to work, or if the device needs to be supplied by you, the employer. With Responsive UX, a required mobile device is null—it’s a secure logon to a web site using any mobile browser on any device.  5. Longevity—How do I get my users to ensure they’re using the right version of the app? Sounds like you're asking an on-premises question to me! The simple answer is: with Responsive UX, they simply cannot be on the wrong version, they just go to a browser window.  Now that you understand Responsive UX vs mobile application, are you ready for the new look?   

Written by: Stafford Burt, Senior Principal Sales Consultant, Oracle Less than five years ago only a very few people had smart phones and mobile apps were a very new concept. Fast forward three...

    We live in an era where there’s perhaps more focus than ever before on how an organization treats its employees. Stories about gender-based pay gaps, lack of diversity, and sexual harassment are front-page news around the world. The ensuing outrage from stockholders and the public have pummeled share prices and reputations, with more than a few top executives going from C-suite to unemployment line as a result. If there were ever a time when HR leaders needed to be more actively involved at the highest levels of the enterprise, it’s now. The value that a great HR executive can bring to an organization is enormous, from preventing that loss of reputation to boosting worker engagement and productivity, to being the moral compass of an organization. To do that effectively, HR executives will need to develop a deep understanding of technology, both in terms of how it’s changing the workplace, and in how it is changing the nature of the HR function itself. Technology as a Workplace Driver Technology is pervasive in everyday life, and that creates expectations on the part of employees that they will have the same convenience and flexibility with technology in the workplace. This isn’t just about ease of use and mobility, either: They expect to have a strong social component as well that lets them see, share, like, innovate, and engage across organization, time and distance. Much of the time, though, the technology in the workplace fails to measure up to what employees own and use themselves. When people find themselves using technology they find limiting, and that cuts off that constant social contact, it can lead to frustration and demands for companies to rethink workplace technology. Given the competition for the best employees, it’s important for both retention and productivity for executives to listen to those demands. After all, these technologies are challenging our established norms engagement, and are the key to making a workplace less hierarchical, more open, and thus more likely to be innovative. HR is the channel for that message to reach executives, along with strong counsel on how to meet those demands (and the consequences for not doing so).  At the same time, some of the cutting-edge technology that’s becoming part of the workplace also creates uncertainty and stress for employees. If you think about what’s going on with artificial intelligence, with robotics, and how those will change the workplace and people’s jobs, you can see why employees would be concerned. They are asking themselves if there will be a place for them in that workplace, how they should prepare for those changes. Again, the place workers (and their managers) will expect to provide those answers is HR. That means having a solid understanding of the implications of this technology and provide information and guidance to employees. Technology as a Value Tool It’s just as important for HR to have the technology it needs to provide the data and insights that will help leaders understand what’s happening with the workforce and how to increase performance. It’s no longer enough to have a “gut feel” about how things are going – just like other parts of the organization, HR needs to be data led. There are opportunities to gain insights from internal company data as well as by mining things like social media posts, using Oracle’s Human Capital Management products. We’re applying our long expertise in technology as well as working with partners to develop specific tools to help develop, sustain and measure the productivity of great employees. Because this is becoming a data-driven function, HR directors need to build great relationships with people who know technology in their organizations, and with experts outside as well. They need to have conversations with their peers in IT and operations, so that decisions about technology across the organization are made in ways that ensure HR’s needs are included. In short, the skills an HR director needs are changing, and if you don’t understand data, you’re in the wrong job. There’s another powerful reason for HR leaders to build those relationships and have those conversations, especially with peers in marketing. Why? Marketing is in the business of listening to customers and using data to do it. HR likewise needs to be in the business of listening to employees and learn how to use data for the purpose – and be as innovative and challenging in what they offer to employees as marketing is for customers. Maintaining the Moral Compass Beyond its role in recruitment, retention, and engagement – or, perhaps more accurately, because of this role -- HR is the natural provider of the moral compass at the board level. HR leaders are in a position (and have the obligation) to speak truth to power, and always to be conscious of, consider, and raise issues of ethical behavior. Again, this requires a deep understanding of and ability to articulate the impact of technology on an organization and particularly its people – and asking hard questions about what data we are capturing and how we use it. Technology can enable companies to monitor productivity with incredible precision, tracking activities to the second. Just because that is possible, though, doesn’t mean that it is either desirable or humane. Do we really want, for example, to be measuring how long people take for toilet breaks and then using that as part of measuring their productivity or value to the organization?. While flexible work arrangements are good for the employee and their work-life balance, zero-hour or on-call only contracts are potentially exploitative – how do you provide ethical flexibility? As we put more robotic devices into place, how do we make sure that how and where we do so are not reinforcing unconscious bias?  Given the importance of HR to keep the organization running efficiently and effectively – and with the tools and data to make the right decisions and demonstrate value -- HR directors are now some of the most vital people in the C-suite. With a deeper understanding of data, they can make huge contributions to creating and maintaining a productive and ethical workplace.  

    We live in an era where there’s perhaps more focus than ever before on how an organization treats its employees. Stories about gender-based pay gaps, lack of diversity, and sexual harassment are...

Managing enterprise expenses is the essential duty of a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) the single largest expense in many organizations tends to be workforce compensation. The high cost of recruiting, training, compensating, and managing a workforce renders critical the need for an organization’s CFO and its chief human resources officer (CHRO) to work closely together. Aligning organizational personnel strategies with overarching financial management requirements and strategies can help the CFO and CHRO build a strong talent system that will be sure to generate more than enough revenue to offset its cost. Oracle CEO Mark Hurd has noted the need for human resources and finance to communicate, highlighting the tight integration between Oracle’s human capital management (HCM) platform and its financials systems. At Oracle’s HCM World 2017 conference, he pointed out that “Our HCM platform and the financials platform have the same ability to communicate. They have, if you will, the same data model. … If you actually told our controller we're going to have a separate HR system from our financial system, with a completely different data model, he would revolt.” Simply listing the costs associated with hiring and training can highlight how critical it is that human resources and finance departments work closely together to optimize the talent pipeline. A recent Glassdoor report on hiring found that the average U.S. employer spends roughly $4,000 and takes 24 days to hire a new worker. A different report from the Center for American Progress focused on the costs of turnover, which it noted can rise to 200 percent of an employee’s annual salary. That’s not a typo -- companies that need to fill and refill high-skilled and high-paying positions can wind up paying three times as much to get someone into a job as they will to keep them in that job. These positions, which tend to be executive-level, are far less numerous than front-line roles, but it can still cost between 10 percent and 30 percent of annual salary to replace someone earning $75,000 or less per year. Shaving dollars and percentage points off of these human resource expenses can save an enterprise tremendous amount of money. For an enterprise looking to add 2,500 employees in a year, the difference between spending $4,000 per hire and spending $3,000 per hire is a net savings of $2.5 million. The difference between replacing 2,500 employees making $50,000 each per year, at a cost of 15% of their salaries rather than 25% of their salaries, is $12.5 million. It’s likely that many large enterprises, particularly those in high-skill industries like healthcare or technology, will spend more than $4,000 to hire someone, and will eat a sizable chunk of their salary, in excess of 15%, to address turnover as well. So how can a CHRO work with a CFO to ensure these expenses are kept low? The answer, Mark Hurd says, lies in the cloud. Utilizing cloud applications, particularly those that operate within a fully-integrated suite, provides data-driven insights that can lower costs, improve hiring outcomes, and streamline the process of onboarding and training to reduce the financial hit of turnover. Oracle recognized the importance of cloud computing years ago and began developing its infrastructure to provide these services to enterprises worldwide early in Hurd’s tenure. Now, the company provides customers with complete suites of SaaS applications, offering more than a thousand applications . Some of these applications are bundled into suites that address critical organizational needs, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and HCM, two Oracle SaaS suites which integrate seamlessly with each other to allow CFOs and CHROs to share their data and formulate comprehensive strategies to address the costs of recruiting, retaining, and rewarding employees.

Managing enterprise expenses is the essential duty of a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) the single largest expense in many organizations tends to be workforce compensation. The high cost of recruiting,...

Written by: Pete Jaradeh, Product Marketing Manager If you’re looking to succeed and stand out in 2018, employer branding cannot be optional. Year after year, the job market continues to shift towards becoming more candidate driven rather than company driven, meaning you don’t choose the talent; the talent chooses you. If you’re wondering how your organization stacks up, or if you’re simply scratching your head questioning where to start, take a look at our list of must-know employer branding trends below, compiled to help you stay ahead of the curve. Branding Must Be Prioritized in the Boardroom Having a “seat at the table” may sound a bit cliché at this point, however, it’s exactly what the human resources team needs to kick-start a branding strategy. In order to ensure that attracting top talent and employer branding are viewed as priorities by your organization, you as HR must position yourself as a strategic partner regarding business development. Ideally, HR’s role in the boardroom should be treated with the same importance as any other c-level executive. From an operational standpoint, HR is responsible for a businesses’ most valuable differentiator—employees.  HR departments capable of mastering this quickly will no doubt gain a competitive advantage over other companies within their respective industry. Employees Will Provide Authenticity Just as you’re more likely to trust traveler reviews over a hotel’s website, candidates are more likely to trust your employees over the recruiter. Thanks to the prevalence of social networks and popular workplace review sites like Glassdoor, it’s now incredibly easy for people to ascertain the conditions and work environment of you, their potential new employer, based on feedback from past as well as current employees. While it’s impossible to control what these individuals have to say about your organization, one thing you can do is attempt to reshape their perceptions. To do this, try listening to the thoughts and concerns of your employees, either by conducting anonymous surveys and focus groups or by browsing around the aforementioned workplace review sites. Once you’ve heard what they have to say and understand the reasoning behind it, you can then devise a plan to rectify things for the better. HR can take this one step further and encourage employees to become brand ambassadors for your organization, empowering them to share their stories on your website or post their experiences across social media platforms. Technology Will Continue to Change Everything Technology platforms for talent acquisition have been prominent for more than half a decade., We are now starting to see even more emerging in the market, especially relating to employer branding. The inherent value that recent digital advancements can provide, such as artificial intelligence and chatbots, are starting to be recognized and incorporated into many current and new applications— and for good reasons. The capabilities of these technologies have allowed organizations to drastically speedup recruiting, evaluation, and workflow processes while still ensuring that candidates stay engaged with the help of personalized journeys, and we’ve only scratched the surface. We can expect to see even more advancements like voice activated applications and virtual reality environments in the coming years. Jet.com for example, created a virtual space allowing applicants to partake in their organization’s happy hours and even hold virtual meetings with the CEO, giving them a life-like experience of their company prior to joining the organization. Mobile Branding is Becoming Mandatory Mobile usage has been a hot topic for some time now but it’s worth mentioning regardless, especially if you have yet to make this a priority. The ability to adapt your brand to meet the pace of the smartphone revolution is no doubt crucial to the success of your recruiting efforts. Right now, Americans alone are performing over one-billion job searches each month from their mobile devices. This means that if you haven’t started optimizing your brand for mobile use, chances are you’re missing out on a large chunk of qualified applicants. If fully transforming your mobile branding efforts seems too daunting to even think about, start small. Forget about smartphone apps for the time being and focus on first developing a mobile responsive website. Getting started is easy—simply take a look at your own job portal on your iPhone or Android and visually audit your own environment. Is it just as easy to browse and apply from your phone as it is from your desktop? Can candidates easily define filters and search keywords to find positions of interest? Are any pages, logos, images and videos omitted on mobile devices? After a full audit, how would you grade your career site? Interested in learning more about employer branding? Take a look at our 5 Ways HR Leaders Can Win Talent Through Branding to hear about several effective ways to guide your branding efforts in the right direction.

Written by: Pete Jaradeh, Product Marketing Manager If you’re looking to succeed and stand out in 2018, employer branding cannot be optional. Year after year, the job market continues to shift towards...

When I hear the word culture, I think about people collaborating to produce great work—like an orchestra performing Beethoven's 5th Symphony or architects designing the iconic Chrysler Building. Culture in the workplace is defined as “…the values, behaviors, and attitudes followed by people in an organization, from the CEO down to front-line employees.” Simply put, it’s “the personality of the company.”[i] The Importance of Company Culture C-level executives, especially HR leaders, know how vital culture is to their organization’s success. Dropbox, for example, was started by two MIT students a decade ago and is now a $12B cloud storage and collaboration company with 1,900 employees and 500M customers. It’s listed on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For and LinkedIn’s Top Companies for 2018. Dropbox’s innovative work culture is one of the reasons the company has been able to attract—and retain—top tech talent in a competitive market. Its holistic approach to wellness, which includes flexible work hours, free meals, and onsite fitness, makes it a sought-after workplace for employees looking for greater work-life balance. Even when CEOs Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi scaled back some perks to increase profitability, they explained how these changes would benefit employees with a stronger IPO. Houston and Ferdowsi also make themselves available so staff members can speak to them about ideas and issues. It's Not All About The Perks You may be asking, “That’s great for high-tech start-ups flush with venture capital but I work for a major big box retailer with thin margins and high turnover. What can I do to build a winning culture?” Surprisingly, the answer may be less about perks and more about the fundamentals of how people like to work. Employees want to be part of something greater than themselves—a mission they believe in, a community of caring professionals, a role that offers meaningful work, and a manager who values their contributions and celebrates their success. Three Steps to Building a Winning Culture  Ensure your business and HR processes reflect your organization’s vision, mission and values Prioritize cultural fit and relationship networks when recruiting, alongside skills and experience Foster an environment in which employees ‘walk the talk’ and encourage their peers to do so In our next blog installment, we’ll go through these three steps in detail, highlighting examples from winning company cultures. For more information, please visit Managing Organizational Culture. [1] Krishan Reddy, Why is Company Work Culture So Important? Top 30 Reasons, Wisestep.com.  

When I hear the word culture, I think about people collaborating to produce great work—like an orchestra performing Beethoven's 5th Symphony or architects designing the iconic Chrysler Building. Cultu...

HR organizations deal with massive amount of talent data and financial data which must be accurate, efficient, and compliant with all regulations imposed on it at the local, national and international levels. Businesses thrive if and only if they get the most out of their HR data and leverage that to attract, recruit and develop talents and maybe more important than all, retain and motivate the talents to be high performers. Tying the compensation with performance requires solutions and tools that track, analyze, and manage team compensation, salary and benefits in the most effective way without adding a huge load of work to the busy schedule of the line of business managers or human resources professionals.  We all can agree, with a high level of certainty, to the fact that a technology that supports payroll, compensation, benefits, time management and performance management in one platform and adheres to the latest compliance and regulatory requirements, can’t be limited to the boundaries of the on-premise world.  Businesses need to move all HR and finance applications to the cloud to benefit from all capabilities with the lowest maintenance and effort to control and update the systems. According to Deloitte, “using the cloud, organizations can see structural benefits that lie beyond technology advantages and makes it possible to connect various HR initiatives and technology across the enterprise, so that design, portals, and the nature of service delivery itself are consistent and appropriate.” A cloud workforce rewards solution can bring many direct and indirect benefits to any organization. Here are ten benefits in moving your workforce to the cloud:  Reward for performance A unified compensation and performance management solution helps to focus on performance improvement, recognize the high performers and reward them based on their achievements on the spot. In this way, companies can reduce attrition and increase the employee satisfaction as well as access to better business performance across the board. This can’t be achieved with fragmented technologies and multiple pieces of applications that don’t talk to each other. Moreover, AI and machine learning can take this factor to the next level by predicting high performing employees, salary trends, potential risk of attrition and flight risk to help businesses to stay on top of competition by focusing on their most valuable resource, talents. A unified business application environment Integration shouldn’t be a boundary. Having payroll, compensation, workforce management and performance management as parts of one unified system ensures organizations that HR data format is consistent with compensation and payroll formats and styles, so system admins won't need to deal with every single entity and manage information in small portions. Secure By selecting the right vendor in the cloud, the sensitive HR data and financial data become secure and safe. A reliable technology enables IT departments to focus on business impacts and support the lines of business. One single source of truth with centralized data sources Embracing cloud technologies empowers businesses to load and store all data from disparate sources in one single place, data warehouse or data lake. In this way, organizations can track the changes, extract more impactful insights and provide access to richer data for analytics across the board. I have seen among multiple HR customers, how having a single source of truth takes the reporting to the next level and helps all managers to generate trustworthy and credible reports in real-time with the best available information. Scalable Businesses can use the database and data warehouses that are precisely the right size for their current need and be able to expand them in future as the business requirements change, they expand their geographical presence, hire more, or acquire new companies. Fast, adaptable and effective transformation Moving to the cloud provides an opportunity to transform business processes if it’s seen as a holistic move that covers all aspects of the business and focuses on the way the work can be done efficiently. Strong Regulatory Compliance Monitoring the processes to ensure compliance needs intelligent solutions that can detect any anomaly and enable all workers to perform in the right direction, aligned with the business objectives. The goals should be defined concerning all regulations and proper risk management practices should be acknowledged and rewarded. Experience and Consistency Great user experience starts with attractive user interfaces and includes all processes across the entire enterprise. Users need to be able to learn how to use a system intuitively and once they learn a process, they should be able to apply the same knowledge across all applications and tools; here is where the consistency plays a vital role. To keep systems usable, with simplified interfaces and streamlines processes, organizations need to make sure they are continuously improving the experience and upgrade the solutions with the latest and greatest trends and technologies. Maintenance HR departments need to reduce their dependency on IT departments. Lower dependency frees time of IT to focus on critical problems and helps HR to deliver their services without interruption with instruments that they really need. Total cost of ownership In the end, any investment should have a positive return of investment (ROI). Based on a research by PWC, 44% of organizations see the lower cost of ownership as the top motivation to use cloud for HR processes. Reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) by removing the hardware costs and labor costs of on-premise scenario can be a significant step to have higher ROI. Fnd out how Oracle HCM Cloud can help your business to thrive.

HR organizations deal with massive amount of talent data and financial data which must be accurate, efficient, and compliant with all regulations imposed on it at the local, nationaland international...

For many human resource leaders, the reasons to move human capital management (HCM) to the cloud are plentiful and clear. From the importance of using data and insights to improve recruiting, retention, and employee experience, to the ability to automate time-consuming processes and spend more time adding strategic value to the business—cloud offers promising rewards to those who are ready to fly high. Convincing stakeholders to upgrade to the cloud can be tricky. In fact, in his SHRM webinar, “Are You Ready to Build a Business Case for Cloud?” Matt Richards, managing director at KPMG, says that about half of the proposals to upgrade to HCM cloud technology are denied. With so much on the line, how can your organization deliver a proposal guaranteed to succeed? Build a Structured Business Case Businesses have limited funds and resources but nearly unlimited requests for investments and technology upgrades. The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is far more likely to fund projects that will directly affect the bottom line and whose results are tangible and trackable. To garner the CFO’s attention, HR leaders must present their HCM cloud projects as mission critical—absolutely essential for the success of the business. Some members of the C-suite may not find HR technology as appealing as growing international business, investing in e-commerce, or building a new factory. So it’s incumbent upon HR to demonstrate that HCM cloud technology is an investment that will shape the future of the organization—an investment that can help create tomorrow, today. A logical, data-based, carefully articulated business case needs to demonstrate the true value HCM in the cloud can bring, and why it has to happen now. Create a Sense of Urgency Convincing executive colleagues that an investment in HCM technology will see great returns isn’t usually enough. Faced with the pressures of many moving parts throughout the business, a natural response to change is to dither or delay. If HR presents legitimate business reasons for moving HCM to the cloud without a powerful argument for why it needs to happen immediately, the business is likely to agree but then not act on the proposal. A successful business case will explain in concrete terms why a move to cloud must be a priority, and how postponement can cost the business in the long run. Focus on the Right Problems HR leaders are intimately aware of the challenges their own teams are facing and how a cloud HCM solution can alleviate them. But those arguments may not necessarily sway the rest of the executive team. If the arguments HR puts forth don’t seem to have any direct alignment to fundamental business concerns, executives may not consider the investment worthy. CFOs especially will want to understand how the cost is justified. Questions such as, “How soon will I see ROI?” and “What will I lose if I put this off?” need to be answered directly. In addition to justifying cost, HR needs to address the business value gained overall. Whether those gains are increased revenue, decreased costs, or improved productivity—the business case needs to articulate these benefits and support them with as much data as possible. Have a Plan for Success After assembling arguments, expressing an urgent need, and aligning the proposal with business success, HR can seal the deal with a plan for success. Any large-scale change such as a cloud migration will be disruptive—to both people and processes. But HR must demonstrate how it will be least disruptive to the overall business. In this way, success refers to both a successful implementation and successful adoption. Providing a narrative that plans for change management, business readiness, and ongoing audits of workflows and processes will demonstrate that HR’s strategy is not only plausible, but ultimately a huge bonus to the business. To learn more about building a business case for the cloud, download this guide.  

For many human resource leaders, the reasons to move human capital management (HCM) to the cloud are plentiful and clear. From the importance of using data and insights to improve...

Written by Shelby Aprile, Senior Marketing Campaigns Manager, Oracle HCM Cloud In today’s workforce, millennials and young professionals often get a bad rap – we’re seen as entitled, arrogant, and, perhaps most prevalently, we’re seen as disloyal job-hoppers looking for the fastest, easiest route to a promotion. And in today’s labor market, there are plenty of jobs to hop to.  As a millennial in tech, I’ve experienced firsthand some of my industry’s finest recruitment strategies and employee engagement initiatives. Sometimes outlandish, yet incredibly enticing, offers cloak Silicon Valley: everything from free onsite yoga classes and gyms to fresh gourmet meals, nap pods, theme-park like game rooms and desk-side ergonomic specialists—not to mention exorbitant sign-on bonuses, flashy stock grants, and lavish parties and getaways. There are times, admittedly, when I’ve come close to being wooed by these generous incentives. The recruiters come a-knocking and I may have, on an occasion or two, sat at my desk and fantasized about my career path (and the complimentary lattes) at a competitor or imagined what it would be like to bask in the perks of a company other than my own. But I haven’t made the jump, and I credit that to Oracle’s unique company culture and the outstanding employee experience I’ve enjoyed during my five years here. Below are five elements that have shaped my experience and that keep me, as a millennial, a happy, engaged and loyal employee: Training & Development I joined Oracle right out of college. From day one, I was given valuable learning opportunities – in cutting-edge marketing best practices and the business acumen that seasoned professionals might take for granted. I was given a solid corporate foundation that I can carry with me throughout the rest of my career. And Oracle continues to invest in my personal and professional development. I have access to a plethora of resources and have been given the opportunity to take courses in everything from Python to Photoshop, but also personal and professional development workshops focusing on topics such as negotiation, influence, and leadership. Employees receive monthly trainings from leaders on the forefront of marketing and technology, and we have access to powerful social collaboration tools and learning platforms to enable knowledge-sharing across the organization. I also get exposure to executives and senior leaders throughout the organization, and the way they think and work.  Within my first two years at Oracle, I had been in meetings with very senior team members, including our CMO, Judith Sim. This is remarkable, given Oracle is a multi-billion dollar company. Empowerment There’s no doubt about it, feeling important and valued feels good and matters. I appreciate and relish knowing that my colleagues and leaders trust me, that I’m of strategic importance, and that I’m contributing to Oracle’s success. I’m grateful that I have the freedom to create and try new things and that I’m empowered to pitch, develop, and execute exciting projects that push the boundaries to drive results. Flexibility Oracle has given me the flexibility to grow. I’ve transitioned into different roles to gain both breadth and depth of experience in marketing, I’ve supported different product lines and I’ve partnered with teams across lines of business and around the globe. I’ve been able to travel to customers, colleagues, and conferences, work out of several different offices, and I’ve even relocated for a period of time with my current role in the company. #ProudToBeOracle Oracle is a Fortune 100 company, so yes, it has money to deliver exceptional experiences for its employees and its 430,000+ customers.  I not only have the technology and resources to do my job in the best possible way, but I also burst with pride when I see the time, energy and capital Oracle puts into rolling out the red carpet for our customers and prospects worldwide. Whether we’re painting San Francisco red for Oracle OpenWorld, hosting gameday in a luxury stadium suite, or serving an intimate dinner prepared by a celebrity chef, it’s exciting to see our customers light up, admire our brand, collaborate with one another on challenges and visions, and most importantly, know that they are valued and appreciated. (Yes that's me with NFL star, Jerry Rice!) Supportive Management and Leadership I have been fortunate enough to work for and alongside of remarkable, inspiring, and extremely competent leaders and role models. They invest in me, my growth, and my development, and so many of them continue to be valuable coaches and mentors.  I’ve been given opportunities to get exposure to multiple domains and applications, and across multiple activities in our organization. I work hard, but Oracle recognizes my contributions and my desire to bring value and grow. For more information, please visit the Chemistry of High Performance.

Written by Shelby Aprile, Senior Marketing Campaigns Manager, Oracle HCM Cloud In today’s workforce, millennials and young professionals often get a bad rap – we’re seen as entitled, arrogant, and,...

Written by: Rocky Mitarai, Senior Director Product Marketing at Oracle The face of retail continues to experience unprecedented disruption as digitization fuels customer expectations around seamless online, in-store and pick-up experiences. As new business models are being delivered by retailers in a race to innovate and feed these expectations, these same retailers often struggle to adapt to this new reality and HR teams are getting hit harder than ever. It's no surprise, as retail is fundamentally a people driven business. In fact, across the US Fortune 500, the top three largest employers are retailers, with their numbers of employees reaching into the millions around the globe. Amidst this disruption, how are retail HR teams impacted, and how can they adapt at such scale? To dig into this topic, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Mario Vollbracht, Oracle's Global Director of Consumer Markets, and an industry veteran with 25 years in the retail and consumer goods space. As digitization takes hold, how has this impacted HR in retail? As digitization changes the face of the retail space, there are several key trends and challenges that Mario and I discussed. First is the shift of power to the consumer, which according to Mario has completely changed the equation. We're living in a constantly connected world, where at any moment we can access product prices, availability, and peer ratings to influence our decision. When a consumer walks into a store and finds an item on the shelf, it's common for them to pull out their smartphone and start doing comparisons. Or in many cases, the research has already been done online, and by the time they make it into the store, the majority of their questions have been answered. In this reality, there is tremendous pressure on associates to be smarter than the consumers in front of them. The other big shift is driven by customer expectations for consistent, convenient, and personalized experiences across channels. One example could be in the restaurant and food retail segment, where online ordering and pick-up is becoming commonplace. The execution of this requires an intuitive mobile experience, and critically, the processes and training across in-store employees to see the order, assemble it, and be ready to deliver it at a specified time. If any of these pieces is botched, the consumer experience is damaged.     What are HR teams doing to adapt? Clearly, there is a lot of pressure on today's retail organizations, and in particular the people within them to deliver the outstanding customer experiences needed to succeed. This puts HR teams in a critical position to drive this effort. So what are some keys to success? According to Mario, there are several things HR teams should consider, many of which revolve around making employees smarter than today's consumer. Employees need to be enabled and empowered, often requiring a combination of things to be successful. Training Investing in training can't be understated. There are examples of successful retailers investing in training facilities—and instead of closing or downsizing stores, turning those spaces into on-site training academies to provide associates with an experiential training process while on-site. Some retailers have begun adding virtual reality to the mix to enable associates to experience the pressures of Black Friday so they are ready for it, which is a trend that we’ll likely see much more of in the near future. Technology While not a solution by itself, technology is a critical enabler of employee success. For example, successful retailers have begun arming their staff with smartphones that can be used on the spot when a consumer asks them a question, to ensure they can provide the right guidance. This allows the associate to do things like scan the barcode of a shoe box and not only get key product information, but also availability in other sizes and colors, in-store location and ETA on next arrival if out of stock. Of course, this all fails if employees aren't trained on how to effectively use the technology, or the processes haven't been built to ensure the technology works.   Empowerment The digital nature of today's retail has opened up new doors for automation and efficiency. For example, it's becoming more common to see robots in stores scanning the inventory on shelves and ensuring that it is in the right place—something that was necessary, yet tedious and error prone, for associates to do previously. With these kinds of innovations, it opens up the doors for empowering those associates to do higher level functions, and provide value to today’s highly knowledgeable consumer. As noted above, this is something that they are fully capable of and crave. Successful retailers have leveraged this trend and shifted org structures by cutting out a layer of management and allowing associates to be empowered with more visibility and authority on the store floor. Taking it a step further, Macy's empowers associates to leverage a self-service application to pick their own shifts, trade shifts, and request time off independently, empowering supervisors to focus on higher level tasks—and has dropped turnover by 28% in the process. The key point that kept coming back in my discussion with Mario, is that things are moving fast, and as retail organizations look to provide an outstanding customer experience, the importance of enabling and empowering their people can't be understated. Leveraging a future-ready HCM Cloud solution can help streamline the processes and execution of training, technology usage, and employee empowerment. Importantly, a holistic approach is needed across each of these areas, as well as a commitment to investing and trusting in each individual. What is your brand doing to stay ahead of the curve? Share with us on Twitter using #OracleHCM #OracleRetailCloud

Written by: Rocky Mitarai, Senior Director Product Marketing at Oracle The face of retail continues to experience unprecedented disruption as digitization fuels customer expectations around seamless...

Last week I was headed to Las Vegas to present at our annual user conference at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Resort. Three days prior to my arrival, the hotel sent me a precheck-in email. When I arrived, I was delighted at the hotel’s fast registration process. All I had to do was show my ID and I was on my way to the room. Unfortunately, such positive experiences do not happen on a regular basis. Often a weary traveler ends up frustrated due to long registration times, wrong room assignments or just merely lack of service. Small changes in service can go a long way in improving someone’s experience. Welcome Aboard Businesses have started realizing that a good onboarding experience significantly impacts new hires, employee engagement and retention, which ultimately leads to a business’s success. Organizations spend a lot of time and effort looking for that right candidate, taking them through an extensive hiring cycle and putting out offers. But once the candidate accepts, the trouble begins. Recently, a friend of mine received a verbal offer from a well-known company. She accepted it and was very excited to start but had to wait for the actual offer letter. It took three months from verbal offer to day one of her new job, during which there was little communication from her hiring manager. Though it was her dream job, she came close to giving up on it and taking on another position that had come through within days of interviewing. Early and effective pre-boarding help employees know their future peers. They can read and watch content in advance to understand the company culture, values and expectations. With a warm welcome, employees start to immediately connect with the company and feel a sense of belonging   A Successful New Hire Let’s talk about, Sara Evans. She is a new hire at a large tech company. Sara is excited about this new opportunity but was also nervous. Fortunately for her, the company sent her relevant information and links which took her through a guided pre-boarding process. The welcome package with useful information like the campus map, layout of the floor and her sign-on details for her first day helped Sara get acquainted quickly. Although she is new to the organization, she is already familiar with the company culture and priorities on her first day. On average, companies lose 17% of their new hires during the first three months In most organizations, the onboarding process is not so smooth, employees start their early days feeling lost and confused, not ready to get started. Their first days are engulfed in administrative tasks instead of focusing on valuable activities to get productive quicker.    The Onboarding Experience for all Employees Pre-boarding and onboarding are not limited to new hires. These experiences translate to all job transitions like internal transfers or promotions. It is just as important to onboard employees to a new role as it was when they joined the organization. That same new hire who has now been a long-term employee will continue to be your brand ambassador if supported well throughout her tenure at the organization. An Onboarding Solution that is Effective Oracle HCM Onboarding enables organizations to make work more human by providing meaningful and enriching pre-boarding and onboarding experiences designed to drive immediate engagement. The technology also allows organizations to extend this experience to existing employees during their career transitions. Learn more about Onboarding at cloud.oracle.com/hcm.

Last week I was headed to Las Vegas to present at our annual user conference at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Resort. Three days prior to my arrival, the hotel sent me a precheck-in email. When I...

Companies today are throwing large investments to acquire, manage, reward and nurture the engagement of “best employees” as part of their workforce strategy. They recruit the “best and brightest” and often win the so called war of talent. But not many reap the expected rewards despite attracting top talent.  Managing your "talent keepers" Having talent at your side is not enough, what you do with it make all the difference. To understand, you need to shift focus from talent to talent keepers. Success of your workforce strategy greatly depends on attitude and mindset of leadership's responsible for executing your strategy, not just in the HR department but throughout the organization. Gallup research shows that managers account for 70% of variance in employee engagement. Ability of your leaders to make sound judgments when addressing everyday management dilemmas is critical, so you'll need to make sure that leadership is fully aligned with your strategy of having a motivated and engaged workforce. Are you doing enough to help your leaders lead effectively in this direction? Five leadership checkpoints that impact talent: Are you making sure that leaders are not retaining and rewarding most positions in the same manner—helping to diversify talent? Are you providing feedback to both tough and lenient raters on their performance evaluation behavior over the years? Are you encouraging your leaders to design a robust talent management process?  Are you evaluating and rewarding leaders on their contributions to building the organization and not just on their own performance? Are you making sure that performance evaluations are not being done to just check a box? Using the right technology Have you considered augmenting performance reviews with technology? Oracle Talent Management Cloud will help you recruit, grow and retain your talented team. Combining the domain expertise you posses with the powerful data science tools Oracle HCM Cloud has to offer will really take your employee engagement to the next level.  When you will dig deep inside your people data, you will discover explanatory and predictive insights to help cultivate your talent and enhance performance.  It will be really helpful for your team managers if you visualize these data findings and share it with them; to depict and discuss the strengths and opportunities within their teams.  From powerful recruiting campaigns and painless on-boarding to work-life integration and wellness—leaders need to put their people at the center of everything they do. Brand pride is a reward that your workforce gives you and will ultimately reflect in retention and revenue.

Companies today are throwing large investments to acquire, manage, reward and nurture the engagement of “best employees” as part of their workforce strategy. They recruit the “best and brightest” and...

Written By: Alessandro Vallega, Security Business Development Director, Oracle EMEA General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) may be just around the corner, but it’s not too late to take control of your data and prepare your organization. As a Human Resources manager, you’ll probably be asking yourself how this upcoming European legislation will affect personnel data that your company might have, wherever your employees might be located.  Here, I have outlined five simple steps that can help you get on the path to continuous compliance. But first, a bit of background! What is GDPR? The EU GDPR will come into effect on May 25, 2018. It applies to all organizations inside the EU and any outside who handle and process data of EU residents. It is intended to strengthen data protection and give people greater control over how their personal information is used, stored and shared by organizations who have access to it, from employers to companies whose products and services they buy or use. GDPR also requires organizations to have in place technical and organizational security controls designed to prevent data loss, information leaks, or other unauthorized use of data. Why is GDPR being introduced? The EU has had data protection laws in place for over 20 years. However, in that time, the level of personal information in circulation has grown dramatically, and so have the different channels through which personal information is being collected, shared and handled. As the volume and potential value of data has increased, so has the risk of it falling into the wrong hands, or being used in ways the user hasn’t consented to. GDPR is intended to bring fresh rigour to the way organizations protect the data of EU citizens, while giving citizens greater control over how companies use their data. So, now what should organizations be doing? Step 1: Don’t panic! With the deadline for GDPR closing in, it might be tempting to quickly implement as many data protection measures as possible. While this sense of urgency is warranted, a measured and strategic approach is best. Companies first need to understand GDPR, how it applies to them and exactly what their obligations are.            Step 2: Centralize your data To better monitor their data, organizations first need to make relevant information easily accessible to all the right people internally. Years of growth and diversification may have left them with disjointed systems and ways of working, making it difficult for individual teams to understand how their data fits in with data from across the organization. This makes customer information almost impossible to track in a cohesive way, which is why it’s crucial to centralize data and ensure it is constantly updated. Step 3: Build data transparency into your organization The next step for organizations is to facilitate the exchange of information between teams. They draw on more customer data from more touch-points than ever today to help personalize products or services, but this also means the information they collect is spread thinly across the organization. To gain a more accurate view of their data, organizations need to integrate their systems and processes so every team has access to the data they need.  Step 4: Choose consistency and simplicity over breadth With businesses collecting such large volumes of data at such a rapid rate, complexity quickly becomes the enemy of governance. Rather than opting for a breadth of technologies to manage this information, they may want to consider using a single system that sits across the organization and makes data management simple. Cloud-based applications are well-suited to this end, as they allow businesses to centralize both data and data-driven processes, making it easier to track where and how information is being used at all times. For example, more and more of our customers are taking advantage of Oracle's unified cloud ERP and HCM approach to better future proof their businesses and data.  Step 5: Put data protection front-of-mind for employees New technologies can only go so far in making an organization GDPR compliant. As ever, change comes down to employees, culture and processes. Data protection must be baked into the organization’s DNA, from decisions made in the boardroom down to the way service teams interact with customers and how you input and store data in your human capital management platform.   Much of the focus around GDPR has been on the cost organizations will incur if their data ends up in the wrong hands, but it’s worth remembering that above all else the law requires them to show they have the people, processes and technologies in place to protect their information. By following these simple steps organizations can put themselves in a better position to take control of their data.   Find out more on how Oracle security solutions can help support your response to GDPR.

Written By: Alessandro Vallega, Security Business Development Director, Oracle EMEA General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) may be just around the corner, but it’s not too late to take control of...

Let’s face it. No industry is immune to the talent shortage. The need for top talent is especially acute in retail where stores rely on frontline associates to deliver the very best service. AutoZone, the largest retailer of auto replacement parts and accessories in the U.S., is no exception. It takes customer service so seriously, its employees start each morning with their pledge, AutoZoners always put customers first! and are rewarded for going the ‘Extra Mile’. So it’s no surprise that when AutoZone began looking to transform its Human Capital Management (HCM) system, its team began with the customer in mind. Team members from the store support center (corporate) and store operations wanted a modernized, streamlined solution that would enable them to hire the best people and then empower these recruits to focus on serving the customer. They also needed a solution that could scale rapidly to achieve the aggressive growth target of doubling revenue to $20 billion in the next five to 10 years. As Oracle PeopleSoft customers, AutoZone team members were concerned about what would happen to the customizations they had put in place. Would a cloud solution be able to handle their unique business requirements and give them the recruiting and hiring agility they need to stay ahead? Through partnering with Oracle and Hitachi Consulting, AutoZone created a phased roadmap for its transformation from PeopleSoft to Oracle HCM Cloud. The team just went live with Phase I: Talent Acquisition (Sourcing, Recruiting and Onboarding) and is seeing immediate benefits—with 93,000 completed job applications in the first 30 days (4X higher) and the mobile-friendly job application process taking only seven minutes (down from 20). Now, AutoZone is moving into Phase 2: Core HR, Payroll and Absence Management. Want to learn more about how AutoZone transformed their business? Join us for our May 9 Webinar at 1 PM ET to hear AutoZone’s Theresa LeDoux on a panel of experts with Hitachi Consulting and Oracle sharing key success factors for migrating HR and/or finance to the cloud. The panelists will help you review options for taking a phased approach or migrating all at once. Don’t miss this opportunity to jumpstart your own transformation. Register now

Let’s face it. No industry is immune to the talent shortage. The need for top talent is especially acute in retail where stores rely on frontline associates to deliver the very best service. AutoZone,...

The 2018 NBA Playoffs are here! It’s one of my favorite times of the year where I spend a lot more time in front of my TV than I probably should—watching and cheering on the Golden State Warriors! This year, the competition is more fierce than ever, as diehard fans can even see how their favorite NBA teams stack up with Oracle Analytics and data visualization tools. But the purpose of this blog isn’t to predict who will win or to promote our analytics solutions, it’s to highlight an area of work that often goes under appreciated in the professional world—volunteering. At Oracle, we have a whole team who dedicates their time to helping employees find ways to give back. I believe that it's participation like this that helps make work more human, something we encourage all of our Oracle HCM Cloud human resources customers to do!  Last month, I volunteered with the Golden State Warriors and several Oracle colleagues to host a basketball clinic for Girls on the Run. I didn’t know much about Girls on the Run before the event, but their mission statement resonated with me:   We believe that every girl can embrace who she is, can define who she wants to be, can rise to any challenge, can change the world. Can.             The basketball clinic was hosted at Oracle Arena, on the home court of the defending NBA champions. Shortly after arriving, I realized this was not going to be just a half-day of playing basketball with middle school girls, it was #BiggerThanBasketball. The energy and excitement of walking from the tunnel onto the court, was more than I’ve felt from watching several professional NBA games this year. The entire experience was electric, from the moment the girls ran from the player tunnel in their Warriors-Oracle branded attire to center court. The girls participated in passing, shooting, dribbling drills and got to hear WNBA legend Ruthie Bolton and NBA champion Kevon Looney deliver life lessons on what it takes to win in business and life. One of the quotes that stood out to me from Kevon was, “If you’re on time, you’re already late”. Every interaction, from meeting several new Oracle colleagues to running basketball drills with the girls, I was reminded of Oracle’s culture and commitment to winning. These were strong lessons that could not be learned in a traditional classroom or office setting.  Volunteer programs are a great way for your HR team to help boost your company's brand, attract top talent and increase employee engagement. Oracle HCM Cloud's My Volunteering can help your organization inspire people to take action and change the world. Reward employees through an official VTO program or with cool swag, create personalized volunteer recommendations and help facilitate team bonding—all while giving back to your local community.   What does your team do to help out your local community? Share with us on Twitter using #OracleHCM and you could be featured on our next blog about making work more human!

The 2018 NBA Playoffs are here! It’s one of my favorite times of the year where I spend a lot more time in front of my TV than I probably should—watching and cheering on the Golden State Warriors!...

Written by Pete Jaradeh Associate Product Marketing Manager, Oracle HCM Cloud     For many, your office is practically a second home, so it should come as no surprise that companies looking to attract and retain top talent are doing everything imaginable to make their work environments part of the attraction.   Repetitive employee turnover can be expensive and, while human resources often does their best, making a few office modifications can make a big difference for retention and morale. Not only that—establishing a more collaborative, creative and enjoyable culture can do wonders for workplace productivity and help promote healthy and happy employee relationships. It's amazing how important the physical environment of an office space can be.   "It’s no secret why our physical space matters: we all want to spend our workdays in environments that energize and inspire us. These types of workspaces help us feel more creative, engaged, and connected to the company we work for," explained Jacob Morgan, a keynote speaker at Oracle HCM World 2018.   We've compiled a list of 5 exceptional offices that range from modern and fun, to downright out-of-this-world. So without further ado, and in no particular order, here are our favorite, jaw-dropping locations.   CBRE – Sydney, Australia   As the world’s largest commercial real estate services company, CBRE manages more than 1.6 billion square feet of commercial space from over 450 offices worldwide—one of which managed to catch our eye. Located in the heart of Sydney, CBRE’s head Australian office is taking modern décor to the next level. The entire interior of their building is outfitted with patterned hardwood floors, curvy coves as well as thin glass and wooden walls, providing a sleek modern look. The various meeting rooms and work zones easily allow colleagues to collaborate with each other, increasing productivity, while simultaneously encouraging team work. In the center lies a beautifully crafted, LED-based lighting sculpture as well as a classy bar area, installed to help employees feel appreciated and at ease while creating a communal environment. If you’re interested in seeing more, take a look at Electro Light’s CBRE publication.     Ford Motors – Washington D.C.   Ford Motors may have been around since the 1900’s, but their new Washington D.C. based office is anything but old school. Designed by renowned architecture firm Wingate Hughes Architects, this government affairs-related complex attempts to pay homage to Ford and Lincoln’s iconic branding, as illustrated by the entrance’s three-dimensional floating, satin-finished Ford logo, accompanied by a Lincoln logo backdrop. It features a waiting area designed to resemble the seats from actual 1950’s Ford cars, known for their comfort and luxury, as well as a spacious conference room, aligning with the office’s minimalistic theme and helping to promote a more collaborative and supportive work environment. Ford underwent this dramatic transformation in hopes of not just emphasizing their commitment to the future but their employees as well, most of whom are sure to welcome the sleek and simplistic nature the new office has provided. Fujitsu – Sydney, Australia   In addition to CBRE, another organization’s offices are turning heads over in Sydney, Australia, and that organization is none other than Fujitsu. Architect Woods Bagot worked hand-in-hand with Fujitsu to commission their Oceania Headquarters and the results speak for themselves. Woods’ design incorporates integration and Japanese architecture principles in a way that makes every area of the office seem connected and soothing, helping promote collaboration and reducing stress amongst their staff. The design itself features graphic motif carpets, block-print patterned walls, timber cladding and traditional wooden furniture, all in an effort to solidify their brand and create a place employees truly enjoy being at.     XL Catlin – Wroclaw, Poland   XL Catlin’s offices are known around the globe for being stylish and attention-grabbing but one in particular stands above the rest: their Poland location. In order to make this ambitious location a reality, XL Catlin contracted The Design Group, a Polish architectural studio, to oversee the design process and bring some new ideas to the table. At first glance, you’ll immediately notice the black and white contrast enriched by thin, dark veneer paneling and ultra-bright, linear lighting, giving the inner area a modern and elegant feel. You’ll also be drawn to leafy green backdrops, eloquently placed behind meeting locations, providing employees with a sense of tranquility and, according to Harvard, proven to boost productivity. XL Catlin announced a major initiative to retain key staff members and talented individuals back in 2015 and their clear commitment to their office environments is definitely a step in the right direction. Hilton – McLean, Virginia   While not technically an office, in an effort to keep up with the latest trends, Hilton recently launched a communal space directly beneath their global headquarters, known to McLean inhabitants as “The Social.” The Social is roughly 10,000 square feet in total and features many amenities guests of their resorts are already familiar with. For example, the interior includes a wooden and marble reception area, an international food hall, privatized collaborative work areas and even a full-service Starbucks, adjacent to an outdoor terrace. Matthew W. Schuyler, CHRO at Hilton, stated that this recent overhaul relates directly to Hilton’s talent-based initiatives, commenting, “In sustaining our position as a Great Place to Work, these innovations are crucial in attracting the best local talent to our business.” Think your workspace brings extraordinary to another level? Let us know on Twitter using #OracleHCM and share images of your home away from home and potentially be featured on our next cool offices blog!  

Written by Pete Jaradeh Associate Product Marketing Manager, Oracle HCM Cloud     For many, your office is practically a second home, so it should come as no surprise that companies looking to attract...

    1 | PERSONAL AND MODERN USER EXPERIENCE It's not unrealistic to desire your consumer technology experience to be the same or similar to your B2B software and SaaS solutions. The technologies we use in our personal life are enjoyable and that’s why our customers come to us to deliver the same experience in their day job. The ability to match your brand and your organization’s culture in a delightful and intuitive online and mobile experience is just the beginning. The Oracle HCM Cloud interface can be easily personalized to fit your natural working style with a home space configured to make your day more productive.   2 | ADAPTABLE AND EXTENSIBLE Wouldn’t it be nice if your systems were agile, up-to-date and easily configurable as your needs change whether it’s re-organization, mergers & acquisitions, divestitures, or regulatory compliance changes? Our customers think so, too. You can easily configure your organizational chart, model your workforce with their compensation data, and set up processes without IT’s involvement. A complete, one-stop shop for your team to get their work done independently and efficiently. “Macy’s One HR project is focused on transforming our HR processes, policies and technology in order to increase operational efficiency. Our guiding principle was to use Oracle’s delivered functionality to the greatest extent possible, rather than customizing features that would require additional maintenance. As a result, we are better positioned to grow with the Oracle product as new features become available.” —Terri Brown, Vice President, HR Business Processes and Solutions, Macy’s Inc.   3 | INTELLIGENT APPLICATION Have you officially run out of shows to watch on Netflix when you decide to browse the “recommended for you section?” These smart recommendations are examples of Netflix employees tagging content and machine learning bubbling up the next best show for you. Now, imagine a human capital management platform that could alert you of potential employee flight risks, or recommend learning opportunities to your engaged staff. Oracle HCM Cloud uses Adaptive Intelligence (AI), which combines data with advanced machine learning and sophisticated decision science to help improve talent management, provide complete workforce insights, and increase operational efficiency.   4 | COMPLETE HCM CLOUD If you could choose between managing 50 different hr systems, integrations, processes, and PO’s, or one, central HCM platform—I guarantee you’d choose the latter. This is why Oracle customers choose us time and time again for all of their business needs. Organizations that want to manage the entire employee lifecycle select Oracle HCM Cloud because it is built as a single cloud solution across human resources, talent management, learning, talent acquisition, work life, HR help desk, payroll, benefits, and time and labor.      5 | BUSINESS VALUE Our customers leverage our simply powerful HCM cloud application to drive business value through better user engagement and adoption, streamlined processes, improved productivity, and lower total cost of ownership. Our customer, Cummins, recently shared some of the value in switching to the Cloud. 98% employee adoption of Oracle’s HCM Cloud 84% cycle-time reduction for Compensation and Talent Management processes 1-day data latency for descriptive analytics, compared to 2-3 weeks in the past 95% reduction in manual effort in delivering workforce insights to leaders 100% elimination of inconsistencies in analyses and insights If you’re currently choosing your next HCM system, these are some of the results that should help illustrate how our customers are seeing immediate value in their decision. “With Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud, we have enhanced our HR efficiency by reducing HR processing time by 50% and external IT support by 80%. This has optimized strategic planning throughout our tanker, terminals, container, and other business units, while boosting our employer brand,” —Michael Bresser, Global Business Application Manager Corporate Functions, Stolt-Nielsen Limited.   6 | INNOVATION POWERHOUSE Our customers love that they can create tomorrow, today with emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots, and the Internet of Things (aka smart devices). Each year, we inject $6B in R&D [supported by more than 40,000 developers) so we can bring you the latest technology and incorporate customer sourced ideas.   7 | DATA SECURITY AND PRIVACY Data privacy. The hottest topic on the block these days. Security is a top priority for Oracle Cloud solutions. Oracle has a strong security culture, formal security policies, and our products have been used for mission critical government and enterprise applications across the world. The last thing we want our customers to do is worry if their data is secure. Oracle employs some of the world’s foremost security experts in information, database, application, infrastructure, and network security—bringing you the best team to back up your data requirements.     8 | A VIBRANT HR COMMUNITY None of our innovation would be possible without an engaged community. Our customers are constantly up-leveling our work and keeping us passionate about what we do here at Oracle. Oracle Cloud Customer Connect is a vibrant online community of 30,000+ HCM members ready to help you in your journey. The goal of this online community is to crowdsource information, with everyone on the same version of Oracle HCM Cloud, and share everything from the latest release information to your burning product question.   9 | CUSTOMER SUCCESS How does a stress-free implementation and an integrated, thriving, efficient HCM platform sound? We are here to help you when the lifting gets heavy and to optimize your system. New Oracle customers are assigned both a dedicated implementation success manager to manage your project as well as a dedicated customer success manager to manage the overall relationship, after your software is live. In addition, you will have access to 24/7 customer service across 145 countries worldwide to help you maximize the value of your investment. Your CSM can help you get a seat on our Customer Advisory Board, Strategic Council, speaking spots, identify PR opportunities for you, and much more!    10 | GLOBAL CAPABILITIES Most enterprises today operate at both the global and local level, so our customers like that Oracle HCM Cloud is designed globally at the core to meet both corporate and regional needs for over 200+ localities and 24+ languages. To the end user, the system can be regarded as a local system, while on a higher level, all these local solutions can be rolled up as part of a global solution to the organization. Dive in and learn more about the 10 reasons why our customers love us!

    1 | PERSONAL AND MODERN USER EXPERIENCE It's not unrealistic to desire your consumer technology experience to be the same or similar to your B2B software and SaaS solutions. The technologies we use...

So you want to move to the cloud? The decision has been made but you are laden with legacy systems that are heavily customized across the globe. Now you have to consider not only motivating your team to establish process, but also lay out a plan for change management. You know you can do this but sometimes wish you had a “phone a friend” button to push. Margaret Patrick, VP and IT Executive at XL Catlin, took stage at Oracle HCM World last month in Dallas, to share her team’s success story and lessons learned during their move to the cloud. One Company, One HR As business needs change, our customers look for one human capital management platform to consolidate multiple systems and processes and help move them (and their people) through major events like mergers and acquisitions.  XL was already on their human resources transformation journey to the cloud after choosing to implement Oracle’s HCM Cloud solution when they acquired Catlin in 2015, who came with a completely different HR system. This brought the XL Catlin team to a crucial decision point. “Our CEO, Michael McGavick, had a vision of an integrated company. One company, one HR. We decided to continue with the transformation and integrate HR processes and systems from both companies to support this guiding principle,” explained Margaret. In July 2015 the team rolled out Core HR, payroll, benefits, recruiting. By November 2015, manager and employee self service went live, performance manager, learning, onboarding, compensation, talent and succession planning all did as well. They branded their HR system, “myHR,” to give it a personal touch. Here are the ten lessons learned Margaret graciously shared with the Oracle HCM World audience last month.   10 Lessons Learned on XL Catlin’s Move to the Cloud   Training—The road to the cloud isn’t a short one. For some companies they can do it in a year, some it takes three. Margaret advises to establish a change management program from the start. People change, they move on, be ready.   Oracle team changes—People will move on from the Oracle side too. “If you’re not in discussions about buying, you have to work to keep the relationship going with your Oracle support team. We dipped a bit, but there is a renewed relationship now and it makes all the difference,” said Margaret. Pilot, pilot, pilot—Run new features by focus groups. Pick the greatest attractors and detractors internally. Get their input; it goes a long way when building out your HR system. Simplicity is key—Keep security model design simple and revisit often. Train people in security so you’re not just relying on one person who knows all of the info. Establish reporting duties—Address reporting early and dedicate resources from the beginning. Even when you’re just making configuration changes, identify a team (or person) dedicated to reporting.   Minimize data migration—Are you moving from an on-premise solution? You can keep in read only mode while you make your move. But, have a good think about what you actually need to move over. It’s okay to let go of the past sometimes! Follow best practices—Keep up to date with product changes. What was best in R8 (fancy Oracle lingo for product version) might be different in R13. Example: compensation. “Our first year, went really well. The next year with two companies, we probably gave too much emphasis to give every stakeholder every bit of compensation info. It was just too much information for them. It was so much so we had issues with system performance. Ask yourself, do you really need all of these calculations shown?”  Once you move on from project mode, you need contacts at Oracle. Develop network of champions—These people are needed inside and outside of HR. Once you are passed working with SI, develop internal champions in all regions and all the departments. Refresh that network often as teams change. Engage early and often—To keep tight integration, you want a master source for managing processes and systems that interfaces with other systems like helpdesk, real estate, payroll, etc. XL Caitlin haas about 60 integrations so even for small changes, engaging early was helpful.   Ensure strong team with extensive product knowledge—Have your team attend product update webinars and be part of the Oracle Cloud Customer Connect community where they can learn what’s new and best practices. So there you have it! 10 Lessons Learned from XL Catlin you now apply to your cloud planning for 2018. Check out the Cummins story to find more tips on your journey to the cloud. 

So you want to move to the cloud? The decision has been made but you are laden with legacy systems that are heavily customized across the globe. Now you have to consider not only motivating your team...

During Oracle’s HCM World 2018, we strived to bring fearless leadership to the keynote stage. Fabio Fukuda, our customer keynote, took stage and inspired the room of 2,000+ attendees with his message of fearlessness.

During Oracle’s HCM World 2018, we strived to bring fearless leadership to the keynote stage. Fabio Fukuda, our customer keynote, took stage and inspired the room of 2,000+ attendees with his message...

Recently, Holger Mueller of Constellation Research and Gretchen Alarcon, Oracle’s GVP of Product Strategy, got together for an illuminating series of six videos discussing Modern HR challenges—and the opportunities they present for HCM software. You can view the first video, “Bridge the Productivity Gap,” below, or read the transcript instead. Gretchen Alarcon: Welcome, Holger. Let's get right into it. We spend a lot of time talking with our customers about what's going on in their markets, and what we're hearing is that while technology is having a lot of innovation, organizations aren't seeing the resulting business productivity. Why do you think that is? Holger Mueller: It's really interesting. There's a gap between what technology can do and where business best practices are. And that's a huge challenge for enterprise, because they know they need to move faster. Enterprise exploration is the buzz word around that, right? What can enterprise do to move faster, to accelerate toward their goals. And employees experience that gap all the time because personal technology has kept up with that, in the way of being much more human to interact with because we can use speech to speak to at least our smartphones already, and to our PCs, potentially. So that's not happening in the workplace yet, and that gap is frustrating for employers, and it's important to fill that gap. Gretchen Alarcon: So what do you think organizations should do? What actions should they take if they want to really improve their organizational productivity? Holger Mueller: Well, they need to find ways to automate pieces of that, and the cool thing to do in these days is artificial intelligence, AI, which requires big data to measure everything behind there. And then find ways of automating things. A closer to home for a job professional is to find ways to find “where's the talent in my organization?” Because we now want to move faster, the people which help me the most to go faster are the ones which are already inside of my organization. And the worst thing that you can have is that you try to find a candidate from the outside, and you have good people inside who could do the job right away, right now. So you don't get them faster by hiring from the outside who's not that qualified. But when you hire from the outside, you have to bring them up to speed very quickly, so modern ways of learning are essential for that, and I coined the term of “Transboarding,” because there's so much talk of onboarding, but transfers will have to be onboarded as well. And the success of a transfer to onboard is even more important, because we expect them to be going right away. So get a talent depth chart, understand where the talent is in the organization, inside, outside of the organization. Transboarding to bring people faster in the places, coupled with modern learning to bring them up to speed even before they have to get that job. Gretchen Alarcon: Great, thank you. We'll be sharing the next video from the series, “Make Work More Human,” in the coming weeks. Visit oracle.com/HCM to learn more.

Recently, Holger Mueller of Constellation Research and Gretchen Alarcon, Oracle’s GVP of Product Strategy, got together for an illuminating series of six videos discussing Modern HR challenges—and the...

For more than 55 years, Mary Kay has inspired women to achieve their entrepreneurial goals in nearly 40 countries. It’s no wonder Chief People Officer Melinda Foster Sellers has had 25 years of Mary Kay success herself. With a supporting cast and some incredible corporate values, it seems the sky’s the limit over at Mary Kay. You can imagine that a global company with a large gig economy might need a robust system to help them attract and retain talent. Before Oracle HCM Cloud, Mary Kay was using outdated on-premises HRMS solutions. Like many of our customers, they were looking to modernize their workforce, attract new talent, and lower their total cost of ownership. Additionally, their employees lacked an easy-to-use, mobile experience—something Melinda saw as a necessity. Melinda and her team are currently in the middle of their move to the cloud and took the stage at Oracle HCM World 2018 to share their learnings thus far:   “I knew this transformation would be challenging, especially from a change management perspective,” said Melinda. “My goal, belief, and hope is that people will be excited.” 8 Tips on Moving to the Cloud from Melinda Get buy in from the entire C-suite, not just HR executives. Establish your guiding principles and stay close to them. Post your guiding principles on the walls, so they are top of mind for employees. Treat your employees as customers, and get them excited from the start. Think about the different personas in your org. Map out their day-in-the-life. How many clicks does it take to get something done? Can they move from desktop to mobile and back again with ease? Make things simple. Avoid your old customizations and strive for simplicity. Consider your gig economy. Mary Kay employees are all over the world and include all types, from corporate employees to the manufacturers that build their products. Remote employees all have smartphones and should be able to use their mobile device for all self-service transactions. Get legal involved now. Partner with your legal team; they will help you make the right decisions, especially around global compliance disparities. What’s next for Mary Kay in their journey to the cloud? “We are still in the process of this move, but I want to see an increase in HR’s value add to the company instead of being a team focused on administrative tasks,” explained Melinda. “It might be challenging to get used to all of this change, but we have to do it.” With global compliancy to consider, Melinda has to look beyond U.S. regulations: “Outside of the U.S., China is our largest business. They are currently PeopleSoft users, so we have to consider that transition. Europe has strict data compliancy laws we have to work through and make sure their privacy is prioritized. Where is it stored? Who has access?” Mary Kay has already seen a shift in their team’s efficiency, with 80% of transactions being completely self-service now. For approvals, such as those for pay raises, Melinda is hoping that 90% of them will only require one level of manager approvals very soon. Whether you’re halfway through your move to the cloud or just considering it, we hope these tips will help get you started. If you get frustrated during the process grab your favorite Mary Kay lipstick, slap it on, and tell yourself, “I got this.” What are your learnings from moving to the cloud? Share with us on Twitter! Use #OracleHCM to jump into the conversation.  

For more than 55 years, Mary Kay has inspired women to achieve their entrepreneurial goals in nearly 40 countries. It’s no wonder Chief People Officer Melinda Foster Sellers has had 25 years of Mary...

By Wincy Ip As Oracle's Cloud solutions continue to expand across SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS, customers are eagerly evaluating how these offerings can help transform how they run their businesses. Whether users are looking to modernize their business and optimize with new cloud investments, integrate and extend an existing hybrid environment with on-premise systems, or build a personalized path to the cloud, COLLABORATE is the annual Oracle user conference where attendees can learn how they can accelerate business innovation and digital transformation with Oracle Cloud. This year's program at COLLABORATE, nearly 50% of the 1,200+ sessions will focus on cloud, developer, and emerging technologies to complement Oracle's on-premise solutions. Here's a preview of some of the education available at COLLABORATE. In the Oracle keynote session on Monday, April 23 at 2:30 p.m., Steve Daheb, Senior Vice President for Oracle Cloud, will illuminate how the Oracle Cloud Platform makes it possible for organizations to develop their own unique path to cloud from wherever they choose—SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS—and share how organizations have designed their unique journeys. With the introduction of the world's first-ever autonomous database, COLLABORATE attendees will also hear about the exciting developments and get a sneak peek on the Oracle Autonomous Database Cloud, and how Oracle is integrating AI and machine learning to its suite of cloud services to make them fully autonomous and cognitive. These sessions will explore how organizations can benefit from more autonomy in their software, from business users to app developers to DBAs. Additionally, there are more than 500 sessions available that span across Oracle's SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS solutions where attendees can learn how Oracle's cloud offerings can accelerate business transformation, increase agility, and optimize security with their existing solutions. There is also an HCM Cloud track for Oracle HCM customers with nearly 70 sessions available. Here are just some of the education opportunities you don’t want to miss out on: Your Journey to Cloud with Choice and Control [Session ID: 109730] Move Your Oracle Workloads to Oracle Cloud: No Pain, Lots of Gain [Session ID: 109430] Oracle Cloud Infrastructure - The Best of On-Premises and Cloud in a Single Infrastructure Solution [Session ID: 112020] Advanced Architectures for Deploying Oracle Applications on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure [Session ID: 107820] Extend and Enhance ERP and Supply Chain with Oracle Cloud Platform [Session ID: 104320] Bitcoin Tech: How Blockchain Helps Extend Boundaries for Enterprise Applications and SaaS [Session ID: 104340] The Next Big Things: AI, Machine Learning, Chatbots, IOT, and Blockchain [Session ID: 110080] HCM Cloud 2018 and Beyond: Strategy and Roadmap [Session ID: 111560] Making the Mojo: UX Extensibility in Oracle HCM Cloud Release 13 [Session ID: 111660] Corporate and Personal Protection in the Cloud [Session ID: 111540] Oracle HCM Cloud Executive Update [Session ID: 111600] Compelling Reasons to Move to HCM Cloud [Session ID: 111610] Evolving Your Evaluation Process in the New Age of Active Performance Management [Session ID: 111620] Thrive with Oracle Cloud Workforce Management [Session ID: 111630] Customer Success is Our Driving Force [Session ID: 111640] Evolving to the Oracle HCM Cloud [Session ID: 111650] How to Address Change & Become an Agent for Transformation [Session ID: 111680] Engaging the Multi-Generation Workforce & Making Room for the Selfie Generation [Session ID: 111690] COLLABORATE is the largest annual technology and applications forum for the Oracle user community in North America. Taking place on April 22-26 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and hosted by three Oracle user groups–IOUG, OAUG, and Quest International Users Group–the five-day conference will host more than 5,000 attendees in keynotes, sessions, workshops, networking events, and an exhibitor showcase with 200+ vendors. See what COLLABORATE 18 has to offer. You can also review the complete agenda and search by keyword, education track, product line, or business goal. Register at attendcollaborate.com by April 18 and save up to 25% from the onsite registration price.  

By Wincy Ip As Oracle's Cloud solutions continue to expand across SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS, customers are eagerly evaluating how these offerings can help transform how they run their businesses. Whether...

The recruit-to-onboard stage can be a risky and costly process for many businesses. The search for new recruits, agency fees, interviewing, and onboarding all adds up, and even then, you’re not out of the woods. Since employee turnover can slow your business down, companies should reconfigure their recruiting and onboarding to be as efficient as possible. Oracle’s “Recruit to Onboard” can help you see exactly where savings could be made in your organization. Once you’ve prioritized the areas for improvement, a key first step will be moving your people management to the cloud. With cloud-based recruiting and onboarding solutions, the benefits aren’t limited to cost reduction. You’ll find a whole host of tools, resources and capabilities to improve employee engagement and retention for the long term. Here are 5 ways HCM in the cloud will improve your recruitment and onboarding: 1. Fast, integrated, insight-rich data From identifying and shortlisting the right candidates, to automated data entry at onboarding, to integration with other business functions, like Finance, the cloud gives you rapid access to the data you need, when you need it, and enables 360-degree visibility across the entire organization. 2. Improved, better informed decision-making With such rich data at your fingertips, you need the capability to identify and get the most from the insights locked inside it. Powerful analytics tools can help you spot skill gaps, recognize right-fit candidates and identify potential problems with churn. Reports are faster and more reliable, and decisions can be made with the confidence that they’re based on hard data, not gut feelings. 3. Higher employee engagement Chances are that your workforce comprises a wide range of individuals, from millennials who grew up with technology to remote workers who need to stay connected. That means digital collaboration tools are a fundamental requirement for engagement, and with cloud-based HCM, they come as standard. Personalized self-service facilities improve the experience further by giving your people control over their own data–with the added benefit this brings in terms of accuracy and currency of the data you hold. 4. Tighter security As your organization becomes increasingly data-driven and remote, “BYOD” becomes more prevalent, the protection of valuable employee data is paramount–both in terms of its security and privacy. A modern, cloud-based HCM platform provides the layered, end-to-end, up-to-date security you can rely on. 5. Future-focused technology With the continued advance of automation and AI capabilities, you can increasingly leave it to your cloud-based HCM platform to do the leg work for you–and do it intelligently. Filtering through large volumes of application data to find the best candidates is just one example. Add in machine learning to gradually improve the quality of people it selects, and you are increasingly free to focus on the bigger picture and make the strategic decisions that count. Benefits to you: let’s get specific So how can you calculate the real and specific benefits of moving your organization to a cloud-based HCM platform? Our Recruit to Onboard tool is a great starting point. Simply tap a few company stats into the calculator and you can work out the potential impact on your business in these 5 key recruitment targets: Reduce voluntary employee turnover Reduce employee replacement expenses Reduce time to hire Reduce outside recruiting costs Increase percentage of right hires You can provide as much or as little detail as you like, but of course the more you provide, the more accurate the results. Your personalized report will be accompanied by links to useful reading, videos, and infographics to help you build a convincing case. Test drive the Recruit to Onboard tool today.

The recruit-to-onboard stage can be a risky and costly process for many businesses. The search for new recruits, agency fees, interviewing, and onboarding all adds up, and even then, you’re not out of...

“It is expensive to be mediocre in this world.” - J. Irwin Miller, former CEO of Cummins, a quote shared by Rubies award winner Fabio Fukuda of Cummins during his keynote This year’s Oracle HCM World was chock full of companies pushing boundaries to accelerate their workforce into the future. It is clear that many of today’s HR leaders are not stopping at mediocrity. To celebrate the success organizations are achieving by modernizing HR processes in the cloud, Oracle announced the winners of the Oracle HCM Cloud Rubies Award in Dallas last week. The awards recognize HR professionals who are using Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud to elevate the employee experience and future proof their business. The 2018 winners include Caesars Entertainment Corporation, Creighton University, Cummins Inc., Emerson, Macy’s, NSF International, and PTC. “The Oracle HCM Cloud Rubies Awards recognize HR professionals that have successfully transformed the HR function and related business processes,” said Emily He, Senior Vice President, HCM Cloud Business Group, Oracle. “This year’s winners truly are industry pioneers who have fully leveraged Oracle HCM Cloud solutions to enhance employee engagement and deliver outstanding results.” Meet our 2018 Oracle HCM Rubies Awards winners! Game Changer Award Recognizes teams that did something unique with Oracle HCM Cloud and took their HR function out of the dark ages of manual processes and out-of-date technology. Macy’s—Terri Brown, Vice President, HR Technology Happily Ever After Award Recognizes businesses that relied on Oracle HCM Cloud during a major merger or acquisition. NSF International—Wayne Overla, HRIS Manager Talent Show Award Recognizes teams that leverage Oracle HCM Cloud’s recommended jobs and workforce visibility features to drive internal mobility and retention Cummins—Mike Whitesell, HRIS Manager, Integrated Talent Management Time Is On My Side Award Recognizes organizations that use Oracle HCM Cloud to dramatically reduce their time to hire. Emerson—Jim Rhodes, Vice President, HRIS It’s All In The Numbers Award Recognizes an organization that is using Oracle HCM Cloud analytics to improve talent management and retention. Cummins—Fabio Fukuda, Director, Global HRIS and Business Intelligence Dynamic Duo Award Recognizes teams who have experienced exceptional results using a combination of the different Oracle Cloud solutions together. Caesars Entertainment—Michael O’Brien, Vice President, Corporate HR Services Keep it in the Family Award Recognizes teams that use Oracle HCM Cloud to retain the very best talent. Creighton University—Molly Billings, Senior Director, Human Resources Express Lane Award Recognizes companies that have started to reap the rewards of Oracle HCM Cloud in the shortest time possible. PTC—Kathy Cullen-Cote, Corporate Vice President, Human Resources Our Rubies Awards winners aren’t just implementing technology and updating HR processes—they are changing the ways we work to be more enjoyable, more supportive, and smarter. Congratulations to our Rubies Awards winners! Your creative thinking, innovative ideas, and fearless leadership has truly paid off. To read more about our winners, visit our Rubies Awards site here and be sure to jump on the nomination process in early 2019. Join us in congratulating our winners on Twitter using #OracleHCM and #HCMRubies18.

“It is expensive to be mediocre in this world.” - J. Irwin Miller, former CEO of Cummins, a quote shared by Rubies award winner Fabio Fukuda of Cummins during his keynote This year’s Oracle HCM World wa...

With customers, partners, and HR luminaries coming from all over the globe to congregate and strategize, it's no wonder that last week's HCM World conference was such an enlightening event. The perfect weather in Dallas provided an appropriate backdrop to a series of thought-provoking sessions that spanned new product functionality, emerging trends, and everything in between.  New challenges and opportunities HCM World 2018 kicked off in fine fashion with a keynote from Oracle's HCM evangelist Cara Capretta, who walked us through the latest insights from PwC, Gartner, and more. Most compelling, judging from the audience reaction, was her discussion on shifting from "PTB to EI," or from "pleasing the boss to employee intimacy." This focus is far more valuable, Cara asserted, than the perpetual talk of reaching millennials—whose differing expectations have not been confirmed by statistical research. Next up was "futurist" and author Jacob Morgan, who guided us through the evolution of the employee experience, from the days when candidates were lining up in droves for any job posting, to the current pervasive struggle for engagement. During an enlightening section on how only 6% of employers provide an "amazing" employee experience, he reminded the crowd of HR professionals of an important paradigm shift. "Engagement is not the cause," Morgan said. "It's the result of something." Walking the walk Attendees seemed to relish the HR-dedicated content throughout the three-day event, maximizing the chance to start systemizing new strategies, rather than only discussing them.  A packed Baker Tilly session, "Meaningful HR Metrics: Overcome the Hurdles to Manage and Extract Value," used an Indiana Jones theme to explore what's needed for companies to move beyond "basic static and compliance reporting," something 44% of companies do, according to a survey. Establishing a new "data steward" role, as well as leaving a "transactional" mindset are key. "The spectrum has grown tremendously in terms of expectation," said Jeffrey Haynes, citing the growing use of analytics similar to Google search and FICO credit scoring. Naturally, audience members were primed to visit the Hands-On Lab area, which saw a steady flow of traffic throughout the week. For the first time, participants could use iPhones in addition to iPads to play around with the latest product features, including Oracle Recruiting Cloud's External Candidate Experience and New Hire Onboarding. "Hands on" took on a literal meeting for one of the most fun sessions of HCM World, "Beam Me Up, Scotty: Augmented Reality in Oracle HCM," hosted by senior UX manager Lulit Bezuayehu. The interactive session was packed full of attendees, who sat at small tables for group collaboration to experiment with "augmented reality," which has been used to great effect by Snapchat, IKEA, and Pokemon Go. At such a high-tech event, people loved creating objects for digital overlay, and merging the physical and virtual worlds.  A focus on industry-specific issues In addition to deep dives on compliance and other issues affecting HR departments, HCM World 2018 provided many vertical-specific sessions to address some singular industry challenges. On Day 3, VP of transformation Joseph Clay presented "The Modern Campus: Challenges and  Opportunities for Human Capital Leaders," in which he outlined steps that can be taken by higher education institutions to better navigate the fickle budgets and change management challenges. Clay cautioned that service delivery and user experience are no longer open for debate in this sector. "It's not just your ability to compile information," he said," it's also about your ability to get it into the hands of those who need it."   Disengagement is one problem that all industries can relate to, yet author Andrew Sherman saw the upside of nearly 70% of today’s employees not being engaged at work.  "This is an incredible opportunity for HR professionals," he told the attentive audience. "This is your time to shine." Most interesting was his citation of a University of Maryland study that confirmed "mattering" increases in importance for people as they age. Christmas bonuses, free bagel Fridays, and other "1990s thinking" won't help you. For more information on the latest Oracle HCM Cloud functionality, visit our product update page.

With customers, partners, and HR luminaries coming from all over the globe to congregate and strategize, it's no wonder that last week's HCM Worldconference was such an enlightening event. The perfect...

Another HCM World is in the books, and surely attendees are pondering how the best strategies from breakout sessions can be applied to their own HR departments. This year's conference—held last week in beautiful downtown Dallas—was a particularly exciting one since it coincided with an extensive Spring product update designed to help companies "make work more human." More detailed coverage of HCM World 2018 will be posted throughout the week, but to start, here are thoughts from just a few publications. Judging from these initial reactions, 2018 will be a very good year for HCM Cloud customers: "The company added a 'news feed' styled interface pushing AI capabilities, specifically targeted at professional and hiring enhancement. The news feed approach is clearly a dramatic alteration for the company; it will deploy machine learning to garner data insights and other key details. Important analytics are displayed and updated immediately - with smarter search functionalities, and a more consistent user experience." —HR Technologist "To make work smarter, Oracle has optimized its AI and machine-learning capabilities to assist HR professionals (and candidates) from recruiting through onboarding. One feature seeks to help reduce the time that’s needed to fill empty positions by highlighting the “best-fit candidate” and proactively sourcing both candidates and employees who should be invited to apply." —HR Executive "The common element to these tools appears to be an almost 'quiet' integration of AI into many tools commonly used by both employees and HR. This fits with what Gretchen Alarcon, Oracle’s group vice president for HCM product strategy, told the HCM Technology Report in an interview conducted before this week’s Oracle HCM World. While noting that AI is 'in the buzzword stage,' she noted that Oracle 'has had elements of machine learning in our system for four years. We’ve put it in where it made sense.'” —HCM Technology Report "Another Oracle HCM cloud user, Radu Ivascu, said he has seen a lot of improvement by Oracle in the consistency of HCM forms across various platforms. 'The more consistent they are, the more efficiently a user can perform their job,' said Ivascu, an HRIS adviser at the American Bureau of Shipping, a global classification firm based in Houston that develops safety and design standards for ships and other marine structures." —SearchHRSoftware "Machine learning is also being applied to performance manage to ensure that employees are getting all the feedback they need to succeed. New performance 'check-in' capabilities ensure that coaching and feedback are aligned to goals, and a 'self-driving' promotion process helps employees reach objectives by providing proactive alerts. The features build up an 'anytime feedback' concept that was added to the product several years also to provide a means for supervisors to give employees unstructured feedback at any time. That capability is being extended with a more rigorous check-in process that includes such factors as ratings and responses to questionnaires." —SiliconANGLE What did you and your team think about the event and product updates? Let's discuss in the comment section below! For more information, please visit the Oracle Newsroom.

Another HCM World is in the books, and surely attendees are pondering how the best strategies from breakout sessions can be applied to their own HR departments. This year's conference—held last week...

By Pete Jaradeh Your career site is the face of your company to candidates. A great candidate experience will determine whether or not they click that “apply” button in the end. So when it comes to enticing top talent and filling openings fast, how do you know if your website is meeting expectations? Here are 3 important questions to consider in delivering a candidate-centric experience. What’s Your Employment Brand Story? Chances are, your future employees are not only shopping for the right career fit but also for a great place to work. And in a competitive job market, applicants may have ample career options to choose from. So how well your career site educates the candidate about your company can be critical in competing for top talent. To do this, try to find creative ways to incorporate your culture, values and personality right into your employment offerings and your overall message. Focus on accurately communicating who you are and what you stand for, showcasing your brand in a visual manner and promoting the positive aspects associated with your establishment. Are you committed to redefining industry standards? State that. Want to give people a look inside your business? Put together a video. Do your employees appreciate the social activity calendar such as your after-hours wine and cheese events? Talk about it. Bryan Chaney, Talent and Employer Branding Specialist, states, “Highlighting differentiators like culture, benefits and events on your career site and other inbound channels will attract great potential people who are passionate about finding the right fit.” Take a look at our budget-friendly ways to boost your brand for some more easy and affordable brand recommendations. What’s Your Candidate Experience Like? Convenience is key to enhancing and optimizing the candidate experience and there’s nothing more convenient than getting what you want fast. One easy way to provide convenience is through the use of filters and search capabilities. As long as your available positions are tagged and categorized accordingly, filters quickly assist job seekers in finding openings of relevance, dramatically improving their chances of finding a relevant opportunity. Combine this with built-in, algorithmic search functions and you’ve got two great methods for helping users rapidly identify specific titles or positions of interest. Simplicity is also key. Give candidates the opportunity to start the job application on their desktop, or in the comfort of their own home and allow them to finish the application on a lunch-break, a commute ride home or even over the weekend. A study conducted by recruitment technology company Jibe found that one-in-five candidates would abandon a job application entirely if wasn’t optimized for smartphone use, and this figure continues to rise. Can you afford to miss out on 20% of the applicant community? More information on the importance of a mobile-friendly career site can be found here. How Do You Keep In Touch? As an applicant, nothing is more frustrating than applying for a job and not hearing a word back. In fact, the same Jibe study referenced above found that 44% of job seekers would be deterred from completing a companies’ online application if they knew that they couldn’t confirm their status as an applicant. That’s nearly every other person! Organizations that understand the importance of candidate communication are capitalizing on this recruiting trend in several ways. First, some companies are making this practice mandatory amongst their recruiters and, more often than not, equipping them with fill-in-the-blank templates and canned responses to make things easier. Other companies are using software automation that triggers email correspondence by a specific event or criteria, such as when an application is received, when an interview has been booked or when another candidate has been selected. Read more about automation’s expected impact in 2018 by visiting our blog. The most essential and valuable asset for your business is your employees, and when it comes to attracting top talent, there’s no tool at your disposal more powerful than your career site. I strongly urge you to take a look at your companies’ website and perform a thorough analysis, ensuring that you’ve emphasized major components of your organizational story, provided your candidates with an optimal experience and are capable of delivering periodic updates to applicants throughout the process. Check out the Taleo Business Edition Homepage to see exactly how easy it can be to revamp your career site and get people applying.

By Pete Jaradeh Your career site is the face of your company to candidates. A great candidate experience will determine whether or not they click that “apply” button in the end. So when it comes to...

By Pete Jaradeh Technology is constantly redefining the talent industry. As more and more HR leaders try different solutions for their sourcing, recruiting and onboarding needs, vendors are responding by rolling out a variety of point-solution application tracking system (ATS) solutions designed to streamline parts of the hiring process and alleviate their client’s headaches. Considering how prevalent sourcing and recruiting are for organizations directly after the start of the year, we thought it best to highlight some of the more recent and more prominent features of Oracle Talent Acquisition for Midsize – formerly known as Taleo Business Edition. Check out the list below to ensure your solution includes the advantages of all these great features. The Career Center The Talent Acquisition for Midsize candidate experience has always been a differentiator for our clientele, but in recent years, this has become more important in an increasingly competitive, low unemployment talent market. Naturally, the majority of niche ATS are positioned as a panacea for talent shortages, but often provide a one-size-fits-all offering for rapid deployment and cost savings purposes. This may seem convenient at first, but can quickly become a growth-limiting problem as your company continues to expand and requires a more functionality and flexibility. This is why we offer a plethora of features to help our clients create an engaging and efficient candidate experience, such as automated pre-screening questions, source and referral tracking, template and theme-driven career page design, mobile-responsive UI and the ability to grow into more complex requirements, like multiple career sites or a two-step application process. These kinds of capabilities may not seem essential at first, but over time, could be the difference between quickly adapting to meet growth needs, or being forced to evaluate another vendor when you discover the limitations of your current system.  Early implementation with an eye on being able to respond to dynamic business requirements will save you time and money in the long run. The Talent Center The Talent Center is Talent Acquisition for Midsize’s employee self-service portal, allowing access to employee data, forms and onboarding tasks. Similar to the Career Center, the Talent Center is a modern, engaging portal that can be easily configured to meet the needs and preferences of different end-user groups; typically, new hire employees and hiring managers. As a hiring manager, you’re provided with a comprehensive and secure overview of recruiting activities for your open jobs, including requisitions, resumes, candidate contact information, application status, as well as the ability to view and take action on Requisition and Offer approvals – and it can all be configured to meet your business needs. Additionally, considering how prevalent mobile-use has become, the entire Talent Center is designed with a mobile-responsive interface that doesn’t require a dedicated smartphone app for functionality, so you can always stay connected on-the-go, no matter what device you’re using. Fast and Inexpensive Go-Live One of the biggest value drivers of Talent Acquisition for Midsize has been and continues to be a cost-effective, efficient, and personalized go-live process.  Many customers are up and running in just 6-8 weeks, including configuring the candidate site design, workflow and organizational setup, custom fields and reports, all designed to deliver a fully tailored product experience.  While some vendors claim to have “free” or included implementation, typically this refers to a set of basic deliverables with little room to adapt to your needs.  In fact, if a new report or configuration change is needed, it may incur unexpected costs over the duration of your contract.  This is never the case with Talent Acquisition for Midsize, where the power to change, respond and adapt is always in your hands. Oracle’s Talent Acquisition for Midsize is designed for organizations that need proven methods for driving real world success. It features modernized and powerful capabilities for attracting, hiring and retaining well-qualified employees, including recruitment marketing, employee referrals, social job marketing, interview and offer management tools and automated onboarding. And it’s being utilized by 4000+ businesses across the globe on a daily basis. For more information on Oracle Talent Acquisition for Midsize updates and enhancements, please visit the Talent Acquisition for Midsize Release Readiness Homepage.

By Pete Jaradeh Technology is constantly redefining the talent industry. As more and more HR leaders try different solutions for their sourcing, recruiting and onboarding needs, vendors are responding...

  Amid all the economic banter about taxes, regulations, and national debt levels, the underlying reason for stalled productivity growth worldwide comes down to one main factor: Companies aren’t getting the most from their people. Why is that? Employees in this day and age often are disconnected from business goals. They must deal with rigid, cumbersome work processes. And they’re forever being asked to shift gears amid the torrent of business changes. Meanwhile, the tech tools people use at work, some of them leveraging advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, haven’t kept up with the ones people use in their personal lives. Most employees still don’t have the data-based insights they need to make impactful decisions. And in general they don’t have the support they need to be successful. There’s no silver bullet, of course. But with the end goal of enhancing employee engagement and organizational productivity, Oracle—in its 2018 Spring Update of Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud—focused on making work “more human.” Key innovations, to be discussed during the afternoon keynote session at Oracle HCM World in Dallas on March 21, are in three primary areas: make work more enjoyable, smarter, and more supportive.   1. Help Make Work More Enjoyable In terms of helping make work interactions more enjoyable—or at least not as intimidating—Oracle started with a new design of the Oracle HCM Cloud web pages. An example is the new home page that every employee, manager, executive, and HR pro logs onto to start his or her day. Oracle simplified the navigation of that page, giving it a newsfeed style. As such, the home page makes it easier for users to: Find what they need, with simplified search. Know what they need to do right away, through notifications. Take quick actions, through the simplified navigation. Personalize regular and priority tasks, such as approving expense reports, reassigning directs, and managing team compensation. Finish HR tasks where they left off.    Stay in-the-know broadly, through the News and Announcements section. Inform their recruitment, hiring, promotion, and other decisions, through an analytics dashboard. Oracle HCM Cloud’s responsive mobile design provides a consistent user experience across multiple devices. One key is the mobile-enablement of the cloud application’s goals and anytime feedback capabilities, encouraging employees to have continuous performance conversations with their reports and/or managers. Managers on the go can, for instance, create and update simple documents for regular one-on-one check-in meetings with their reports. 2. Work Smarter Here, the Spring Update to Oracle HCM Cloud delivers innovations in three main areas: a new, data-driven recruiting/hiring experience, smart onboarding of new hires, and a “self-driving” promotion process. Instead of requiring job candidates to seek employment information, Oracle HCM Cloud helps hiring managers engage candidates when they need to take action or become aware of updates. Candidates also have the option of engaging employers through a digital assistant.  “The candidate’s experience is that the job found me, not that I found the job,” says Gretchen Alarcon, Oracle group vice president of product strategy. The Spring Update of Oracle HCM Cloud also uses machine learning algorithms to recommend best-fit job candidates. It augments selection, interview, and offer data with other HR data to identify candidates similar to those who have succeeded in related roles. Choices are limited based on business rules. A new candidate onboarding feature in Oracle HCM Cloud helps employees complete pre- and new-hire activities while providing visibility to HR and employee managers. The update also enhances the promotion process, letting managers select up front what they want to include in the process—for example, whether to include a salary change or re-assign other direct reports—so that the process becomes “self driving.” The system automatically populates a list of values and limits choices. 3. Create a More Supportive Workplace The Spring Update of Oracle HCM Cloud includes HR Help Desk in the Cloud, letting HR managers access a robust knowledge base to get answers quickly to their most pressing questions. Workforce Health and Safety Incident Management helps reduce health and safety incidents to provide a safer workplace and support compliance with regulations. The suite’s Advanced HCM Controls Cloud service strengthens security and data privacy by detecting anomalies. It’s designed to help stop unauthorized access to sensitive HR data, manage exceptions and policy violations, and access security dashboards to lower the cost of regulatory compliance. For more information, please visit oracle.com/hcm-update.

  Amid all the economic banter about taxes, regulations, and national debt levels, the underlying reason for stalled productivity growth worldwide comes down to one main factor: Companies aren’t...

By Sriram Ramanujam & Ananth Viswanathan, Oracle Consulting at Cognizant Technology Solutions TGIF! It has been commonly observed that the HR business function, regardless of the size of the organization, has always been a relatively early adopter of innovations on the process or technology front. The term “Digital HR” carries different meanings for different organizations, based on the milestone reached in their digital adoption journey. Moving to an HCM package was referred to as digitization a decade ago, transforming to cloud used to be digital adoption a couple of years ago, and now we believe Digital HR Transformation means creation of a Digital Enterprise which caters to the Future of Work by deploying a Digital Workforce enabled by a Digital Workplace.  The Digital HR enterprise is a harbinger of change in the global business environment and may be defined as an encapsulation of Cloud Enterprise (SaaS, PaaS, BPaaS), Cognitive Enterprise (Conversational UX, Intelligent Apps, Advance Analytics), and Connected Enterprise (Digital Integration, IoT, Blockchain). Digital Workforce comprises a multi-generational, digitally and socially connected, tech-savvy workforce creating a compelling focus on employee experience.  Digital Workplace is the inevitable shift to next-gen technologies encompassing Cloud, Mobility, Robotic Process Automation, Conversational AI, Machine Learning, Analytics and Insights, Gamification, and IoT, all of which are the building blocks for enhancing employee experience. Every organization working in a highly competitive market is required to redraw their focus towards Employee Experience to maximize productivity. With the increased market focus on HR transformation engagements and with organizations on fast track mode to take employee experience to extraordinary levels, HCM package vendors have their tasks clearly defined–to offer more than just a cloud package and ASAP. The war for talent is on a hyperbolic path where a positive and intuitive employee experience is considered critical for any package and it begins from one’s first point of access to an organization - as an aspiring job candidate even before joining a company.  In addition to the established HCM package vendors, there are a variety of point solutions catering to each business process within the HCM domain. In this highly competitive market, Oracle has been marching steadily toward remaining an HCM package leader covering all dimensions of a Cloud, Cognitive and Connected solutions. While consolidating its position with standard cloud offerings such as Global HR, Talent Management, Rewards, Workforce Management, Work Life Solutions, and Analytics, Oracle has made the right investments towards providing a robust platform for building Chatbots, advanced AI, Analytics and IoT solutions on top of HCM to upgrade user experience. Oracle has already built adaptive intelligence into the recruiting cloud enabling hiring managers for better decision making and chatbots for easier candidate engagement. The company has also entered into a strategic partnership with UiPath to ensure the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) space is packed with best of breed solutions. At Cognizant, we have built our own brand as a leading Oracle Cloud SaaS Partner by winning the prestigious Oracle Specialized Partner Award four consecutive times. We have partnered with our customers for several cloud transformations and our solutions time and again prove to be the best. We are further extending our vision to create customer delight leveraging Oracle and best of breed platforms to build custom next-gen technology solutions as a seamless add-on to HCM packages, in order to drive a holistic digital transformation integrating key building blocks to enhance employee experience.                     We are keen to engage with customers who are willing to look beyond cloud lift and shift in their digital transformation journey and explore the usage of technology offerings to enhance their employee experience.  Typically, we start with a Digital HR Maturity study to understand the organization’s HR business process and present our recommendations on the possible level of HR process automation, detailing the building of systems that can Do, Think, Learn and beyond. Friday–isn’t it a cool name?–is our Virtual HR Assistant who can assist in variety of activities in the employee’s journey within an organization, including helping them as candidates looking for a new position, enabling their on-boarding when they join, walking them through policies, managing their absence requests with minimal inputs, enrolling them for appropriate learning programs, help with performance check-ins, & so much more.   We understand that the level of automation and enrichment of employee experience varies across organizations. therefore, Friday is not built as a ‘one size fits all’, ready-to-deploy virtual assistant solution, but as our prototype to showcase different facets of enabling next-gen technologies and as a framework to build custom, automated solutions on Oracle and best of breed platforms for our customers. If you are keen to learn more about Friday and our Digital HR offerings, please do visit us at Oracle HCM World or mail us at osp_marketing@cognizant.com and we are sure you would say Thank God it’s “Friday”!!                                                                                                                                                                              

By Sriram Ramanujam & Ananth Viswanathan, Oracle Consulting at Cognizant Technology Solutions TGIF! It has been commonly observed that the HR business function, regardless of the size of the...

By Dee Houchen A special union was celebrated in London recently. Invited guests witnessed two partners ‘tie the knot’. Speeches praised the couple’s future partnership and prosperity. Special guests of the relationship were seated at a top table. A real-life vicar was on hand to preside over the union. And it all took place on Valentine’s Day. Love was definitely in the air. So what on earth was going on? This was ‘The Union of Finance and HR’, an interactive event that brought together senior Finance and HR professionals to debate why now, more than ever, Finance and HR need to collaborate across all aspects of corporate processes, reporting, systems, and strategy. Organised by Oracle and featuring expert speakers from Finance, HR, and business academia, the event celebrated how this unified relationship gives organisations the visibility to make faster, more informed decisions, adapt quickly to market opportunities, and grow. And the real-life vicar officiating over this unique union? That was TV broadcaster and vicar of a Northamptonshire village, Reverend Richard Coles. Opening proceedings, he commented, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the possible union of Finance and HR. You will be the arbiter of that as each of the disciplines sets out what they hope to achieve from this union.” Finance and HR collaboration brings fortune Finance was the first to argue the case for collaboration. Peter Simons is Head of the Future of Finance Research at CIMA, the world’s largest professional body of management accountants. He began by asking the audience to describe their Finance or HR counterpart in one word, via an interactive app. Words ranged from ‘collaborative’ and ‘good’, to ‘distant’ and ‘complicated’. “Organisations are increasingly congregating around similar operational processes, and in the future intangible factors – especially people – will separate success from failure,” Peter explained. “The challenge is to bring Finance and HR closer together. While there is a huge amount of mutual respect between both parties, it sometimes feels that one is from Mars, the other from Venus.” Peter also acknowledged that Finance has long been the dominant partner in the relationship – but that is changing. “Together both disciplines can be a powerful force. Look in any corporate financial report, for example, and what strikes you is the focus on diversity reporting, the gender pay gap, emoluments, and other people data. Those measures are all driven by data shared between Finance and HR.” Board decisions rest on HR analytics This theme was echoed by Andrea Eccles, Chief Executive of the City HR Association, a professional association for HR practitioners. “People metrics have a powerful impact on the balance sheet, profit and loss account, and corporate governance,” she said. “Boards and ExCos increasingly rely on HR for data to support business decision making. In terms of the annual report, data such as board emoluments or narratives such as diversity and inclusion targets are a key feature of UK - and wider - company reporting, whilst people related costs form a substantial part of the budget. Some HR analytics are also of interest externally and can influence investment decisions. These include a firm’s diversity strategy, their pension funding, labour relations, and the quality of leadership to name a few." People metrics can also enhance organisational performance. Citing joint research by Oracle and the CGMA, Andrea revealed that five of the nine key performance indicators (KPIs) that drive business performance are HR-related. These include employee productivity, employee engagement, talent sourcing and pipeline, the customer experience, and brand equity. Andrea validated this with a case study from the finance services front-line. “Metro Bank’s HR professionals are working with their Finance counterparts every day across a wide range of reporting, budgeting, and other fiscal processes. They also have a similar relationship with Risk and Compliance to optimise board decision-making,” she said. Andrea then presented results from City HR’s 2016 Benchmarking Survey, showing that 65% of organisations now have HR leaders on their board or executive committee. Ten years ago, that figure was only 37%. Some 80% of organisations within the survey also now believe the HR function is gaining greater internal prominence. Given that this ‘Union of Finance and HR’ event was taking place on Valentine’s Day, Andrea closed with some apt verse: “Roses are red / violets are blue / collaboration and technology will make us the dynamic duo.” Andrea has not applied to be the next Poet Laureate.   Breaking down barriers: share the love André Spicer, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the Cass Business School, took an altogether different angle on unified Finance and HR collaboration. He firstly acknowledged that silos still exist between both sides, but this can be overcome. “Organisations need to take an active role in collaboration, for example by circulating new Finance recruits into HR and vice versa, or by forming cross-disciplinary teams to reduce the barriers to working together.” Drawing on the union and partnership theme, André also presented a series of behavioural factors that make a successful marriage – and how these can be translated into business. For example, partners (in marriage and business) need to learn to fight well. “Discord happens in every relationship, but when it does, take the steps to de-escalate it quickly,” said André. “Successful relationships also follow a 5:1 mantra – five successful interactions for one negative one. In business, focus on those positive interactions and become a support for other functions.” With that, the guests departed. The message they also took with them? Every business is intimately connected today. And no two back office functions are as connected as Finance and HR. With work from both sides, it can become the ultimate strategic partnership.

By Dee Houchen A special union was celebrated in London recently. Invited guests witnessed two partners ‘tie the knot’. Speeches praised the couple’s future partnership and prosperity. Special guests...

Six interesting facts from a survey of Millennials & Gen Z on the future of worker pay By Jonathan Soffin, Sr. Director, Pay Card Product Marketing, ADP When it comes to recruiting and retaining the next generation of top talent, organizations have had to rethink their basic assumptions about what matters most to employees. A brand new national study from ADP, focused on generational views of work perceptions and preferences produced all sorts of interesting results. This was especially true when it came to Generation Z and Millennial workers and their attitudes about employment, self-esteem and pay. The 2017 ADP-sponsored study, “Paycards: generational trends shaping the future of worker pay,” focused on issues related to money and pay in general—and specifically about the use of paycards. The responses, however, revealed far deeper insights about how Millennial and Gen Z workers feel about employment, compensation and what it means to be rewarded, challenged and motivated at work. Here are six of the most interesting findings from the ADP report: Next gen workers take their jobs personally - Contrary to stereotypes, next generation workers embrace work as part of their identity and self-worth. According to the national study, 79% of all U.S. workers associate having a paying job with higher self-esteem. But this is even greater for Millennials, 85% of whom believe having a paying job is important or very important to their self-esteem. “Check, please” -  You might think that next gen workers would embrace digital forms of payment above all others. And you’d be wrong. Compared to older generations, Gen Z receives the bulk of their pay via paper check. The national study discovered that 79% of Gen Z has received their wages via paper check in the past year, compared to only 28% of Boomers. Moreover, 59% of Boomers have not received a paper check in over 5 years. The problem with paper checks is that they’re costing younger generations far more money than older generations to convert to cash. One in five Millennials and 43% of Gen Z have spent more than $5 to cash a paper check, compared to only 9% of Boomers who have spent that much. A cash-less generation - Speaking of cash, younger generations carry less of it with them than older generations. Only 23% of Gen Z feels comfortable carrying $100 in cash, compared with 41% of Boomers. This is further evidence for the increasing value of alternatives to cash, particularly for younger generations. No bank account, no problem - According to the survey, younger generations aren’t going digital when it comes to payment because they aren’t opening bank accounts. Not needing a bank account was one of the main benefits next generation workers cited for preferring paycards, with 47% of Millennial and Gen Z respondents indicating a paycard preference for that reason. Plastic Preferred - Preloaded payment cards are much more popular with younger generations than their older counterparts. The national study discovered that 47% of Millennials and 66% of Gen Z have used a pre-loaded payment card of some kind in the last 12 months. When participants were asked about their overall view of paycards for employment compensation, the same generational trend appeared. According to the study, 63% of Gen Z and 50% of Millennials responded that they would absolutely use a paycard or think paycards are a good option for certain circumstances. Freedom of choice matters - Having options about how wages are received is sometimes as important to workers as the job itself. Almost half of Gen Z (47%) and nearly a third of Millennials (31%) would turn down a job if they were unable to choose their method of pay. The fastest growing generations in the workforce have declared their preference for payment options, sending a strong message to employers and hiring managers. To learn more, attend ADP’s Session at Oracle HCM World! As a gold sponsor of the Oracle HCM World Conference (March 20-22 in Dallas), ADP will debut the findings from the nation-wide study of generational payment trends. See you at the session—or visit ADP in the exhibit hall at Booth HCM-03. Title: Paycards: Generational Trends Shaping the Future of Worker Pay Day/Time: Wednesday, Mar 21, 01:15 p.m. - 02:00 p.m. | Lone Star A2 Presented by: Jonathan Soffin, ADP Track:  HCM Innovation Details online at:  https://events.rainfocus.com/catalog/oracle/hcm18/hcm18catalog    

Six interesting facts from a survey of Millennials & Gen Z on the future of worker pay By Jonathan Soffin, Sr. Director, Pay Card Product Marketing, ADP When it comes to recruiting and retaining the...

By Anthony Abbatiello, Sarah Vassy, and Nathaniel Paynter Digital disruption has been a true game-changer for organizations, taking many of them from a “survive and thrive” mentality to one of “evolve or die,” with companies like Blockbuster and Borders serving as well-known cautionary tales. The latest global research study by MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte Digital focuses on the race to digital maturity, which is proving to be a marathon rather than a sprint. The study reveals five key practices that distinguish more mature digital organizations, starting with making systemic changes in how they organize themselves. The most digitally mature organizations studied have moved beyond traditional hierarchical structures, understanding that they get in the way of agility. More than 70 percent of these mature organizations report being organized around cross-functional teams versus only 28 percent of companies at early stages of digital development. These mature organizations are also far less likely to report that their structures keep them from being able to effectively operate digitally.1 Organizational structure and digital maturity 2 Why teams? Moving to a team-based structure can help activate the digital organization in several ways: Breaks down functional silos to unite all parts of the organization in the effort to meet strategic and operational goals. Builds in agility, as teams can be quickly formed and disbanded to meet specific needs. Fosters an iterative environment, where ideas can quickly be tested and accepted, rejected, or evolved because mission-critical decisions are handled at the team level rather than having to progress through a lengthy decision-making hierarchy. Expands thinking and challenging the status quo as team members from different disciplines and parts of the organization share, reconcile, and build on their diverse perspectives. These qualities of team-based structures can mean organizations spend less time talking about doing digital business and more time being a digital business. Showing a commitment to digital can also come with a positive ripple effect: the tendency toward stronger employee “stickiness.” Our previous research into digital practices showed that employees are twice as likely to jump ship when their company is at the low end of digital maturity.3 Making the shift—understanding your digital DNA Organizing around cross-functional teams is both a characteristic of digital maturity and a by-product of it—a kind of virtuous circle in that digitally mature organizations increasingly use teams to get work done, and digital maturity inherently fosters a less hierarchical, more agile (team-based) way of operating. So how do you start the circle in motion? Activating digital in your organization starts with understanding its digital DNA—23 traits that our research has shown characterize digital maturity and “being digital.” Evaluating your organization against these DNA traits reveals strengths and gaps and helps prioritize the traits you want to invest in to become more digitally mature. Realize, though—and this is important—digital maturity is an ongoing journey. The MIT Sloan-Deloitte study specifically refers to the highest-maturity organization as “digitally maturing,” acknowledging that there’s no real endpoint marking arrival at full maturity. Even digitally native companies that have never operated any other way are still evolving their digital maturity. For example, Facebook (as well as Deloitte, for that matter) has looked at its own digital DNA and is using it as important input into its continued digital evolution. Making the shift—Leaders are critical Great leaders are necessary for any business to excel, and much of what makes leaders great doesn’t change in the digital organization. They still need to understand how to be collaborative, to inspire, and to make business decisions. But digital adds another dimension: the need for leaders to understand the changing context they lead in. While a traditional leader may need to build talent to grow in their depth of skills and capabilities, a leader in a digital context may have to develop talent to be more agile—able to rapidly prototype, market test, and refine products or concepts. Digital leaders may also have to influence a wider range of stakeholders, both within and outside the organization. They set the tone, they set the pace, they model the behaviors and vision, and the articulation of that vision, and get people to work together toward common goals. Building (or buying) these leaders should be a top priority of any organization striving for digital maturity—which, frankly, should be every organization! (For more context, see this series of posts by our colleague, Noah Rabinowitz, about transformational leaders.) There isn’t an organization we talk to that doesn’t have “becoming digital” as part of their strategy, recognizing that it’s necessary for the organization to achieve its goals. Formally (re)organizing around networked teams—or at least encouraging an environment that supports such teams—is an essential step toward digital maturity.   1 G. C. Kane, D. Palmer, A. N. Phillips, D. Kiron, and N. Buckley, “Achieving Digital Maturity,” MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte University Press, July 2017. 2 Ibid. 3 G. C. Kane, D. Palmer, A. N. Phillips, D. Kiron and N. Buckley, “Aligning the Organization for its Digital Future” MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte University Press, July 2016.   Anthony Abbatiello is a principal in Deloitte Consulting LLP’s Human Capital practice and is the leader of Deloitte’s Digital Human Capital business and the global leader of Deloitte Leadership. He specializes in digital organizations, leadership development, culture transformation, and digital HR strategy. Sarah Vassy is a senior manager in Deloitte Consulting LLP’s Human Capital practice, helping organizations identify and address people issues as part of implementing strategic programs and enterprise transformations. Nathaniel Paynter is a senior manager in Deloitte Consulting LLP’s Human Capital practice and deputy lead of its Digital Human Capital business, specializing in organization design. He serves clients across the consumer products industry and supports their transformation to being digital organizations.  

By Anthony Abbatiello, Sarah Vassy, and Nathaniel Paynter Digital disruption has been a true game-changer for organizations, taking many of them from a “survive and thrive” mentality to one of “evolve...

Oracle HCM World, March 20–22 in Dallas, is a thought leadership conference featuring inspirational speakers, over 80% customer-driven content, unparalleled networking opportunities, and 70+ sessions across seven distinct content tracks including Talent, Rewards, and Growth, All in the Numbers, and Core (HR) Strength. Attendees will hear real-world stories from peers who have implemented change, learn about Oracle’s HCM solution roadmap, talk with industry experts, and dive into the hottest HR topics. Everyone loves a good “best of” list, so we’ve compiled the Top Reasons to Attend Oracle HCM World 2018. Enjoy! 1. Transformation strategies: This event is designed specifically for professionals who want to transform their HR and talent practices and make their organization a place where people love to work. Want to learn about emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and machine learning? This is the place. 2. Education: Arm yourself with knowledge. You’ll learn what the future of the industry holds and how Oracle’s solutions will prepare you for the changes to come. And you’ll get plenty of guidance on your cloud journey. Your career AND your company will benefit. 3. Networking: Collaborate with peers who share your passion for employee retention and engagement. HR is ultimately about people, and you’ll have plenty of opportunities to re-connect with old friends and make new acquaintances. 4. Compelling keynotes: You’ll be motivated and energized by Bill Allen, a senior executive with more than 20 years of experience as a Chief Human Resources Officer, Grace Bonney, founder of Design*Sponge, a website that reaches nearly 2 million readers per day, Fabio Fukuda, Director, Global HRIS, Business Intelligence and HR Functional Excellence at Cummins Inc., and Jacob Morgan, a leading authority on the future of work and the employee experience. 5. Customer stories: We’ve increased the focus on strategic stories and quantitative results from current Oracle customers. You’ll find out how they implemented change at their companies, what they learned, and what they’d do differently the next time. 6. Three days of HCM immersion: Take a deep dive into any (or all) HR management areas, meet with trusted partners and solution experts, and discover how your role will evolve in the months and years ahead. Experience tomorrow’s HR, today. And the seventh (lucky) reason: Get $500 off the onsite rate with code HCM1095 (case sensitive). Register now and pay only $1,095.  

Oracle HCM World, March 20–22 in Dallas, is a thought leadership conference featuring inspirational speakers, over 80% customer-driven content, unparalleled networking opportunities, and 70+ sessions...

Article written by Jeff Haynes, Director Human Capital Consulting, Baker Tilly and Spencer Varney, Senior Consultant, Human Capital Consulting, Baker Tilly Does your HCM roadmap have you singing the blues? Too many priorities, in too many regions, with too many disparate processes could leave your HR organization struggling to find its voice. But have no fear, a little harmony can get your HR organization back in-sync (say bye bye bye to the roadmap blues). A pre-implementation ‘Harmonization’ planning phase can help organizations prioritize their HR roadmap and develop a plan to address and resolve critical barriers to success. The composition of a harmonization phase includes defining your organizational strategy, gathering local requirements globally, and creating a common model upon which HCM technology can be built. The strategic journey and steps in the highly impactful harmonization phase, which we have performed with our clients many times, can best be described through a custom playlist. Like the parts of a song - intro, verse, chorus - here are six steps to get your organization singing from the same page, globally and in harmony! 1. “Build Me Up Buttercup”- The Foundations Rationalize Organizational / Foundational Structures: Build up crucial foundational structures like legal entities and operating units, define job and/or compensation structures, and document competencies and performance rating scales. This foundation is a key factor for designing a Global Common Model for each specific HR Process. 2. “I Can See Clearly Now”- Johnny Nash Re-Evaluate Policies and Past Practices: Reevaluating policies and practices is a key aspect of harmonize. Your organization may have spent decades operating under assumptions that have driven process decisions. Taking the time to analyze which processes are driven by policies (legal or business) and those that will allow you to clearly see the potential alternatives to these legacy practices. Trust us, you’ll feel like the rain is gone once you’ve identified alternatives. 3. “Everyday Is A Winding Road”- Sheryl Crow Develop Programs and Processes: Understanding the business strategy and developing the HR programs and process that support your strategy can be a winding road to say the least. Unwind the confusion by rethinking the processes that support the success of your organization. Once understood, the roadmap is less intimidating and the process fundamentals that drive the development of a Global Common Model (i.e. centralized vs. decentralized, self-service vs. non-self-service, inputs and outputs) become apparent. 4. “Who Are You”- The Who Define Organizational Design / Roles and Responsibility: As organizations emerge with their new, state-of-the-art processes and technology, they recognize that the roles of HR, IT, managers and employees will evolve. A harmonization approach allows organizations to design a service delivery model that aligns with their needs. We’ve analyzed and estimated work efforts for each process with our clients, and developed job roles based on the client’s internal capacity and skill set. It’s important to determine who your process and technology owners will be, and how best to deploy them. 5. “Why Can’t We Be Friends”-  War Create a Culture of Accountability and Process Execution: With all of these new roles and responsibilities, identifying and engaging key stakeholders in developing a governance strategy becomes imperative. The ongoing support efforts, maintenance, and continuous improvement set the stage for ongoing sustainability. With careful design and change management, the changes in people, process and technology will have HR, IT, and Finance humming the same tune, and the constituents they serve will experience a far different experience yielding far different results. 6. “Technologic” – Daft Punk Enable With Technology: Now it’s time to execute – let your, sophisticated technology and pioneering process design take your organization in a completely new direction. From this initial harmonization phase all the way through go-live you are reimagining the way HR supports your organization and the way work gets performed. This completely new sound or genre, fueled by technology and innovative design, will be music to the ears of an organization ready for a more modern experience.  When it comes to HCM implementations, we have found that harmonization is never the same. Every “playlist” needs to encompass the organizations’ unique vision, process design, project resources, detailed requirements, system configuration and governance planning. Harmonization can be completed in a few weeks or over the course of a few months. Whether you’re optimizing existing processes and systems or implementing entirely new ones, a harmonization may be just the right way to modernize, innovate, gain consensus and build a foundation for success.   Attending Oracle HCM World 2018? Hear firsthand from Stantec’s Angela Moore and Jeff Haynes from Baker Tilly, when they share how Harmonization prepared Stantec for a successful implementation with an aligned, holistic understanding of its own business processes. Don’t be Paralyzed, be Harmonized!  Seizing the Opportunity to Transform HR (CON1215 |Wednesday, March 21, 9:00 am - 9:45 a.m. | Lone Star A4).  

Article written by Jeff Haynes, Director Human Capital Consulting, Baker Tilly and Spencer Varney, Senior Consultant, Human Capital Consulting, Baker Tilly Does your HCM roadmap have you singing the...

Article written by Paul Seo, IBM Global Business Services Talent & Engagement  Converging Forces Dramatically Change the HR Landscape The traditional career trajectory of our grandparents was shattered long ago as it became common-place to change jobs rather than stay with one company for decades.  Job-hopping is still a major force in the changing workforce landscape.  In fact, the average length of service is 2.6 years for millennials according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. With that said, many other factors are at play as well.   For example, Pew Research Center estimates 10,000 baby-boomers are expected to reach retirement age every day for the next 11 years. That’s a whopping 44 million people who will retire over the next decade. That astounding statistic alone will alter the American workforce.   Meanwhile, many workers are no longer tethered to a single company. Instead, more and more people are taking control of their work by freelancing when, where, and with whom they choose to work.  By 2020, approximately 43% of the American workforce, are expected to be part of the gig economy according to CNN Money. Now let’s turn to social media.  Just like it has transformed social networks, personal interactions, and online content, it has also revolutionized the workforce and the way people find jobs.  LinkedIn is arguably the largest repositories of online resumes, personal endorsements, recommendations, and work history on the internet.  In fact, LinkedIn’s 2016 Global Talent Trends Report found that 90% of LinkedIn users are actively looking for new opportunities or openly talking to recruiters.  Has Your HR Team Embraced the New HR Environment? With this massive transformation taking place in the workforce landscape, HR is changing too.  And rightly so, because the workforce and HR are completely intertwined.  If you’re an HR practitioner or you lead an HR organization, and you’re trying to do your job the same old way, your company could be left behind with a stagnant workforce. Rather than sticking with the status quo, embrace new technologies that can help you improve your HR processes with insight and agility like never before. Artificial Intelligence—The Tool to Add to Your HR Toolbox I’m not talking about something out of a sci-fi movie.  On the contrary, I’m referring to the use of computer algorithms to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence.  Consider this concept—You can use artificial intelligence, or AI as it’s commonly known, to automate repetitive tasks with a heightened level of logic or insight.   This is more than just automating processes.  I’m talking about the use analytics to speed a process and generate an outcome that provides logical guidance.  Let’s use recruiting as an example.  Many enterprise organizations are flooded with resumes.  In fact, IBM receives more than 1 million applications each year from people who are actively seeking a job.  Then there are passive candidates, or those people who aren’t necessarily looking for a new job, but they would consider a job change if the right opportunity presented itself.   It’s nearly impossible for any one person or group of people to thoughtfully review that many submitted resumes or LinkedIn profiles to find the best candidate for a given job role.  This is where AI comes in.  Rather than manually sifting through thousands of resumes, you could use an AI bot to automatically search your resume repository and LinkedIn profiles for a specific talent profile.  Not only will the bot return a list of people who match your ideal candidate profile, it will stack rank the candidates based on who fits your profile the best.  Then, you review the resumes or LinkedIn profiles in the order of most relevance. Taking this thought a step further, your company could also use AI to match specific resumes or LinkedIn profiles with other open job requisitions for which the candidate or LinkedIn profile is a good fit.   HR: Same Role, Different Dynamic The traditional role of an HR department—recruiting, hiring, on-boarding, and retaining staff; managing payroll, benefits, and retirement plans; advocating for employees, etc.—hasn’t changed.  However, the role of HR has hit an inflection point.  One that is being driven by organizations that are embracing new technologies, like AI and workforce analytics, to operate their HR departments faster, smarter, and more efficiently than with traditional processes.  These companies will likely surpass competitors as they embrace innovation to stay not only relevant but ahead of the curve within the rapidly evolving workforce landscape. My point here is that if you, as an HR leader, proactively embrace the enormous power of AI, you will give yourself and your company a significant competitive advantage.  You could literally take your organization from 1st gear to 5th gear in a short period of time.  However, if you aren't on the path to utilize new tools and technologies to advance your HR role or organization, then you risk being left behind, or even worse, being replaced by someone who can.   Attend the IBM Speaking Session at Oracle HCM World 2018 I've shared just a few examples of how AI is evolving the practice of HR.  These scenarios are possible today.  In fact, IBM is at the forefront of AI functionality in the HR field.  If you want to see and hear more examples about how you and your HR department can embrace the power of AI, then plan to attend my HCM World session, ‘Applying A.I. to Engage the Workforce and Contribute to the Bottom Line’, on Tuesday, March, 20,2018 at 3:45.  I'll demonstrate live examples of AI used by HR to bring these concepts to life.   Learn more at ibm.com/oracle.

Article written by Paul Seo, IBM Global Business Services Talent & Engagement  Converging Forces Dramatically Change the HR Landscape The traditional career trajectory of our grandparents was shattered...

Have you ever wondered why seemingly simple things like getting information or working across teams is so hard? You are not alone. It’s why Oracle is focused on bringing teams together with better enterprise workflows, data access, and communication powered by technologies like Adaptive Intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics.  Why Finance and HR now? In the digital age, strategic collaboration between Finance and HR is a necessity. The competitive landscape has intersected with technology in a way that continues to disrupt organizations in nearly every industry—from manufacturing and service companies focusing on outcomes, to the sharing economy in transportation and hospitality. Now more than ever, the ability to be agile, transform quickly, and plan effectively at the core of your business helps you seize market opportunities and grow revenues.  Improve HR and Finance Collaboration by 70%  When we asked MIT Technology Review to help us explore this relationship between Finance, HR, IT and the role cloud computing plays, it was validating to see that 70% of organizations who had implemented cloud applications improved collaboration across Finance and HR. As information becomes more accessible across teams, it’s easier to do things like workforce planning and budgeting in coordination. In fact, Oracle has identified 34 ways your Finance and HR cloud needs to connect.   Seeing is Believing  Starting a cloud migration with Finance and HR often reaps the fastest, largest benefits by freeing up staff to focus on strategic, revenue-enhancing activities rather than non-value-added tasks. Our upcoming webcast on March 14 is a great opportunity to see Oracle’s cloud applications working together across lines of business. Our experts will cover topics like how AI is changing the way we work to better workforce planning and budgeting. You’ll also have a chance to ask questions and hear about customers who are already on their journey to unifying HR and Finance in the cloud.  Thirty-five percent of organizations plan to create a shared Finance and HR function in the cloud this year! Attend our webcast to find out more. Register for this valuable webcast here.  

Have you ever wondered why seemingly simple things like getting information or working across teams is so hard? You are not alone. It’s why Oracle is focused on bringing teams together with better...

Reporting from Oracle CloudWorld, NYC For anyone that knows me, they know how much I love my office in the sky. Aside from the T-Rex arms needed for middle-seat typing, it’s my favorite place to get things done. This evening I’m reporting to you from Virgin America flight 1027 after our electric CloudWorld event in New York City.  This morning (February 12, 2018) I had the opportunity to host a customer focus group with the goal of identifying common struggles and triumphs — or as I like to say turbulent tidbits and smooth elevation stories.  Here is what I learned from our customers in NYC.  Turbulent Tidbits  Keeping Up with the Changes — Business is changing as we know it. Therefore, our organizations and roles in HR need to change. Customers spoke to these changes by sharing how they successfully moved their disparate, mostly on-premise HR systems, over to Oracle HCM Cloud. However, closing the gap between individual and emerging technologies is becoming increasingly hard as rapid advancements and innovations are being discovered on a quarterly basis. With Oracle HCM Cloud, features and functionalities are being deployed at a much quicker pace than the old days of on premise deployments, raising the bar on adoption speeds by HR teams.  The Rise of the Gig Economy — Where people work is a huge concern. Management challenges are exceedingly pervasive amongst remote and gig employees. How do you connect with factory workers who aren’t provisioned an email account? How do you bring service delivery agents to the world of digital transformation? What collaboration tools are best for the gig economy? One customer told us his company is seeing 300% staff growth over the next five years and he’s asking himself, with technology and the workplace changing, how will I keep up with that that pace of change? Lack of Employee Engagement — When asked about measuring employee engagement, I quickly realized how much of a thorn this was for the room. One customer told us that while he’s able to measure his employee engagement, he was struggling to raise it. The whole room agreed, employee engagement shouldn’t sit solely with the HR team, but that there needs to be more onus on mid-level managers. Another focus group participant explained that engagement is initiated from the top at her organization. Her CEO is very intentional with his employees, using things like newsletters, videos, and an open-door policy to ensure people feel connected. Another customer said his team ran a survey last year on employee satisfaction that yielded an 80% response rate. He was later disappointed to find out nothing was done with the survey results. Smooth Elevation  Embracing Emerging Technologies — While many customers said they felt pressure to keep up, most people in the room were excited about today’s trends. HR leaders are looking forward to using things like Artificial Intelligence and chatbots in their daily life. The most recent PwC Workforce of the Future study says — all that talk about robots working next to us is actually exciting people about their futures. “In our 2014 survey, just 66% of people had a positive outlook, with only 29% being ‘excited’ about the future. This has gone up to 37% this year.” Instead of being threatened by technology, our customers are embracing it and looking forward to what Oracle’s HCM Cloud will announce regarding these emerging technologies during  Oracle’s HCM World in March. Learning to Love Data — Today’s HR leaders are excited about data but are hoping their cloud systems will serve this information up to them in a digestible way. One of the customers in the room explained that before moving to Oracle HCM Cloud, he manually built queries across their systems to find, mine, and serve up data. Today, it is his job to take the data and build a story for the management team. Instead of just reporting on numbers such as open requisitions, he looks for hiring trends and is able to be more prescriptive rather than just descriptive in his data usage.  Influential Power — An incredible consensus in the room was that HR is no longer seen as a cost center or simply a center of excellence, delving out best practices. Instead, similar to IT, they are seen as transformational network of experts able to influence executives and align to strategic business goals. One of the customers explained, that in order for her team to be seen as influencers, they had to transform their HR practices before going down the path of technology transformation. This seemed to resonate with the room as they echoed similar stories of overhauling the old way of thinking into the new way of doing. Once a reputation was established, executive influence seemed to fall in line. Now, global systems and people are talking to each other for the first time.  We only scratched the surface during this focus group, but I look forward to meeting more customers on the road and learning about their experiences and sharing them back with you!  Have any #TurbulentTidbit or #SmoothElevation stories? Share them on Twitter by mentioning @OracleHCM and me, @Brittany_LindSF, to get the conversation started! 

Reporting from Oracle CloudWorld, NYC For anyone that knows me, they know how much I love my office in the sky. Aside from the T-Rex arms needed for middle-seat typing, it’s my favorite place to get...

Article written by Jeff Hesse, PwC Here’s a question every leader should answer: Do you have a clear understanding of your people’s skills, and where the gaps are? Odds are, the answer is no. Although the cloud, digitization, and the Internet of Things allow businesses to gather and analyze all sorts of data, few organizations today have a system in place to track the skills their people have. And even fewer know what skills they lack — which presents a challenge, given that in tomorrow’s automation- and data-driven workplace, talent will be scarce and the needs of your organization will change often. Digital disruption is already here. In the Workforce of the Future study, PwC envisions what the workforce will look like in 2030. While it’s impossible to predict exactly the skills businesses will need even five years from now, every scenario imagined will require workers and organizations to be ready to adapt. Given the dynamics, it’s vital to have a system in place to track and analyze the skills your people have — and those they may need soon. Here’s how to get started. 1. Make an inventory of your people’s dynamic skills Before you can begin to plan ahead, you need to know what skills your people have now. Start by considering the particular skills your business needs. Then categorize them by functional skills, such as financial modeling or accounting, or by technical skills, such as programming. You should also categorize the level of those skills, from novice to expert. Look beyond workers’ job titles to consider what skills they have that they may not be using. Next, think about the best way to inventory those skills. Organizations that are small- to medium-sized don’t necessarily need a high-tech solution — it could be a simple system in conjunction with your HR platform, or even just a spreadsheet. Larger companies with hundreds or thousands of employees will need a more advanced technological solution, such as an app. PwC has created a widely available app called Digital Fitness to help employees assess their own technology skills and create personal learning paths.  Creating an inventory can’t be a one-time exercise, or a static project. You’ll need to update it as your people’s skills evolve, as your organization’s needs change, and as people come and go. 2. Organize your inventory Once you have the basic inventory in place, organize it in a way that allows you to search and access the data quickly, with good results. The inventory won’t be useful if you can’t efficiently search for a specific skill or attribute, or easily access the information you need. Free-form keywords aren’t reliable, because someone might refer to a certain skill using one term, while someone else might call it something different. One person’s “coding” might be another person’s “software writing,” for instance. Figure out how to organize the data to produce useful query results, or consider a powerful search engine that doesn’t rely on how the data is organized. 3. Analyze your skills With the data in place, begin analyzing it. This can be simple (comparing rows on a spreadsheet) or more complex (using people analytics or apps to find and assess certain skill sets). The goal here is to gain insight into where your employees’ skills are the strongest, where they’re thin, and where the gaps are. As with building the inventory, analysis isn’t a one-time exercise. How closely you track your people’s skills depends on the needs of your business. In manufacturing or retail, where a lot of people may be doing the same job, you may not need to track skills too closely. But if your organization demands certain unique skill sets, such as those in financial services, pharmaceuticals, or some highly technical industries, you’ll want to give skill tracking more attention. 4. Plan for the future Once you’ve built an inventory and analyzed your people’s skills, you can start planning. Try to gauge the skills your company will need two to three years down the road. Rather than being caught off guard by a sudden gap in skills or having to hire people, companies armed with such knowledge can plan ahead through hiring, training, and career development strategies. These steps inform a broader workforce strategy. It’s important not to forget that planning your strategy shouldn’t happen in a vacuum — it should always be connected to larger, unified business goals.  There’s a lot we don’t know about tomorrow. But workers and organizations should be as ready as possible. By identifying the skills you need and concentrating on how to build them, you’ll be better prepared for the changes coming your way. This article originally ran in strategy+business magazine. 

Article written by Jeff Hesse, PwC Here’s a question every leader should answer: Do you have a clear understanding of your people’s skills, and where the gaps are? Odds are, the answer is no. Although...

Co-author: Glen Walton, Senior Manager, Product Management at Oracle What comes to mind when you think about safety at your workplace? At Oracle headquarters, I may not think about it very often and certainly not a daily basis; the environment I work in is far from being inherently hazardous.   Even though this might be the case, there are still visible reminders of the care that I need to take and that Oracle has taken on behalf of its employees, contractors, and visitors to keep us safe because even in our world-class facilities, things do go wrong.  Accidents and illnesses at the workplace can have severe impacts on individuals, their daily performance and the business. There are significant costs that result from these events therefore capturing incident information, including near misses and unsafe conditions for analysis provide lots of value. Some Statistics for Perspective You may be surprised to learn that healthcare, manufacturing, retail and hospitality (HMRH) industries all incur more non-fatal workplace incidents and reportable cases than industries that you would probably think are the more “dangerous”; industries such as mining, construction, and transportation! Non-fatal injury and illness data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that these industries account for many hundreds of thousands of reportable cases where employees spend days away from work with many coming back to work only to be placed on restricted duties.   Reportable workplace incident data, released by the USA Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) showed that in 2014 alone, 4,821 workers were fatally injured on the job. That is 13 workers killed every day! While the impact of a worker being seriously or fatally injured has implications beyond the devastation it immediately causes, the fact is that paying attention to the root causes for the more numerous “lesser” injuries, and in particular “near misses” and “unsafe conditions”, can have a hugely beneficial impact. A good analogy here is an iceberg. The visible part of the iceberg is only approximately 10% of its total volume. The tip correlates to the occurrence of an accident, but before the accident happened you can almost guarantee that there were a number of near misses, along with existence of many unsafe conditions, that if reported, could possibly have prevented the accident from happening.  The unseen bottom section of the iceberg represents all the near misses and unsafe conditions happening in a business. A centralized repository of near misses and unsafe conditions gives managers invaluable insight to what’s happening below the waterline. Information that is essential to planning a response to an emerging problem. How to Engage Executives and Employees on Workforce Safety C-level executives are notoriously busy people and for some, worker safety may not be their most pressing issue. To complicate matters, employees may not be sure of what they need to do when they encounter a potential safety hazard or incident in the workplace. Serious workforce incidents by law require disclosure and can negatively affect: Company brand and reputation Employee morale Customer sentiment Business outlook Cost of capital   What can be done? Recent surveys show that a clear majority of executives who are considering investment strategies in this area believe the most impactful investment they can make to help meet health and safety objectives would be to implement a robust, automated incident and near miss reporting system. The sooner an incident or near miss is reported, the more likely the cost of the incident can be managed in a positive direction, and further incidents prevented.  Many organizations who have adopted a best practice approach to managing health and safety have already seen the value of having more automation in this area. But there are still many organizations that rely on outdated methods for reporting and monitoring incidents, thus forgoing the chance to decrease incident rates, reduce costs and disruptions, and lower their risk profiles.  The typical example of a manual reporting system is the ubiquitous spreadsheet or even worse, email, the use of which will almost inevitably result in the under-reporting of incident occurrences, distorting investment decisions, and exposing the organization to additional risk.  To help C- level executives focus in on this area, environment, health and safety (EHS) managers who have been able to collect good incident data can employ visualization tools, including easily consumed dashboards and charts to provide visibility, accountability, and knowledge in order to influence the prioritization of investment funds.  It is the role of the EHS Manager to provide information to C- level executives to help them make informed decisions. Leveraging the data to deploy effective data analytics and data visualization tools, including easily consumed dashboards and charts. This will provide visibility, accountability, and knowledge to influence the prioritization of investment funds. It will also support the establishment of a “correct tone at the top” and go long way to overcoming potential complacency-creep when it comes to a business decision to invest in workforce health and safety. For more information on Oracle HCM Cloud and Workforce Health and Safety Incidents, visit cloud.oracle.com

Co-author: Glen Walton, Senior Manager, Product Management at Oracle What comes to mind when you think about safety at your workplace? At Oracle headquarters, I may not think about it very often and...

As we enter 2018, there are two competing forces that are impacting the world of HR. On the one hand, the rate of social and business changes is accelerating, resulting in an ever more complex business environment. On the other hand, employees are pushing for even simpler, more engaging, and human-like experience from their enterprise applications. For HR to survive, they will need to leverage emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, robots, and chatbots to support rapid business changes while delivering a superior employee experience.    Intelligent Workforce Automation Helps Organizations Become More Productive and Agile In the last few years, the creative disruption caused by technology is rampant – think what Uber did to the transportation industry, AirBnB to hospitality, and Amazon to retail. For companies to thrive in the face of ever-accelerating change, they need to excel at adapting to fast-changing market dynamics, customer demands and technological innovations. This requires a fundamental shift in thinking about the workforce. It’s no longer just about hiring employees, but rather maximizing productivity by combining tasks that can be intelligently automated and those that require human intervention.     In 2018, HR organizations will start working with lines of business to enhance workforce productivity by leveraging an array of automation technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robots and customer self-service. According to the Forrester 2018 Predictions Report, automation will eliminate 9% of U.S. jobs, but will also create 2% more that will support the “automation economy.” HR will work with business leaders to model the future workforce and reassess hiring and staffing plans, taking into account the impact automation will have on new job roles, skills and processes. They will also be using contextual data and workforce modeling technology to short-circuit problems like attrition and turnover, better understand their workforce and talent pool, and fuel smarter and more successful hiring practices.     Employee Experience Becomes More Human, Aided by Rapid Adoption of Adaptive Technology Tools  Businesses have long recognized the importance of delivering a memorable experience for customers. As millennials and Gen Z become the largest share of the global workforce, more organizations will be applying the same mindset of designing a differentiated customer experience to keep their employees engaged and productive. Central to this philosophy is treating employees as holistic human beings who seek meaning, value, connection, recognition, and personal growth at work. Additionally, they also expect from work similar experiences with technology that they are accustomed to in the consumer world – intuitive interfaces, quick responses, and access to real-time information.     In 2018, we will see exponential growth in the use of AI, chatbots, machine learning, mobile solutions, and social platforms to make work more enjoyable, simple, and engaging. Forrester sees the rapid adoption of chatbots, conversational user interfaces, facial recognition, and other intelligent agents as tools that will rapidly transform HR business processes such as benefits enrollment and recruiting. According to Forrester, by the year 2021, more than 50% of enterprises will be spending more per annum on bots and chatbots creation than traditional mobile app development.  Recruiting Becomes More Human, Aided by AI and Virtual Recruiting Assistants  The war for talent is as fierce as is competition for customers. The need to attract and retain top talent is only getting more pronounced as employees are expecting more from the places they work. According to Forrester, in 2018, talent issues will only widen the divide between digital predator and prey; and organizations struggling to attract scarce talent will spend up to 20% above market.   This year, AI for recruiting will become a dominant theme for HR technology. Recruiting leaders will leverage AI to gain deep insights into talent needs, understand where and how to source candidates, reduce time-consuming activities like manually screening resumes, and identify the right candidates from a large applicant pool. According to the Forrester 2018 Predictions Report, by 2020, candidates applying to jobs at 20% of large global enterprises will also interact with chatbots before recruiters. Organizations around the world will be implementing virtual recruiting assistants, powered by natural language processing technology, that instantly engages with applicants, poses contextual questions based on job requirements, and provides personalized updates, feedback, and suggestions.     2018 is the year when technology and humans will converge to not only deliver more business success, but also bring humanity back to the workplace.    This article was first published on HR.com - 2018 HR Trends

As we enter 2018, there are two competing forces that are impacting the world of HR. On the one hand, the rate of social and business changes is accelerating, resulting in an ever more...

We are currently in the golden age of HR. Modern technology has enabled HR leaders to provide their workforce with a better employee experience. Emerging technologies such as data automation, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) have now added a level of sophistication in how businesses can manage and engage their workforce for higher productivity. So, what should talent management professionals be thinking about in 2018?  Here’s a list of trends we think will impact the talent management function of HR this year.  1. The Moments that Matter  Digitizing the employee experience and essentially treating employees as if they were internal customers was a hot trend in 2017. Despite many companies tackling this trend last year, it will still get considerable attention in 2018. “This year, we expect companies to continue to personalize the employee experience and redesign HR to better support the employee “moments that matter” in their service delivery models. It will require HR to improve the data gathering and analysis of their “internal customer”, determine personas, identify triggers in the employee lifecycle and reexamine HR’s impact and effectiveness in truly delivering the service their employees demand at those moments in time” -- Sunita Khatri, Director of HCM Cloud Product Marketing, Oracle. 2. System Generated Intelligence  If you’ve ever used Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant then you’ve used artificial intelligence.   AI, as well as the term machine learning, are emerging features across many HR applications. “AI is pushing the boundaries of traditional HR systems by offering HR professionals with system generated intelligence, actions, recommendations and personalization”, Sunita Khatri.   Sourcing and recruiting are becoming hot topics for AI. Creating a personalized and engaging experience for candidates and then supporting it with decision support through natural language processing and chatbots will become the norm. AI can also connect candidates with opportunities that they may not have even thought about. AI can also help increase and improve the candidate pool.  For example, many recruiters today use keyword tools to parse a long list of resumes in finding a potential match. However, this methodology eliminates resumes that may lack relevant keywords, but are still quality candidates. With AI, candidate matching will take into account more than just keyword data, such as the candidate’s previous job titles, work history, tenure and accomplishments. It then matches this data against the target profile and persona of a particular job requisition to propose comprehensive quantitative and qualitative matches. With this technology, recruiters no longer need to read countless resumes and can focus on the right candidate.  3. People Analytics  With business moving to a more data driven approach, HR’s role is enabling their organization to leverage talent data to help meet business goals and know their employees across all stages of the HR spectrum. Organizations are utilizing data to improve all HR processes such as recruiting, talent management, workforce planning and operational improvements.    A Bersin report found that effectively utilizing people analytics had a positive effect on both their business and their workforce. Josh Bersin says that “Organizations that invest in people analytics are seeing above average improvements in employee engagement, performance and profitability. Yet despite these clear advantages, only 17% of companies have achieved these benefits and some are far behind.” With the improvements that investing in people analytics can provide throughout an organization and 83% currently not utilizing it, we should see a huge wave of organizations investing in it in 2018. 4. Reimagined Workplace Learning  There’s a new paradigm for how we learn and develop professionally in the workplace. Many organization’s L&D and talent development functions are still leveraging traditional, compliance and course catalog learning strategies. With the onset of the “modern learner” who craves an always-on, collaborative, social, mobile and peer-to-peer learning experience, chances are they will feel held back with rigid and outdated learning platforms in the workplace.  “Today, learning content is only provided by L&D experts and HR, whereas the future of learning is in the hands of the entire workforce, where learning content is authored, posted, shared and tracked by everyone in the organization and curated by employees and HR. Most learners today are trained to hunt for their knowledge, but imagine a learning system that learns your behavior over time and leverages artificial intelligence to recommend the next piece of information or content you should learn. HR will especially start to reap the benefits of using modern Learning platforms by embedding learning within critical talent processes such as career development and internal mobility.”  Sunita Khatri.  5. Developing Millennials Leaders  75% of the total workforce will be millennials by year 2025, yet large percentages of this population is leaving the enterprise to work at non-profits, smaller businesses or become entrepreneurs. Why is that? “Career progression is top of mind for this generation, their ambition to learn, stay engaged, acquire knowledge and new skills quickly is important. In addition to work life balance and job flexibility, they also expect to rise quickly in the organization, be picked for new career assignments and motivated for new challenges. In 2018, we suspect organizations will start thinking about millennial focused leadership programs, especially since by year 2020, they will inevitably be managing the next wave of workers, Generation Z”.  -- Sunita Khatri.  6. Gig Economy The rise of the gig economy can be attributed to the desired flexibility of the digital worker. Some workers do it out of necessity, others enjoy it because of the ability to be their own boss and choosing the type of work or projects that they want to do. An Intuit Global Study predicts that 40% of the total workforce will be contingent workers by 2020. If this holds true, talent management practitioners will need to prepare for how this change will impact the workforce.  There are potential complications that talent management practitioners will need to consider as they prepare to recruit and manage large influxes of contingent workers. For example, gig employees usually do not receive the same benefits as full or part time employees, so their onboarding may be different. If your organization plans to hire gig employees then consider how will you source and appeal to this talent pool and what differentiated pay strategies will you need to consider?  The need to be responsive and agile will continue to be critical in this new economy. Since, technology is speeding up the way business is done, these are only a handful of topics that we believe will emerge or continue to trend in 2018. As the year progresses, there will be new trends that pop up and it will be up to talent leaders to stay on top of them. How is your organization set up meet these trends in 2018? 

We are currently in the golden age of HR. Modern technology has enabled HR leaders to provide their workforce with a better employee experience. Emerging technologies such as data...

  Oracle’s Oscar Lausegger explains how companies can harness the power of a unified workforce to keep the wind in their sails It’s difficult to recruit the best people, and just as hard to keep them on-board. Any company that believes its work is done once a new joiner has signed their contract is deluding itself. Your people are your business, and you need to invest in them just as you would invest in serving customers. How can companies hold on to their best workers in the face of a skills shortage that has seen competition for top talent intensify like never before? Organisations can’t afford to be smug in this regard. A recent Deloitte report found that two thirds of millennials plan to leave their current employer by 2020. The most important thing to remember is that remuneration is just one part of the equation. Salary certainly influences a candidate’s decision to accept a new role and will no doubt be a concern throughout their career, but it now factors lower than ever on their list of priorities. Above all, employees want to feel engaged and motivated in what they do. Our own research found that people who feel engaged at work are more productive, deliver a better service to customers, and feel less inclined to look for jobs elsewhere.   The term “employee engagement” gets thrown around too often, but at its core this comes down to ensuring workers get the support they need from managers - our research also found that nearly 80% of young professionals want more frequent discussions with their line manager about their career path – as well as the training and tools employees require to keep progressing.   Of course, it’s one thing to drive employee engagement and another for your efforts to make a real impact. Unless HR teams and managers can measure the effect of their engagement tactics on employee performance and the company’s wider success there is little chance for improvement. This is where greater alignment with the finance department becomes crucial. An open loop between HR and finance will ensure recruitment and talent management strategies align with the business’ resourcing needs and forward planning, which is the ultimate goal of hiring and developing the best people. From the finance team’s perspective, long term plans hinge on the company’s ability to attract and retain the right people, and a more collaborative relationship with HR is the key to making this happen. The modern worker’s expectations have evolved, but they are not unreasonable. They simply want to feel they are working with the business, not for the business. The challenge of delivering on this expectation can be likened to sailing. A sailor needs to plot a course and harness the wind to make sure they reach their destination. Otherwise they will just be pushed about where the wind takes them. Similarly, a business must harness the power of its people to stay on course and achieve its ambitions, and it can only achieve this if its employees are engaged and committed to the company’s future ambitions. With a deeper understanding of what their employees want from their experience at work, and by working more closely with the finance team to ensure their engagement strategies align with the company’s future course, HR teams will be in the best position to unify their workforce and channel their full potential.  

  Oracle’s Oscar Lausegger explains how companies can harness the power of a unified workforce to keep the wind in their sails It’s difficult to recruit the best people, and just as hard to keep them...

By guest author: Duke Daehling, Director of Talent Management, Analytics and Strategy for IBM Smarter Workforce The pace of business change is currently the fastest it has ever been; at the same time, it will never be this slow again. To keep up, industry leaders are reinventing themselves, turning chaos into opportunities across three key areas:  Business disruption Experience disruption Talent disruption Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud, when paired with AI capabilities from IBM, can help businesses address each of these three areas. Business Disruption At current churn rate, 75% of the Fortune 500 will be replaced by 2027. Businesses are seeing parts of their value chains seized by internet giants or tech startups with radically different business models. In virtually every industry, technology has lowered barriers to entry and accelerated speed of disruption.  IBM’s most recent CEO study showed that while nearly 75% of leaders said their business was susceptible to disruption in the next three years, only 14% said they had the ability to act fast enough to adapt to that disruption. This applies to HR as well: forward-thinking HR leaders reimagine how people work with AI, robotics, and IoT, building capabilities and a culture that can respond fast.  HR can give managers and employees insights and systems beyond dashboards, so they can take swift action. Leading HR functions are adopting rapid iteration as the default for all business transformation programs. By training your HR functions in agile methods, you can set the expectation that all processes and technology are in a permanent state of beta testing, so you can be ready to change quickly whenever the need arises.  Experience Disruption Employees expect a workplace experience that’s just as convenient, transparent, and personalized as what they get from their favorite brands in their personal lives. AI for HCM can play a key role in delivering that experience.  Leading organizations are getting ahead using AI and design thinking. Training your staff in design thinking is one way to ensure you’re constantly innovating around key personas and putting experience at the heart of everything you do.   You can also use cognitive and bot solutions to amplify the humanity of digital systems and augment human intelligence. The purpose of AI is not to replace the “human” in human resources; it’s to help humans do the things they do best, while offloading the repeatable manual processes that can be done faster and better by machines.  Instead of having employees call a helpdesk to get questions answered—wasting time for both the person asking the question and the person answering it—AI-enabled organizations allow employees to be self-sufficient, with access to on-demand information on their mobile devices.  In addition, employees can use AI tools to find jobs, manage their career development, and set benefits. This could include automatically filling out forms, managing workflows, and scheduling meetings.  This makes life easier for employees, and frees them up to spend more time on the high-value tasks they were hired to do. AI can also help onboard employees quickly. By interacting with an AI-powered chatbot, new employees can get their questions answered instantly, so they can learn the company culture and become productive as quickly as possible. This also removes the need for HR reps to answer those basic questions, freeing them up for tasks that require a human touch.   Talent Disruption With the total number of job openings in the US hovering around 6 million, and unemployment at an all-time low, highly qualified employees have more choice than ever before. Businesses must differentiate themselves to stand out and attract great talent. Additionally, many organizations find themselves with a paradox: having too many people, but still being short on skills. Once again, AI is the key to addressing these issues. For example, the careers page for any major company can be a baffling ordeal for job seekers. It’s frustrating to have to comb through hundreds of open positions, not being able to find the right one for you. At IBM, we’ve used AI to improve our own careers page. We get more than a million impressions on the IBM careers page every year. Although we only hire a small fraction of that number, it’s still important to create a great candidate experience for all of them, as candidate experience can have an impact that extends far beyond hiring outcomes.    Using IBM Watson Candidate Advisor, an AI-powered chatbot, we’re able to personally connect with each candidate in a way we wouldn’t be able to otherwise. The chatbot asks each candidate a few questions, invites them to upload their resume or connect to their LinkedIn account, and then presents them with the top three jobs they might be a good fit for.  Learn more Will you be attending Oracle HCM World 2018? If so, we invite you to connect with IBM. Attend our speaker sessions to hear more from our HCM experts, and meet with us to continue the conversation. 

By guest author: Duke Daehling, Director of Talent Management, Analytics and Strategy for IBM Smarter Workforce The pace of business change is currently the fastest it has ever been; at the same time,...

Employee expectations regarding organizational learning mirror their experiences in how they consume content outside of work. In a study conducted by CEB of over 90K learners, 77% of employees reported they do what they need to do to learn effectively. 69% of employees regularly seek out new ways of doing their work from their co-workers and 66% of employees expect to learn just-in-time.  Learning and development (L&D) teams are now trying to meet the demands of today’s corporate digital learner who is impatient, tech-savvy, disrupted and on the go. Yet most existing L&D efforts don’t engage this type of learner. Historically the focus has been on redesigning content to make it more enjoyable and engaging by leveraging formats like virtual, and e-learning.  But with the wake of the Modern Learner, L&D teams are realizing that making content better doesn’t solve for the demands to make the learning experience effortless, continuous and personalized to each persons’ needs anytime, anywhere.  The point is, L&D in the past has been a one-way street and HR applications have traditionally been designed to place the burden of strategy and execution on HR & L&D. But as I speak to customers who have migrated to modern HCM applications, the secret sauce lies in cultivating a strategy and platform that puts accountability into the workforce, front line managers and leadership. A successful learning platform will empower the entire workforce to produce engaging content, make learning enjoyable and be intelligent enough to know what all users expects to learn next.  At Oracle, we understand that people don’t want to be trained all the time, they want to train themselves and are positioned to thrive in a digital communal setting that traps and evolves their knowledge over time. That’s what’s most compelling about Oracle’s Learning Cloud is that we’ve delivered powerful innovation to do just this. With Oracle, HR and L&D can:  Engage the Modern Learner: meet the demands of the workforce with effortless learning that’s personalized and accessible anytime, anywhere Make Learning Relevant 24/7: enable continuous knowledge transfer with recommended content and easy content discovery via peer-to-peer content posting and sharing  Blend Traditional with Modern: easily manage and deliver content using flexible tools and embed learning into HR talent processes  We’ve reimagined learning to be just like the consumer experience, if not better. Where the system leverages adaptive intelligence to generate recommended content based on job profile and behavior resulting in an always-on personalized experience anytime, anywhere. SMEs and employees can easily capture, share ideas and best practices to enable knowledge transfer across the entire workforce resulting in a social, collaborative enterprise-wide learning experience.  In return employees, are now empowered more than ever to manage their reputation and be recognized for the impact of their contributions while HR will have real-time insights into content consumption trends and key influencers – a win-win for everyone in my humble opinion.  Find out more about Oracle’s Talent Management & Learning Cloud.   

Employee expectations regarding organizational learning mirror their experiences in how they consume content outside of work. In a study conducted by CEB of over 90K learners, 77% of employees...

This past October, I attended two of the most prominent technology conferences in the industry – Oracle Openworld and HR Technology. I had the opportunity to hear from HR and technology thought leaders in keynotes, breakout sessions, and spoke with customers and partners who visited our demo booths and hands on labs sessions. Rather than providing a recap right after the event, I thought it would be a good idea to take some time to reflect on what I learned before writing a blog. Here is my summary of two trends that really stood out to me from HR Tech and Oracle Openworld in 2017. 1.    The User Experience Is All About the Employee Experience HR technology vendors have invested significant time and resources to improve the user experience of their software; by making their screens prettier, making transactions guided and simpler with fewer clicks, and extending the user experiences to include mobile, chatbots and analytics. Many of these enhancements are designed to make the experience more seamless for every employee, regardless of their role in the organization. Lazlo Bock, ex CHRO at Google referred to this trend as “delivering the smooth buttery experiences of consumer apps”.  A lot has been written about delivering a better employee experience in 2017, and several HR tech companies have marketed themselves to “focus on the employee experience”. But when you think about the approach that many of these companies are taking, they’re only focused around a SINGLE aspect of the employee experience. Take for example of the winner of the “Next Great HR Technology Company” at HR Tech: Blueboard is rethinking how organizations reward and recognize their employees, by substituting personalized experiences for gift cards.   While I agree that receiving an award for a cooking class, is more personal than receiving an Amazon gift card – I’d honestly be happy with both. Rewards are just one aspect of my job. What about all of the other experiences employees have from when they are hired, to when they leave the organization?  This is where I’m really excited to be a part of Oracle, where we can leverage our broad and deep product portfolio to solve questions such as “How do we completely redesign the employee experience so that people and organizations they work for better understand one another? This is where the Oracle UX and Innovation team has been working closely with customers and partners to reimagine how employees go through their day. The launch of several new products across the Oracle HCM Cloud suite including HR Help Desk, Workforce Health and Safety Incidents and the Oracle Recruiting Cloud will introduce new ways to create a personal and enriching complete employee experience.    2.    AI is still new, but has started to gain traction in HR In 2016, many HR technology vendors and analysts claimed that AI would change the future of work, and that jobs that consisted of repetitive tasks were at risk of being lost to AI while other jobs could be enhanced by AI. This was marketing hype to me. It would be similar to if I made the following statement today, “the new camera on the iPhone X is going to change photography forever! Some photographers may lose their jobs, while some photographers will use the new camera on the iPhone X and find ways to take better photos.” The introduction of any new technology has the potential to create change in people’s daily lives. It’s up to people to define IF the technology will be adopted and HOW the technology can be used.   Fast forward to the end of 2017, after another year of development, R&D, pilots, and implementation of AI in HR and we’ve seen the following use cases come to fruition: Chatbots have become popular in how customers interact with brands. Now, we’re starting to see chatbots introduced into our daily work lives. HR technology vendors are moving from rules-based chatbots that respond to basic employee inquiries, such as “how much vacation do I have left, and “what are my benefits” to more intelligent chatbots that can facilitate conversations with employees – providing them with continuous feedback, or finding new ways to engage with job candidates on career websites.   The most prevalent use cases of AI in HR that I have seen are across talent acquisition processes.  At HR Tech this year, about half of the companies in the Startup Pavilion were embedding AI across their talent acquisition processes to drive new benefits for candidates and recruiters. The challenge for these startups is when it comes to AI is the lack of access to enterprise data. Naturally, the talent acquisition process uses the most external data (ie: social, background checks providers, tests for certain roles) that don’t sit within an organization’s firewall. However, even as startups can build low-cost, analytic solutions that can process large amounts of data – it also takes time and effort to access, gather, and organize highly sensitive people data that delivers relevant recommendations. While I admire the talent and the effort that goes into many of these point solutions – I’m also really thankful to be at the forefront of Adaptive Intelligence at Oracle, where we have no shortage of access to enterprise data, and the opportunity to bring AI in HR to prime-time. 

This past October, I attended two of the most prominent technology conferences in the industry – Oracle Openworld and HR Technology. I had the opportunity to hear from HR and technology thought...

  Mervyn Dinnen, Author and Talent Acquisition Analyst   Speak to almost any HR professional and they’ll tell you the same thing: today’s employees, especially those in their 20s and 30s, are changing roles and employers more frequently than ever before.   This reality may not always leap out in a company’s top line data, and with older employees holding on to secure roles in the face of economic uncertainty; most studies on churn do little to reveal micro trends among millennial workers. However, a wealth of choice and a massive skills shortage have put young talent in high demand, and companies understand they need to do more to keep their best workers from leaving.   Here are four tips from my own discussions with HR professionals and industry analysts on how they can achieve this:   Tip 1: Monotony is the enemy   Young people don’t want repetition. In their eyes, and indeed in the wider business world, repetitive tasks will soon be shifted over to robots and software so that people can focus on genuinely interesting and engaging work.   One option is to offer more project-based work. This not only adds variety to employees’ jobs, it also gives them more opportunities to learn new skills with each project, work with a wider mix of people, and always have a clear goal to work towards. Project-based work also lends itself well to the rise of the gig economy and contract workers, both of which businesses will increasingly take advantage of to scale their skillset to ad-hoc needs.   Tip 2: First impressions are key   Successful on-boarding has never been more important. New hires who don’t feel the organisation is invested in them from day one will immediately feel uneasy about their position, and this first impression may be difficult to reverse. It may be tempting to leave new hires to their own devices if we assume they’ll be leaving in a year or two, but this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like any relationship, both parties will get the most from each other if they assume the best in each other.   Tip 3: Second, third and fourth impressions are also key   Career development needs to feel constant for every employee, particularly millennials. The annual review is a thing of the past. Managers need to work directly with each team member to set and revise their goals and development path, and to make sure there is a clear pay-off in view for those who perform well. The best employees learn and progress quickly, and with so many suitors ready to poach them, they need to feel the pace of their progress matches their ambitions.   Tip 4: Benefits matter, but they are also changing   There was a time when the most valued benefit for an employee was their pension package, but for a restless 20-something year old retirement is too far off in the future for this to matter much. Pensions aren’t much of a differentiator either, as most companies now offer these.   Whether it’s a cycle-to-work scheme, health and wellness programme, or flexible working hours businesses are rethinking their employee perks for the needs of today’s workforce. Never has it been more important to build a strong employer brand, and it is these types of benefits that will help companies do so while also serving the needs of their workforce.   For more on how employee habits are changing and companies are adapting, tune into Oracle’s recent webinar on the topic that I also participated in.  

  Mervyn Dinnen, Author and Talent Acquisition Analyst   Speak to almost any HR professional and they’ll tell you the same thing: today’s employees, especially those in their 20s and 30s, are changing...

Is financial services a people industry?  The rising popularity of Artificial Intelligence and Process Automation suggests the answer is “no”. Recent research from Roubini Thoughtlab predicts the uptake of these technologies will grow by 110% and 84% respectively over the next five years, raising serious questions about the effects this will have on financial services employees and the way companies interact with their customers. For all the headlines about how machines will replace humans, let us not forget that financial services is about relationships and exchanges between people. Mortgages, loans and investments are not just figures on a financial statement – they are someone’s house, business loan, or retirement plans. Without humans, these instruments would have no reason to exist. The challenge for financial services companies taking on new technologies like AI and automation is to marry the creativity and ingenuity of human reasoning with the efficiency of machines. This will require them to find a balance that serves their ambitions of engaging customers while also enhancing the way employees work. We have already seen self-service portfolio management leave traditional stockbrokers in the dust and the rise of mobile banking apps eliminate the need for customers to visit a branch, but what does the steady creep of technology mean for people working in the industry? Crucial to this endeavour is closer collaboration between Finance and HR teams. The Finance department, where a great deal of technology is being implemented, must work with HR leaders to understand where they need to have people managing processes and where it makes more strategic sense to automate.  The Roubini research reveals in which ways digital leaders in the financial services industry are already using AI and automation to help their teams work smarter and faster. Fifty-six per cent (56%) have seen increased productivity among their advisors, 50% have seen improvements in their ability to detect and anticipate cybersecurity risks, and 38% have been able to optimise and streamline their back office. With AI and machine learning, organisations can crunch through huge volumes of data and uncover new insights in seconds, but these technologies are only half of the equation. It takes a human being’s judgment and penchant for critical thinking to apply this insight and use it to inform finance strategies, helping the business to meet increasingly complex challenges in a fast-shifting market. Companies that still view their technology as distinct from their people are missing the point and will fail to achieve their full potential, on both fronts. Tools like AI and automation should serve to augment human decision-making, while people must be encourage to buy into these technologies and trained to use them effectively. HR and Finance teams therefore need to join forces and foster a work culture that reflects this approach. This will ensure employees are not just willing to use new technologies as part of their day-to-day work but also able to do so and enjoy the benefits. Finance teams understand the benefits that technology can bring to employee workflows and decision-making, while HR teams play a major role in recruiting the right people, training them, and helping managers to transition employees to new ways of working This collaboration speaks to a wider imperative within businesses. Roles and responsibilities that were once guarded by individual departments are now bleeding across multiple business units. For instance, consider how compliance has become a matter of organisational culture rather than the sole preserve of legal or finance departments. As new technologies continue to transform the workplace, companies must adapt their team cultures and the way people use technology to do their jobs. In the financial services industry, this begins with closer collaboration between HR and Finance. Together, they can develop a model for interdepartmental cooperation; even more importantly, they can set the right precedent for how to marry the capabilities and limitations of man and machine. Should you want to know more about the Roubini Report sponsored by Oracle, please read here.

Is financial services a people industry?  The rising popularity of Artificial Intelligence and Process Automation suggests the answer is “no”. Recent research from Roubini Thoughtlab predicts the...

By Joseph Clay, Vice President – Human Capital Management Transformation at Oracle The landscape for higher education is changing rapidly with greater emphasis on student experience, value creation, and affordability.  In our webcast “The Modern Campus:  Challenges and Opportunities for Human Capital Initiatives” we examine how HR can best leverage these changes to influence and perhaps even drive strategy for their institutions.  Together with John Kiss, Senior Manager, Risk & Internal Audit, and Jeffery Haynes, Director Human Capital Services for Baker Tilly, we’ve explored the current challenges facing Higher Education and discussed how HR can play an integral role in helping institutions deliver on strategies and achieve greater success.   What are the critical challenges for Colleges and Universities? Higher Education is experiencing an early phase of a disruptive change.  Advances in technology, new paths for obtaining a degree, ongoing tuition increases, and alternative funding practices are just a few components of this change.  Last year, Oracle partnered with University Business on a survey of business, finance and executive leaders in Higher Education to identify the most critical challenges facing their institutions. Over 70% identified developing new sources of revenue as a top concern, 67% identified containing or reducing costs, 63% retaining students, 54% competing for new students and finally 48% listed upgrading technology systems and business processes as a top opportunity.  Is the HR function in your institution prepared to play a role as Higher Education continues changing?  Let’s take a closer look at some of these disruptive factors. Technology is transforming the classroom John Kiss of Baker Tilly provided a great overview during our webcast on the classroom of the future.  He talked about how futurists predicted that “Information technology will have a greater, more transmogrifying effect on higher education than on any other industry or profession”.  As modalities for delivering content continue evolving, what are the HR implications for attracting, hiring and engaging the faculty talent of the future?   Students have more learning options Today, students have more ways of receiving and interacting with educational content. Massive Open Online Courses or (MOOCS) provide an affordable and flexible way to learn new skills, advance a career and deliver quality educational experiences at scale.  Accreditation Unbundling will one day allow students to take a “best of breed” approach, choosing courses from a variety of institutions and applying them for credit. On-Line Degrees and fieldwork-based classrooms will allow more students to be engaged by even fewer professors. Portable academic experiences and more flexible payment models will provide greater options for a more digitally native, mobile and diverse student population. These modalities offer new ways to engage students at a time when the appetite for traditional four-year degrees is dropping. How can HR best prepare their leadership to be flexible and agile in the face of these competitive challenges?       Tuition and collage debt are increasing The class of 2016 graduated with the most student debt ever with an average student loan of just over $37,000. Tuition increases and greater student debt has increased pressure on institutions to find ways to offer high quality education at the most affordable price. How is the HR function valued by your institution? At a time when understanding success profiles for top students and top talent is at an all-time high, how are you helping leaders make better decisions?          Funding priorities are shifting States are responding to the growth in student debt by placing greater emphasis on performance outcome criteria to determine funding. North Dakota is one of only two states to have maintained their fiscal 1980 investment in higher education through 2011. The remaining 48 states have reduced their overall funding commitment imposing more “outcome” based accountability on institutions.  If the trends continue, funding based on enrollment will eventually be replaced by funding tied to performance.   The Implications for HR Many HR functions in higher education have a structural disadvantage because their budgets have historically been around 50% - 75% lower than other industries. Under-investment in the function has resulted in slower adoption of leading practices and a tendency to focus more on compliance and risk mitigation activities. A 2013-14 HR systems survey by CedarCrestone revealed extremely low adoption levels for workforce analytics, social media, business intelligence tools, and workforce /talent management. In fact, 97% of the survey participants identified HR as a heavily administrative function.  Today, as institutions strive to anticipate, adapt and manage the changing higher education landscape, HR must become a more proactive partner.   Closing this gap offers HR an opportunity to redefine its traditional administrative role. The first step to closing the gap involves making an informed investment decision in more modern technology. Jeffery Haynes of Baker Tilly provided an overview of the latest research on how HR leaders are starting to make investing in modern, integrated HCM tools a priority.  You can hear the discussion in the webcast about how HR leaders are starting to better understand how developing modern, sophisticated HR programs can lead to better student outcomes. A National Survey of Student Engagement determined the following, “Today’s student success is strongly correlated with the extent to which students interact with supportive adults on campus, both inside and outside the classroom.”  As you can see, these are highly disruptive and exciting times in Higher Education. The historical gap in HR funding and the subsequent focus on solely administrative work limited its ability to support the critical needs of the institution.  Today, however, Human Resource leaders are aware of the need for change and see investing in technology as part of the solution.   Listen to the webcast “The Modern Campus:  Challenges and Opportunities for Human Capital Initiatives” to learn more about the real opportunity for HR leaders to to shift the focus to modern, sophisticated HR programs like Talent Acquisition and Talent Management for reducing costs, and even driving student success.

By Joseph Clay, Vice President – Human Capital Management Transformation at Oracle The landscape for higher education is changing rapidly with greater emphasis on student experience, value creation,...

Meet ‘Malcolm the employee’. Malcolm sits at his desk at 4:50pm and checks his to-do list: Yes, that report has been sent. Yes, he’s finished his slides for tomorrow’s presentation. Yes, he’s done his timesheets. All in all a productive day, and he successfully managed to avoid volunteering for the new project his team was discussing earlier, result. In ten minutes, Malcolm will be out the door and headed home.  Tomorrow, he will celebrate fifteen years with the company. Nobody would say that Malcolm is a bad employee. He does his job and is happy to do so. However, he is comfortable with what’s expected of him and gets away with delivering the bare minimum. He rarely goes beyond the call of duty, attempts to learn new skills, or proactively finds ways to better the business. Malcolm is a social guy and enjoys a good chat with his mates at work. If you asked Malcolm if he was an engaged employee he would say yes. But in reality that is only partially true. He is merely content, in it for the paycheck rather than worried about job satisfaction.   Don’t leave Malcolm in the middle Content workers like Malcolm are full of untapped potential. They bear no ill will towards their organisation and have a great deal to offer, but have become complacent over time and have lost the fire that first attracted them to their role.   In today’s competitive, digital world, a company’s success depends on the performance of every one of its employees. When employees thrive, the organisation thrives. At a time when businesses are under immense pressure to innovate and stay relevant, a fully engaged workforce is crucial to their productivity and success. How can we inspire employees who are merely content to want more for themselves and the organisation that they work for? To begin, managers and HR leaders need to understand which factors separate people who are “happy enough” from those who are genuinely engaged. This is the aim of new research being conducted by Engage for Success and Ashridge Executive Education, part of Hult International Business School, which is mapping out the factors that make employees feel engaged, disengaged, or somewhere in between. Crucially, rather than just exploring engagement at an individual level, which only paints a partial picture of reality, Ashridge is looking at how team dynamics contribute to the overall employee experience. Employees like Malcolm fall into what the researchers call the “zone of contentment”. They are categorised by a tendency to churn out satisfactory work and have a positive opinion of their employer, but also by their lack of drive, which has knock-on effects for the rest of their team. This presents a huge challenge for HR leaders, whose jobs it is to help the business create a more engaging and productive work environment. Essentially, they are being tasked with motivating happy employees to do even more.      Motivation for the content employee To stimulate content employees, HR teams must map out how these people fit in with their wider teams and help managers understand their impact on everyone’s performance. The relationship between HR and team leaders continues from there as they collaborate on new management approaches, team structures, and training to meet the needs and habits of each worker. Employee engagement is not a black and white issue. Many workers fall into a shade of grey somewhere in between both extremes, and it is these people companies must focus on if they want to get the most out of their talent. With HR and managers working together to make employees feel a greater sense of purpose in their roles, they can re-inspire even their longest-serving people to give the company everything they’ve got.   Find out how companies can reshape their organisation culture and find new ways to inspire their employees, check out our guide for HR leaders. To get more information on Engage for Success and how they driving engagement in the modern business, visit their website here.  

Meet ‘Malcolm the employee’. Malcolm sits at his desk at 4:50pm and checks his to-do list: Yes, that report has been sent. Yes, he’s finished his slides for tomorrow’s presentation. Yes, he’s done his...

Andy Campbell, HCM Strategy Director at Oracle HR leaders have a love/hate relationship with metrics. Let’s begin with the positive: metrics add structure to the way HR teams work and help guide their decision-making. They also provide a means of measuring success, which is not as easily defined for people performance as it is for more financial performance. The problem with HR metrics is that they no longer reflect the best interests of the business or its employees.  As Andrea Eccles of the City HR Association puts it, businesses keep adding new success factors to their “metrics cauldron” to meet stakeholder expectations, but this isn’t being done strategically. Without a clear link between each metric and its impact on how both employees and the business will benefit, HR teams will continue to serve short-sited objectives and struggle to deliver on the organisation’s wider needs. The challenge is to link talent strategies with company strategies, and this requires greater insight into the factors that drive employee success, productivity and engagement. From line management to team structures to salaries, there are many forces at play in shaping an organisation’s talent landscape. By better understanding how these relate to each other and to the business’ broader objectives, HR leaders will be in a better position to set and deliver on metrics that matter. Greater transparency into talent is not only more important for performance reasons, but also from an employee engagement and employer brand perspective. Public scrutiny around executive pay has never been higher. Meanwhile, websites like Glassdoor have allowed employees and potential hires to gauge their working conditions against industry norms, which means line managers must be able to address their questions by drawing clear lines between people, their performance and the company’s success. In a recent report from Oracle and the City HR Association, Peter Cheese from the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development expertly summed up why data is the new gold for HR: “To build successful and sustainable organisations requires data and evidence that lead to insight and actions. Data about the workforce, the organisation and the impact of HR interventions has never been more important.” Mr Cheese’s words ring true, but the ability to collect and interpret more forms of data is also bringing HR strategy closer in step with Finance strategy. The line between HR and Finance is blurring, as highlighted by recent research from Oracle and MIT. As these two functions work towards more aligned metrics we will see integrated reporting become the norm as well. Finance metrics like accounting, budgeting and resource management will be married with people metrics like pay, retention and talent pipelines to give both teams a more rounded view of how all these forces combine to serve the business’ needs. Metrics don’t need to be contentious, but if businesses continue to work in silos with individual departments chasing different and sometimes contradictory objectives they will keep running into the same issues. Progress today demands a more strategic and aligned approach to metrics, and this begins with a better understanding of how people and processes come together in the organisation.   For more on how data analytics is helping employers establish and deliver on the right metrics, read ‘Measuring Up’, Oracle’s latest publication with the UK City HR Association. This report explores a broad range of topics including why metrics matter, how to capture data, the role of governance and data protection, diversity and inclusion reporting and the latest advances in technology, including AI and robotics. 

Andy Campbell, HCM Strategy Director at Oracle HR leaders have a love/hate relationship with metrics. Let’s begin with the positive: metrics add structure to the way HR teams work and help guide...

Oracle’s Andy Campbell explains why HR and managers must work together to drive the right kind of engagement Here’s a scenario that will be familiar to any of my fellow office workers: You and a colleague have put in long hours to deliver a big project for your manager, working overtime and weekends to do the best possible job under a tight deadline. You feel satisfied that the work speaks for itself and take pride in the collaboration that made it happen, but your colleague elects to make loads of noise about how much time and energy they dedicated to the task, which results in them getting most of the credit for your joint effort. Nobody would argue that either of you wasn’t engaged in their work. You both did the time and made sacrifices to help the company succeed. However, there are two very different forms of engagement at play here, and only one has a positive influence on the team and its long-term performance. The other only serves the needs of an individual and creates a toxic relationship between colleagues. Engagement comes in shades of grey Can we really count an employee as engaged if they only work hard to serve their own interests?  Should they earn praise while their colleagues who consistently go out of their way to help the entire team get little to no credit? New research being conducted by Engage for Success and Ashridge Executive Education, part of Hult International Business School, highlights the shades of grey that separate genuine engagement from this form of pseudo-engagement, whereby employees simply “play the game” to look good in front of their managers. Pseudo-engaged workers may tick the right boxes at the right time, but their self-serving attitude inevitably spreads to the rest of the team and hurts its performance over time. When individual workers compete for their manager’s approval instead of working together to succeed as a group, they create a negative environment and breed a lack of trust between colleagues. This presents a major challenge for HR leaders and managers, who need to build more collaborative teams and deliver a positive employee experience if they want to top talent in the building. It is one thing to keep engaged teams happy, but inspiring a group of pseudo-engaged people to work together for the collective good requires a change of tact and a better understanding of what motivates them. Spotting the difference between engaged and pseudo-engaged teams The Ashridge research has uncovered a number of tell-tale signs to help HR distinguish pseudo-engaged teams from truly engaged ones. For instance, the former tend to be proactive at opportune moments but struggle with group tasks and diversity. They also have a proclivity for organised fun but struggle to form natural relationships with each other. The list goes on, but the takeaway for managers is that they need to connect many dots if they want to get to the root of their team’s engagement issues. This is where technology comes into play, particularly analytics. With the ability to analyse each employee’s performance and work habits against how they affect other people’s productivity and attitudes, managers can then work with HR to develop more informed and targeted engagement strategies that serve everyone’s best interests. Engagement is not a black or white concept. No person is 100% engaged all the time because no person is 100% motivated, 100% happy, and 100% productive all the time. That’s why the end goal for companies shouldn’t be to make employee want to work, but rather to make them feel they’re a valuable part of something greater than themselves. One of the key ways to achieve things is to address engagement at a team level instead of focussing on individual performance, and to create an environment that makes employees feel they don’t have to go it alone to prove themselves.   To read more about Oracle work around employee engagement, please click here.

Oracle’s Andy Campbell explains why HR and managers must work together to drive the right kind of engagement Here’s a scenario that will be familiar to any of my fellow office workers: You and a...

    Andy Campbell, HCM Strategy Director at Oracle Human resources (HR) teams in the UK manufacturing sector must feel they are walking the wrong way up an escalator on most days. A skilled and productive workforce is a company’s key competitive differentiator in today’s economy, but there are a seemingly endless number of challenges involved in recruiting and managing top talent. Here are just a few examples: Manufacturers are under pressure to reduce product development lifecycles while also quickening their pace of digital transformation, which means they need to be more agile in their hiring, on boarding, and retaining approach. A changing political climate has made future talent pipelines uncertain. For instance, Brexit may impact the amount of skilled international resources available to UK businesses. The rise of Industry 4.0 will see roles change as companies adopt new automated processes. This will also force manufacturers to recruit new employees with strong tech and digital content skills, all in the face of a widening skills gap. Companies need to balance a talented but aging workforce with the demands of millennial employees who have a very different approach to work. Their challenge is to harness the best of both worlds and foster a creative, inclusive working culture. It’s time for HR to change The key to tackling these challenges is a modern HR and talent strategy. By taking a more strategic, talent-centric, and responsive approach, HR teams will be in a better position to attract and retain talented people and jump on new market opportunities. This begins with a more engaged workforce. It is one thing to offer employees higher salaries and incentives, but above all people want to feel the company is invested in their development. Effective training and learning opportunities, wellness benefits, more frequent and productive discussions with line managers – these are the keys to positive engagement. Shedding the HR legacy Until now, the evolution of HR in manufacturing has been slow. Manufacturers have focussed on core processes like enterprise resource planning (ERP) at the expense of HR, which has long been viewed as a support function. They therefore still rely on legacy HR systems that are restricted to simple record-keeping and basic activities like payroll or time management. As a result, inconsistent and inaccurate data plagues payroll and benefits reporting, which in turn undermines any strategic efforts around workforce planning and career development. To add to this, many companies also rely on HR systems that are tightly integrated with their ERP platform. While attractive on the surface, this approach does have one major disadvantage – interdependent systems must be upgraded as one, which is not only complex but potentially disruptive to the business.   How HR can become a partner to the business This is where cloud-based platforms allow HR teams to take a major leap forward, as they allow users to decouple from their legacy systems and work in a simpler, more flexible way. Cloud-based systems are also helping HR to evolve from a support function into a true business partner. Today’s human resources function needs tools for acquiring and retaining talent, gaining deep insights into the workforce for strategic planning, and providing informed support to the boardroom to help drive growth, all while continuing to deliver an engaging employee experience. The cloud is ideally suited to balancing people, process, and data in this way. It opens up data access and collaboration between departments, can be accessed on virtually any device, and supports on-demand information requests. Cloud-based HR systems also offer users a single view of each employee throughout their lifecycle with the company. This is essential if managers are to develop employees in line with their personal and corporate objectives, and for workers to feel they are appropriately welcomed, nurtured, challenged, developed, and rewarded. Every manufacturing business’ success is built on the skills, productivity and attitude of its workforce, particularly in the face of today’s business challenges and uncertain market conditions. It’s now up to HR leaders to step up and guide their organisation towards this way truth, both in thinking and in practice, and the rise of cloud-based HR systems will play a large role in making that happen. For more on the challenges faced by HR today and tips on tackling these, check our whitepaper, ‘Why it’s Time for a Modern Approach to HR in Manufacturing’. 

    Andy Campbell, HCM Strategy Director at Oracle Human resources (HR) teams in the UK manufacturing sector must feel they are walking the wrong way up an escalator on most days. A skilled and...

Most employees don’t care about HR, at least not until they have an issue they need to resolve. It’s not that people feel strongly against human resources, it’s just that they don’t see how it contributes to their day-to-day job. That doesn’t mean HR is dead.  People remain a business’ most valuable asset, and it is when HR spearheads the recruitment, nurturing and teamwork between these people that they perform at a high level and make the company profitable. The reason human resources teams struggle to stay relevant is that they are wedded to process, stuck in the comfort support tasks like coordinating interviews, overseeing shared services, and dealing with simple ad-hoc requests. These functions are all crucial, but they don’t contribute to productivity, or to a hit marketing campaign, or to sales, or to any of the metrics by which the business measures its success. To reclaim its relevance, HR must accept that its role has evolved and be ready to change. This will involve two major shifts in approach: Gain a better understanding of what defines success for each line of business, and work towards helping them achieve that If HR teams continue to focus on traditional HR functions, how can they hope to deliver strategic value to anyone outside their own department? It’s important to support employees with ad-hoc requests and secure the best possible benefits packages, but the unique skillset of an HR professional is suited to much more. HR’s true calling is to help managers tap into the full potential of their teams while also keeping them motivated. For instance, the Finance leaders will look to HR to ensure recruitment strategies are aligned with the company’s project pipeline, which will make life easier for their resourcing team. Similarly, customer service teams need to feel engaged and motivated if they are to best serve customers. In short, managers need guidance and insight into their team dynamics that will help them foster a happier and more productive working environment.                                                                                                                      Stop thinking of employee engagement at the individual level A great deal of research has been done to understand what makes people feel engaged at work, but this has only focussed on the individual or on their direct relationship with managers. This limited approach delivers an incomplete view of reality. More telling than this information are those factors which contribute to a team’s overall performance and engagement.  With the exception of a freelancer working remotely, the relationship between colleagues is an even greater driver of engagement than people’s relationship with their manager, or with their work itself. New research from Oracle, Engage for Success and Ashridge Executive Education, part ofHult International Business School is driving this point home. They study, which marks the first ever attempt to understand engagement at a team level, has found that the most engaged and highest performing teams consistently display a positive dynamic between team members and a management style that promotes this. Whether they are doing more to support other lines of business or helping managers to hire, train and motivate their teams, HR leaders are being asked to step outside of their comfort zone and get more proactive. This requires them to gain a bigger picture view of how people, teams and management combine to drive performance across the business. With that, they will finally stake their true claim in the organisation and stop just focusing on HR tasks.   If you find out more about engagement and its importance, read our report here: https://go.oracle.com/LP=39982?elqCampaignId=65988

Most employees don’t care about HR, at least not until they have an issue they need to resolve. It’s not that people feel strongly against human resources, it’s just that they don’t see how...

Its that time of the year again! Time for our second annual Oracle HCM Cloud Rubies Award nominations. We launched the Rubies Awards last year to recognize and celebrate innovative customers who use Oracle HCM Cloud solutions to achieve business success. And again like last year, this year's Rubies will be peer-driven where our customers can nominate themselves, colleagues, or fellow customers. Its Your Time to Shine If your proud of what your organization has accomplished or is on-track to accomplish with Oracle HCM Cloud, this is the place for you to share your knowledge and get recognition for your innovation and achievements.  Nominations are only open until November 15th, so don't wait to get your nomination submissions in for one of the ten award categories! Winners will be announced and celebrated at HCM World 2018, March 20-22, in Dallas. Winners will receive a complementary pass to attend the event, however, winners do not have to be present at the event to win an award.  Visit our updated Rubies webpage for information on the ten award categories and also read the success stories of last year's winners.   

Its that time of the year again! Time for our second annual Oracle HCM Cloud Rubies Award nominations. We launched the Rubies Awards last year to recognize and celebrate innovative customers who use...

  Melanie Hache outlines five ways HR can become more lean and agile According to the Gartner glossary, DevOps represents a focus on rapid IT service delivery through the adoption of agile, lean practices as part of a system-oriented approach. Importantly, DevOps puts the emphasis on people and on collaboration between operations and development teams. All of this is underpinned by technology, particularly automation tools. Thanks to the rise of DevOps, IT departments can support the growing volume and complexity of demands being placed on them by the organisation. This approach is also breaking down the silos between business units, and allowing teams across the company to deliver new digital services and experiences to their customers so they can gain a competitive edge. In other words, DevOps helps to create a lean approach that empowers the entire business. The parallel with human resources is clear. Just as the IT department is stepping out from its support role to play a more strategic part in the organisation, HR teams are being asked to do the same and the implementation of lean processes is the answer. There has been a great deal of talk around the digital transformation of the HR department, and this evolution is about fostering a culture of collaboration among employees and stakeholders. In this way, HR is becoming a more service-oriented function. What can HR learn from DevOps to adopt an “HR-Ops” culture of its own? 1) Focus on continuous innovation and rapid HR service delivery: Build small and flexible project teams that are empowered to innovate quickly. 2) Take a human-centric approach: An HR-Ops culture puts people first. Greater collaboration between operations and HR teams will create more value to the wider business. 3) Use the latest technology to create value and contribute to business strategy: New technologies like the cloud and AI help HR to enhance their service delivery and drive higher levels of employee engagement and productivity. 4) Adopt a fail-fast culture: The road to innovation is not straight; it takes trial and error. Encourage HR teams to act fast and continuously optimise their approach, and innovation will follow. 5) Take a 360° approach: HR has to deliver on more than just the business’ market ambitions. They also need to meet the needs of stakeholders, employees, managers and partners. If DevOps is the engine for a company’s shift to lean market operations, HR-Ops is what drives lean people operations. The success of a business is equally dependent on both of these transformations, and by taking a service-oriented and human centric approach to the way they work HR leaders will lead the way in reshaping their organisation for the future.  

  Melanie Hache outlines five ways HR can become more lean and agile According to the Gartner glossary, DevOps represents a focus on rapid IT service delivery through the adoption of agile, lean...

Moving information systems to the cloud is hardly a novel idea; each year, the percentage of businesses who move their HCM and ERP systems to the cloud grows. And when you look at the data, it’s easy to understand why: a unified HCM and ERP cloud system has far-reaching, concrete benefits that touch nearly all aspects of the business. Executive teams often cite advantages such as cost efficiencies, single-sourced data sets, and optimized workflows as top motivators for unifying HCM and ERP in the cloud. But beyond the readily apparent benefits of HCM and ERP integration, businesses can gain unexpected bonuses as well, particularly in areas of special interest to HR. Cloud plays a pivotal role in the transformation of the HR function into a more strategic organization, but just as importantly, cloud technology can also uniquely position HR to lead a fundamental shift in the way businesses operate on every level. New research by MIT Technology Review Custom, titled “Finance and HR: The Cloud’s New Power Partnership”, uncovered three unexpected yet transformational outcomes of HCM and ERP integration that underscore its sweeping effects on HR and beyond.   1.    Unifying HCM and ERP leads the way for continuous business transformation Companies who have completed their transition to the cloud have seen improvements across many aspects of their business, from increased productivity, to cost saving, to better strategic planning and decision making. And because HCM and ERP integration sees measurably high returns, this partnership is often lauded as a clear indication that unified systems deployed in the cloud are critical to continuous business transformation.  In this way, successful collaboration between HCM and ERP not only yields measureable ROI, it also illuminates the path toward fundamental shifts in business culture that produce greater agility and innovation. 2.    Cloud integration exposes skill gaps and opportunities for growth While it may seem counter-intuitive, revealing the need for additional skill development is a huge, if unforeseen, bonus to cloud integration. After all, the transition to cloud doesn’t create skill gaps; it merely exposes those that already exist. The two most common skills that companies uncovered as needing improvement were collaboration and communication between departments, and time management. While cloud integration in theory allowed for more time to be spent on value-added endeavors, many employees simply had not adopted the mindset required to take full advantage of the opportunity. The challenge here is for HR to identify teams and individuals who are struggling to operate strategically rather than tactically, and both lead by example and create a plan for facilitating the necessary shift in culture and behavior. 3.    Executing a unified cloud strategy prepares HR and Finance teams for the next disruption As cloud integration allows for more time and resources to be spent on higher value, strategic initiatives, management and individual contributors alike develop muscles that may have been previously underdeveloped. In doing so, employees across the company become more adaptable, more agile, and better able to prepare for disruption—even before it happens. The reality is that disruption is almost always unpredictable—that’s one of the reasons we call it a disruption. But when individuals and teams are accustomed to flexible working models predicated on the ability solve problems as they arise and collaborate to meet ever-changing market needs, weathering the storms of continuous disruption becomes second nature. For more insights uncovered in the survey, check out “Finance and HR: The Cloud’s New Power Partnership”  

Moving information systems to the cloud is hardly a novel idea; each year, the percentage of businesses who move their HCM and ERP systems to the cloud grows. And when you look at the data, it’s easy...

Guest Author: April Mazon Like their colleagues in the C-suite, chief human resources officers are under increasing pressure to add value to the enterprise. As senior executives elevate their expectations for a more strategic partnership, CHRO’s are looking to answer two very important questions: How do I transform HR to become a strategic role at the executive table versus a workforce administration function? Do senior executives understand the technologies and tools required to elevate HR to a more strategic level? For four years running, PwC has conducted an extensive survey of executives from more than 300 companies about their organization’s use of HR technology and how it is facilitating the agenda of the strategic CHRO. Their 2017 Global HR Technology survey shows that cloud adoption continues to dominate and drive the HR technology landscape. In a recent webcast, Innovating for Tomorrow’s Workforce, PwC provides an overview of survey results that address the accelerating trend of moving from on-premise applications to the cloud, reveals why organizations are making the move, and shares cloud satisfaction rates. Some of the stand out findings include: 73% of responding organizations have at least one HR process in the cloud and nearly 50% already run core HR applications. For those still using on-premise applications for core HR, nearly one-third are actively planning their migration to cloud. Top motivations to use the cloud for HR processes are software innovation and quick releases (70%), less dependence on IT (50%), and lower cost of ownership (44%) Innovative cloud technologies help HR leaders address issues and capitalize on opportunities that drive efficiencies and insights for a more strategic HR approach. Tune in to the on-demand webcast to learn more about these opportunities and your peer’s perspectives on moving HR to the cloud.  

Guest Author: April Mazon Like their colleagues in the C-suite, chief human resources officers are under increasing pressure to add value to the enterprise. As senior executives elevate their...

  The CIPD’s David D’Souza busts some common myths about AI and the future of work   As a species we owe evolution a great deal. And perhaps it is evolution that explains the restlessness of the human spirit, the desire to strive for better and constantly question the value of what we have today versus the potential of what we could have tomorrow.   But read some of today’s headlines about new technologies like AI and automation and you’d be forgiven for thinking that our relentless desire for ‘new and improved’ is about to put the usefulness of our species in question.   The robots are coming, we are told, and they are going to steal our jobs.   There is some obvious scaremongering involved, and recent surveys suggest it is shaping the public’s view of AI and automation. The reality of things is that we are somewhere in the middle. These technologies are becoming more prevalent in the workplace and bringing with them many benefits, but we cannot be too blasé about how they will impact workers.   For now, at least, automation and robots are replacing tasks not jobs. This is an important distinction to make as the majority of jobs involve a wide and changing variety of tasks, only some of which can be automated. This will vary by industry –a factory worker’s job will involve a narrower set of tasks than that of a restaurant manager – but for the foreseeable future the application of AI and robotics will be limited to simple, repetitive work.   That said, we need to prepare for change. These technologies will become more advanced and take on a wider range of tasks, and unless we keep their use in check it is the next generation of workers that will feel the effects. After all, a 50 year-old taxi driver today isn’t going to suddenly become a data scientist overnight.   As employers, as employees, as educators and as a society, we need to start addressing these questions and help ensure our children and theirs will thrive in the workforce as we have.   Companies must begin mapping out a path to automation that will benefit their businesses but also ensure their teams can work alongside new technologies. The goal must be to enhance the way we work. People will continue to exhibit ingenuity and judgment. Machines will simply allow us to encode and scale human thinking quickly and on a large scale.   This is where Human Resources must evolve. HR leaders are the voice of employees in the boardroom and as such have an integral role to play in shaping the skills structure of the modern enterprise. From working with line of business leaders to define their automation strategies, to consultation and training programmes for employees, HR must take a leading role in helping organisations reconcile the choice between greater efficiency through technology and deeper human thinking, a choice that is often misleadingly portrayed as a binary one.   Businesses should also be working with educators to help shape a more future-proof learning structure. It’s no secret the education system has not aged well, and in many cases the skills students learn in primary school are no longer relevant by the time they join the job market. It will be more important to help students become problem solvers and free-thinkers with an adaptable skillset who can take on a wide range of roles and unlock the potential of new technologies.   Our relentless push for progress shows no signs of slowing down, but we owe it to ourselves to ensure rapid change does not leave large groups of people behind. With companies, educators, and society working together, we can ensure that our skills and understanding of technology fall in-step with our ambitions for the future.  

  The CIPD’s David D’Souza busts some common myths about AI and the future of work   As a species we owe evolution a great deal. And perhaps it is evolution that explains the restlessness of the human...

The global Learning Management System (LMS) market is anticipated to experience seismic activity in the next 5 years. Based on research conducted by a global firm, the LMS market will grow 200% from $5.2B to $15.72B by 2021. And the single most factor that will drive decision-making will be user-experience.  Per the latest Deloitte HCM Trends report, HR Executives indicate that Corporate Learning is the 2nd most important trend in Human Capital Management (HCM) that will impact the future workplace. Why is that? Well, consumer experiences have reshaped employee learning expectations. For example: a perfect analogy provided by CEB Global on this topic based on research conducted by heads of L&D is reflective of personal behavior when making consumer-based purchase decisions. For example, actions like studying product options, conducting research, reading reviews, downloading product content etc. are all preferred ways of increasing awareness levels. Research suggests that this exact pattern of behavior is how we expect to consume information in the workplace too.  Realties of the Modern Learner  The reality is, your modern learner is impatient, tech-savvy, disrupted and on the go. And their capacity to learn is way beyond the classroom or in the office environment.   Instead of traditional methods where employees are told what to learn by their management and where learning is restricted to classroom environments, modern learning can be reimagined to methods that allow employees to decide what to learn for increased empowerment and enable learning to occur anytime, anywhere including classrooms, online, or peer-to-peer settings.   Today’s learning technology focuses on traditional, compliance and course catalog learning strategies but the Modern Learner craves technology that is always-on, collaborative and offers a curated learning experience. Today, learning content is only provided by L&D experts whereas the future of learning is the hands of the entire workforce, where learning content is authored, posted, shared by everyone in the organization and curated by employees and HR. Most learners today are trained to hunt for their knowledge, but imagine a learning system that learns your behavior over time and leverage artificial intelligence to recommend the next piece of information or content you should learn.  What Do Employees Want?  Historically, L&D teams have been focused on making content better and more engaging. 79% of L&D functions have redesigned learning content in the last several years to be highly engaging and enjoyable, yet only 26% of employees report their L&D functions deliver learning solutions that are easy to consume. What if the secret sauce resides in making the content easier to consume? CEB Global conducted research on this topic and surveyed over 9K learners globally in over 26 countries to better understand what learners valued and which L&D investments are driving impact. The analysis unveiled that the actual delivery and learning experience far outweighed the typical efforts made by L&D to produce content that was fun and engaging. Accessibility characteristics like “ease of career application, ease of access, and consumption” were rated as having the greatest impact on the individual learning application experience. So, it turns out, ease, simplicity, real-time, anytime, anywhere trumps all other requirements in how learning is applied.  Find out more about Oracle’s Talent Management & Learning Cloud.       

The global Learning Management System (LMS) market is anticipated to experience seismic activity in the next 5 years. Based on research conducted by a global firm, the LMS market will grow 200% from...

  Andy Campbell, HCM Strategy Director at Oracle   When it comes to team-building, don’t just focus on high achievers   Who are your most valuable employees?  It’s easy to praise the salesperson who consistently smashes their quotas or the marketing director who leads the company’s most successful campaign, but these successes are rarely achieved by one person. It is almost always a team effort, and even if one or two people get the glory the contributions of all those involved cannot be ignored.   At a recent Oracle event, CIMA’s Peter Spence turned to the world of football analytics to illustrate how corporate team-building has evolved. Traditionally, coaches and fans would rate players based on how many goals they scored, apart from goalies of course. As a result, all the “best” players were strikers. Today, more nuanced analytics allow teams to track the contributions of each player on the pitch. A midfielder who has a touch on 70% of their team’s goals or breaks up 80% of opposing team’s attacks is clearly invaluable, even if their name rarely makes it on the scoreboard.   The same holds true in the world of business. Today’s talent analytics technologies allow companies to analyse each employee’s contribution to their team’s overall effectiveness, be it by driving collaboration, galvanising employees, or directly contributing to the company’s bottom line.  It may be tempting to exclusively target high achievers, but a business needs the perfect mix of strengths, skills and temperaments to excel. Also, just as in professional sport there are a limited number of “superstars” available on the market.   Watching Brazil or Germany’s football team, it’s easy to see why they remain the most successful international clubs in history. Yes, they have many skilled players, but these come and go. It is their ability to consistently attract people who fit in with their way of playing and excel at their role that keeps them winning. The same is true of today’s most successful businesses. Even if you offer the best products and services on the market, it takes a team of engaged employees working in unison to successfully take those to market.    A good manager knows how to nurture their high achievers, but a great one can tap into the talents and potential of everyone on their team. This is where technologies delivering modern talent analytics add significant value, and where HR teams have a role to play in helping managers understand the extent of each person’s contribution to the business.   At a time where skilled hires are harder than ever to find, businesses need to broaden their recruitment practices to extend beyond the traditional “top tier of candidates”. That’s not to say they should turn away ambitious and motivated applicants, but it is their ability to marry these high achievers with role players, team-builders and specialists that will help employees bring the best out of each other.  

  Andy Campbell, HCM Strategy Director at Oracle   When it comes to team-building, don’t just focus on high achievers   Who are your most valuable employees?  It’s easy to praise the salesperson who...

Do your candidates, managers and employees say things like: “Your career site looks so… 2012.” “Why do I have to click 27 times to update my address?” “Our system looks weird on my mobile phone.” “This HCM Cloud thing doesn’t make sense for my country.” “I know Oracle has updated this thing several times, why does our system never change for the better?” Even the best-executed HCM cloud implementations can become stale if you are not actively adopting new functionality as it’s released.  Many organizations fail to reap the benefits of the billions of dollars of R&D that have gone into Oracle HCM Cloud over the last few years. If your HCM Cloud just isn’t what it used to be, creating unnecessary headaches, or not able to deliver on new requirements or priorities it’s probably time for a “makeover”.   As with any “makeover” (whether it’s your hair style or your HCM Cloud) the first step is to assess the current state.  An assessment by a skilled, experienced solution architect can yield extremely valuable opportunities for improvement.  Add to that a thorough review of existing documentation with functional and technical feedback, and you have an assessment that yields recommendations that better align your system with your organizational strategy and resolves your challenges.  Then it’s time for the makeover!    Optimizing your current environment encompasses design sessions to leverage new functionality, configuring the system accordingly, developing and delivering the necessary change management to achieve high user adoption and a strong governance model to ensure sustainability going forward. Just like hairstyles – every HCM Cloud makeover is a little different based on unique individual characteristics, and tailored to different styles. So, whether it’s simplifying processes, improving the end-user experience, enhancing mobile capabilities, achieving better international roll out, or advancing your HCM journey with new features and functionality – a makeover may be in your future! Wondering where your organization lands on the makeover / optimization spectrum?  Please join Baker Tilly at Oracle Open World 2017 for our presentation “Your HCM Cloud is so 2012 – Time for a makeover?”  Monday 10/2, 10:15 -11 am | The Exchange @ Moscone South - Collective Learning Room – Booth 2307 

Do your candidates, managers and employees say things like: “Your career site looks so… 2012.” “Why do I have to click 27 times to update my address?” “Our system looks weird on my mobile phone.” “This...

This is post 3 of 8 that shines the spotlight on our Oracle HCM Cloud Rubies award winners. Today's post is our winner for the award "All in the Numbers". As the saying goes, you can’t manage what you can’t measure. The “All in the Numbers” award goes to Fabio Fukuda, HRIS director of global integrated talent management at Cummins Inc., for using the wealth of quantifiable data from Oracle HCM Cloud analytics to improve talent management and retention. With more than 55,000 employees in 50-plus countries, Cummins struggled with a diverse HR technology footprint and a manual, complex, and time-consuming talent management processes. Cummins set out to transform HR, and within just one year of integrating Oracle Talent Management Cloud, it had successfully gone live in more than 40 countries and achieved an impressive 98-plus percent user adoption. Oracle helped Fukuda and his team reduce the cycle time to collect the information needed to calibrate key talent from three months to three weeks. The HR leadership team then realized—thanks to deeper insight from the new dashboards—that allowing extra time didn’t increase completion rates, so they reduced the cycle further, from three to two weeks. Impressed by the power behind the Oracle dashboards, Fukuda installed a flat screen to display them 24/7. Senior HR leadership enthusiastically embraced the dashboards and now, OTBI-enabled dashboards enable Cummins’ HR experts to proactively discover what the business needs and provide it—without waiting for managers’ requests. Stay tuned to the Oracle HCM Cloud Blog for additional spotlights on our Rubies award winners.

This is post 3 of 8 that shines the spotlight on our Oracle HCM Cloud Rubies award winners. Today's post is our winner for the award "All in the Numbers". As the saying goes, you can’t manage what you...

This is post 2 of 8 that shines the spotlight on our Oracle HCM Cloud Rubies award winners. Today's post is our winner for the award "Happily Ever After".  Corporate mergers and acquisitions don’t have much in common with love stories, but Oracle HCM Cloud can help a newly merged company get to “Happily Ever After.” This year the Happily Ever After award goes to Tom Coleman, vice president of HR, compensation, and benefits at American Tower (ATC), who used Oracle HCM Cloud to ensure the success of ATC’s acquisition of Viom. Coleman was already familiar with Oracle HCM Cloud, and he knew what to do from the start: Early on in the process, he set up a project plan, timeline, and weekly calls with the team to prevent issues and to ensure the company was on track for a successful outcome. With Coleman at the helm, the team collaborated well and focused on managing the tasks to complete the project. He insisted on communication and respect for team members, and whenever a constraint or issue came up, the team listened to everyone’s ideas, brainstormed, and reviewed all available options to best resolve the issue.  ATC successfully set up the HR structure and employee records for more than 1,600 new employees from Viom. ATC runs the employee core data daily through a custom integration to the Oracle EBS Financial applications to ensure that every employee gets paid the right amount at the right times. Coleman’s team extracted more than 10,000 employee goals from Viom’s previous system and used a spreadsheet loader to upload the data and allow the new ATC employees to update comments and participate in the year-end performance management tool. This helps ensure continued productivity and focus for the new employees, so everyone can be working “happily ever after.” Stay tuned to the Oracle HCM Cloud Blog for additional spotlights on our Rubies award winners.

This is post 2 of 8 that shines the spotlight on our Oracle HCM Cloud Rubies award winners. Today's post is our winner for the award "Happily Ever After".  Corporate mergers and acquisitions don’t have...

Written by Vanessa Mariscal and Jeffrey Haynes, Baker Tilly Human Capital Services In today’s marketplace, a modern talent acquisition experience is essential for any organization’s success. Onboarding includes the final steps of an integrated talent acquisition platform, and sets the stage for a positive and ultimately productive experience for the new hire.  Reducing inefficiencies and increasing effectiveness by leveraging onboarding leading practices reduces the time for new employees to begin being productive and increases the likelihood that they’ll stay with your company.  Many human resources professionals are familiar with the “onboarding curve.” This graphic shows how long it takes for new employees to contribute value. This breakeven point is when an employee switches from being a value consumer to a value creator. Source: The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins When this breakeven point happens varies by company, industry, and job type. What if HR professionals were able to accelerate this curve, contributing to a faster time to productivity and an improved bottom line?  Although it may seem impossible for HR to affect the bottom line in this way, it’s not out of reach. This transformational change can occur at one specific step of the employee lifecycle: onboarding. This step is often thought of as the postscript to recruiting, but onboarding offers HR a chance to drive real business outcomes and should be maximized. Streamlining your onboarding process could have large, organization-wide effects that lead to increased productivity, higher performance, and overall happier employees. Jeff Haynes and Mike Windham addressed this point a previous post, but the lesson is worth repeating: investing in onboarding makes sense.  In a recent Oracle HCM Users Group presentation, Jim Fox highlighted five major reasons to implement an effective onboarding process. Collectively, these reasons can spur great organizational change.  Make a good first impression. An efficient, streamlined onboarding process shows that you care about your new employees and their success. As much as 20% of staff turnover happens within the first 45 days of employment, according to statistics from UrbanBound. Employees are watching you, and this change shows that you’re invested in them. Streamline the process. Catalog your onboarding needs and eliminate duplicate or unnecessary steps. Every form that must be filled out can be built into an Oracle HCM Cloud onboarding flow. This way, every task is accounted for and bottlenecks are eliminated. On average, organizations with a standard onboarding process experience 54% greater new hire productivity, according to UrbanBound. The goal is to speed the employee’s time to productivity, and eliminating time wasted in the onboarding process is one way to do that.  Capture data automatically. There is no reason to collect duplicate data. Using integrated technology, you can populate your HRIS systems very efficiently. Information collected during recruiting can be used in onboarding.  Improve your bottom line. Onboarding can increase revenue and save on expenses. Companies typically experience a 1% to 2.5% revenue loss due to new hire learning curves, according to UrbanBound.1 By reducing paper costs, postage costs, and making your new employees more productive, faster, you’re helping to improve your bottom line.  Create a consistent, modern experience. Onboarding can be presented as a sleek, seamless user experience. Integrated systems and automated processing can produce a paperless environment that’s easy to navigate, and that allows new employees to begin their jobs faster, contributing to an 18% greater achievement of the employee’s first performance goals at companies that have effective onboarding programs, says UrbanBound.  Onboarding can provide a significant, companywide boost to real business results, and HR can be the catalyst. Although it may seem like a daunting shift from the way onboarding is currently done, this transformation will pay off in the long run. We recommend you first focus on new employees from outside the company. After you fine-tune onboarding there, move to internal hires. Pick one area of your business to streamline; focus on the areas that will provide the biggest bang for your buck (such as high-volume hiring) and where you experience the most pain points. Start small and you’ll see changes rippling through your organization. 

Written by Vanessa Mariscal and Jeffrey Haynes, Baker Tilly Human Capital Services In today’s marketplace, a modern talent acquisition experience is essential for any organization’s success....

By Anje Dodson, VP of HR, Talent Development, HR Technology, and Operations at Oracle As a vice president of HR at Oracle, I’ve seen a lot of changes in executives’ expectations of HR. And it’s not just Oracle—those changes are part of a global trend. In the next 10 years, the skills and knowledge organizations need won’t bear much resemblance to what they have in place today. In a recent webcast I did with Helen Poitevin, Research Director at Gartner, we talked about the opportunity HR organizations have to enable those changes with the cloud.  Forget about the traditional five-year plan for hiring the right staff. Today, a small percentage of leading-edge companies work with a six-month timeline for planning, finding, developing, and acquiring talent. They can work this quickly only if they invest in new organizational, social, and sourcing models; performance, skills, and needs assessment capabilities; and data and analytical capabilities that help predict needs and measure performance. To meet these aggressive timelines, leading organizations are turning to cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) technologies and systems. In fact, Gartner predicts “in mature regional markets like North America—the world’s largest market and also the leading region for adoption of SaaS both for new implementations and to supplement on-premises deployments with new functionality—SaaS HCM applications are likely to represent three-quarters of HCM application spending by 2020.”* These organizations are moving HCM to the cloud because they want globalized, consolidated, and standardized HCM processes and reporting; a single system of record; improved HCM process automation; and increased workforce efficiency. And while some organizations make the transition by adopting a comprehensive HCM suite, others take a hybrid or phased approach.  In the webcast, I describe the process we used at Oracle as we turned to HCM in the cloud to help fulfill our mission of engaging and enabling our people to be in the best position to help customers succeed. We focused on three key areas for continual improvement: insight, employee experience, and technology integration. Look for Insight  We invested in better data and powerful analytics that could put data in the context of business needs and turn it into insight. This has helped us drive innovation, make better decisions, and identify impactful investments in the technologies, skills, processes, and metrics that support our business. Improve Employee Experience  We are continually refining every stage of the employee experience—from onboarding all the way through to meaningful career development—to deliver an experience that supports employee success and that of our customers. We rely on increased visibility into our talent pool to guide our focus and help us engage and retain the talent we already have in-house. Prior to moving to Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud, we couldn’t scale up or speed up our laborious talent review approach, which required manually building spreadsheets and pulling information from multiple sources. We now depend on Oracle Talent Review in the cloud to rapidly and comprehensively assess and manage talent across our large organization. Integrate Technology Technology integration is the key to gaining better insights and improving employee experience. We recommend our customers start by putting core HR functions in the cloud, but there’s no single right way to transition to the cloud. Often, organizations have to meet their most urgent needs first. That’s what happened at Oracle: We started with talent review, then recruiting, then succession planning, and then made a global move to the cloud. Key Takeaways from Oracle’s Transition to HCM in the Cloud Though Oracle implemented cloud-based talent management before core HR functions, we generally don’t recommend it. For one thing, integration is easier if you get the full picture early on, which means implementing core HR in the cloud first. Even more important, though, is the opportunity for true transformation. Move over most of your HCM activity to the cloud from the outset, and you’ll find it easier to free yourself from the constraints of your previous solutions—and easier to completely re-envision the way you manage HR.  In the webcast, I spend time talking about the lessons we learned in rolling out our new cloud-based HCM solutions, so I won’t repeat all that here. I’ll just leave you with this thought: You can’t hire or nurture the new talent you need using your old practices, so use the transition to the cloud as an opportunity to challenge and change the way you do things. At Oracle, we learned to move quickly and fine-tune as we went rather than wait to map out a perfect solution from the outset. Through this continual trying-out of ideas, we’ve enhanced our collaborative capabilities, gained more insightful analytics, and improved talent management in ways we couldn’t have imagined before we set out on this journey.  I encourage you to set out on a journey of your own. Start by viewing this webcast on “How and Why to Move HCM to the Cloud” featuring Helen Poitevin, Research Director at Gartner, and myself, Anje Dodson, Vice President of HR, Talent Development, HR Technology, and Operations at Oracle. I hope that sharing Oracle’s journey will help you accelerate your own journey to the cloud.  *Gartner Research: How and Why to move HCM to the Cloud, multiple authors, August 18, 2016.   

By Anje Dodson, VP of HR, Talent Development, HR Technology, and Operations at Oracle As a vice president of HR at Oracle, I’ve seen a lot of changes in executives’ expectations of HR. And it’s not...

By Guest Author: Dan Staley, Principal, PwC We all know the transition to human capital management (HCM) in the cloud has been widespread and transformational for many organizations across the globe. Nearly every HR department I talk with has either moved its HR applications, is in the process of moving, or is assessing its ability to move to the cloud. But for those that have made the leap, has it had the intended, positive impact on HR’s ability to deliver services? We figured you may be interested in the answer, so we added that question to this year’s PwC's Human Resources Technology Survey 2017. We asked companies to convey whether the cloud has had any significant impact on service delivery, allowed HR to reduce support resources required, enabled increased employee and manager self-service, or allowed HR to spend more time as a consultant to the business. I’ll share details around this question, and the survey on whole, during the “Innovating for Tomorrow’s Workforce” webcast, to be held at 1:00 p.m. PT on July 27.  For now, back to our question: Has cloud HCM really improved HR’s ability to deliver services? It appears that the answer is “yes,” with a resounding 75% of companies responding that they feel their move to the cloud has enabled better HR service delivery.  Here are just a few results from the PwC's Human Resources Technology Survey 2017: 75% of companies say their move to the cloud has enabled better HR service delivery. 55% report their transition to the cloud led to a significant improvement in the amount of time HR spends proactively consulting with business partners versus performing transaction processing. 62% improved user experience and increased the use of employee or manager self-services. On average, respondents expected at least 70% of the projected business case benefits would be achieved by transitioning to the cloud. To learn more about this survey and to hear what your peers really think about moving to the cloud, register now for “Innovating for Tomorrow’s Workforce,” PwC's Human Resources Technology Survey 2017 overview webcast.  Follow @Staley_Dan for additional insights. Dan Staley is a Principal and a leader within PwC’s HR Technology practice. He has over 25 years of consulting history delivering process and technology solutions to solve client business problems across multiple industries. His engagements have primarily been in human capital management.

By Guest Author: Dan Staley, Principal, PwC We all know the transition to human capital management (HCM) in the cloud has been widespread and transformational for many organizations across the globe....

This is post 1 of 8 that shines the spotlight on our Oracle HCM Cloud Rubies award winners. Today's post is our winner for the award "Game Changer: Modernization".  One of the most exciting qualities of Oracle HCM Cloud is its potential to transform the way a business operates HR. Instead of making incremental changes or minor improvements to existing systems, an organization can completely revamp its HR operations to eliminate manual processes and out-of-date tools. It can use the full power of modern digital technology to support the mission of the organization in new ways.   That’s what Clare Conaghan, HR director of Save the Children UK, did. The charity’s existing HR system was nearing the end of its life. It was time not only to replace the system but dramatically change the way the organization handled HR. Existing internal systems and processes required significant administrative overhead, which was getting in the way of people doing their jobs. The organization needed to optimize its people and enable them, quickly. Save the Children UK implemented Oracle HCM Cloud to change the game. At the start of the company’s journey, its goal is to ensure staff members at every level within the organization control their HR data through the system and is phasing out the need for manual administrative processes. Over time, this will ensure that the charity is spending less time on administrative tasks and that people are focused on their mission and creating lasting change for children. Stay tuned to the Oracle HCM Cloud Blog all week and next week for additional spotlights on our Rubies award winners.

This is post 1 of 8 that shines the spotlight on our Oracle HCM Cloud Rubies award winners. Today's post is our winner for the award "Game Changer: Modernization".  One of the most exciting qualities...

The Oracle HCM Cloud Rubies awards recognize and celebrate HR “gems” who have helped their organizations shine using Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud.  When we called for nominations back in December 2016, you sent in wonderful and inspiring stories of improving employees’ experiences, recognizing talent, and supporting your organizations in new ways. Then we called on the Oracle HCM Cloud community to narrow the list and select the winners. And this past April, we celebrated the award winners at Oracle HCM World, in Boston. Without further ado, let us introduce you to the winners: Game Changer: Modernization Award—Clare Conaghan, Save the Children UK Happily Ever After Award—Tom Coleman, American Tower Talent Show Award—Kim Grant, Stanley Black & Decker It’s All in the Numbers Award—Fabio Fukuda, Cummins Inc. Time Is on My Side Award—Joseph Collette, Citizens Bank Express Lane Award—Leena Wakankar, ASK Investment Managers Dynamic Duo Award—Patrick Benson, ClubCorp It’s a Mobile World Award—Kristy Godbold, Marriott International Keep It in the Family Award—Chandra Gour, Dubai Airports We Are Family Award—Jim Rhodes, Emerson These stories are too important to remain in Boston, so we’re sharing them with you in a special series of posts on the Modern HR in the Cloud Blog over the next week and a half. Each winner will have a mini-post dedicated to their story. Read all about them—and get inspired to prepare your own winning nomination for next year’s Rubies awards! Read more about the Rubies—and find out how to apply for next year’s awards!

The Oracle HCM Cloud Rubies awards recognize and celebrate HR “gems” who have helped their organizations shine using Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud.  When we called for nominations back in...

This post is guest authored by Mike Andrus, Vice President HCM Transformation at Oracle. Keeping pace with today’s ever-changing healthcare environment poses a number of challenges for healthcare organizations, providers and payers alike. Increasing competition, mergers and acquisitions, changing regulations, and stricter compliance, all mixed with tighter margins, make it more difficult than ever to compete for market share and the skilled talent required to deliver the service and care that consumers expect. As a result, many are struggling with how to increase agility within their workforce to ensure that needs are met, while keeping costs in check. In a recent webcast, “Doing More with Less: Creating an Agile, High-Performing Healthcare Organization,” Nick Castellina, VP and research group director for business planning and execution at the Aberdeen Group, addresses this topic. Based on research comparing challenges that face healthcare payers and providers, Castellina illustrates how top-performing healthcare organizations are tackling these challenges with integrated enterprise resource planning and human capital management cloud solutions that provide robust visibility into workforce management and finance operations. Here are five foundational steps based on this research to help improve patient and member satisfaction while increasing profits: 1. Combine financial and workforce data. To make the best use of employee resources and be smart about decisions related to those employees, it is essential to relate workforce data to financial data. Top performers are 53% more likely to have integrated finance and HR. 2. Improve collaboration externally. Whether with business partners, patients, or regulatory bodies, healthcare organizations must utilize a platform that makes secure, accurate data sharing possible. 3. Focus on talent. Skilled employees are the key to patient and member satisfaction. Through innovative training and tools, organizations can compete for and retain top talent, and utilize employees to their fullest extent—making them and the organization more successful.  4. Promote business agility. By utilizing real-time, holistic data, business leaders can reallocate finance and HR in an agile manner to react to changing demand, capital, and business environments, leading to more opportunities with less risk. 5. Create a technology roadmap. Although the goal is one unified healthcare cloud platform, rip-and-replace isn’t an option for many healthcare organizations. In these cases, organizations should look to cloud solution providers that offer a modular, phased approach tailored to their individual priorities and timeline. Watch the on-demand webcast to find out how you can create a more agile and higher performing healthcare organization.

This post is guest authored by Mike Andrus, Vice President HCM Transformation at Oracle. Keeping pace with today’s ever-changing healthcare environment poses a number of challenges for healthcare...

On May 4, Oracle presented the 2017 Modern Business Experience (MBX) in beautiful, sunny Sydney, Australia. Company leaders from all over the Asia-Pacific region and beyond met up in Australia’s bayside city for a one-day event that focused on adapting to change in order to accelerate business.  This emphasis made the human capital management track perhaps the most informative of the customer conference. Sessions explored the top question on virtually every HR leader’s mind: which systems will help me better compete for top talent and boost business in the future? The opening keynotes tried to answer this question right away with a presentation from Peter Williams, chief edge officer of Deloitte Australia. “The How of Innovation” was filled with anecdotes and cautionary tales about company culture that HR departments would find useful. “Don’t be the department of ‘no,’” Williams urged, before telling the amusing story of an Aussie company’s “pilgrimage” to Silicon Valley that netted no new organizational ideas.  Janine Allis followed, and the Boost Juice founder and Australian Shark Tank investor connected with attendees by taking us through her winding journey from being the daughter of a traditional “1950s mom” to becoming a business mogul. Risk-taking is paramount, Allis said: “Naiveté helps not to be scared.”  Perhaps the most enlightening presentation for HR professionals was “Leading HR for a Disrupted World,” from Disruptive HR CEO Lucy Adams. Armed with relevant stories from her days at the BBC, Adams delivered a direct, informative speech that offered important reminders (“Customers don’t care where it comes from or how it gets there”) and cut to the heart of the modern HR leader’s dilemma.  “Today, it’s difficult to reconcile my company’s goals with the ‘HR toolbox,’” she said, before introducing her EACH model for HR excellence. EACH is an acronym that stands for “Employees are Adults, Consumers, and Human beings.” Adams explored common challenges in HR, such as the difficulty of measuring success, and offered commonsense solutions. Most insightful was her insistence that HR needs to “move away from the parental role” and that an HR leader should report directly to the CEO.  Adams ended with thoughts on the importance of data analytics in any HCM solution. “If you don’t have that,” she reminded listeners, “it’s the chicken before the egg.” In the afternoon, attendees heard a few exciting use case sessions, including one from Jacely Voon, head of rewards and HR program management for Fuji Xerox. The case study focused on the organization’s ambitious HR transformation process and featured a highly detailed PowerPoint deck that audience members will surely revisit after the conference. One important takeaway was the suggestion to form a governance committee before such an undertaking. Of course, HR was the center of Voon’s mission: “Make sure to link to HR objectives at the beginning.” One of the most engaging presentations came from Yazad Dalal, Oracle’s head of HCM Cloud for the APAC region. Dalal enthralled the audience with the thought-provoking session “Demise of the Fittest: AI and HR.” He took attendees through the history of artificial intelligence and the many ways it’s already affecting every business, not just those in manufacturing. For HR professionals, the analytical possibilities are double-edged. “Will AI also take over white-collar jobs in addition to those in manufacturing?” he asked. “How do we in HR use emerging technology to remove all the tedious tasks without replacing us?” Dalal balanced the positive benefits on AI-enabled HR with perceptions of dystopian visions we’ve seen in everything from Terminator 2 to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Yet it was a recent historical drama, not science fiction, that brought one of the session’s most poignant observations. “Did you see the film Hidden Figures?” Dalal asked, before reminding us of a historical fact from the Space Race of the early 1960s. “Did you know what the main character, Katherine Johnson from NASA, used to be called? A computer.” Modern Business Experience closed out with a session from Anders Sorman-Nilsson, futurist and innovation strategist at Thinque, Inc. His anecdotes of his mother’s brick-and-mortar shop’s struggles in the age of Amazon were interesting, and brought the day to a fitting close. Let’s hope the APAC business leaders in attendance learned some strategies to navigate through the rapidly changing business landscape.  For more information, visit Hidden Figures. 

On May 4, Oracle presented the 2017 Modern Business Experience (MBX) in beautiful, sunny Sydney, Australia. Company leaders from all over the Asia-Pacific region and beyond met up in...

Most years, 10% to 15% of global corporations replace their top leaders because of resignation, dismissal, retirement, or health problems, and in 2015, more than 16% had to replace their CEOs, according to PwC research. Unfortunately, in many cases, those corporations are unprepared to hire a new leader: Almost 40% of respondents to a survey conducted by search firm Heidrick & Struggles and the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University had no viable internal candidates who could immediately replace the CEO if needed. And CEOs aren’t the only leaders that need replacing. To keep a modern company thriving amid constant technology changes and global competition, strong leadership is important at every level.  Based on the research from PwC, Stanford, and others, few companies are able to successfully plan ahead for leadership turnover. But today’s HR leaders have new tools available to help design successful succession planning strategies. Using data about your employees already in your system, smart analytics tools can transform those figures into strategic information to develop succession plans. Here are three ways to do that well.    1. Understand your internal strengths. A growing number of companies look to external candidates to fill vacant leadership positions. For instance, in 2013, organizations filled 66% of positions with external candidates and only 26% with internal candidates, according to a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management. In some cases, an external hire may be the best new leader, but industry knowledge, internal relationships, and the characteristics of proven leadership may be more important than locating a superstar talent elsewhere.  And with the ability to harness all the employee data in your system, today’s HR leaders can quickly determine whether they already have the expertise they seek. For example, a strong data analytics system will show which employees have undergone specific training programs to prepare for more advanced roles, which ones have led teams, or which have reached specific performance goals. This information can help you maximize the potential of your current employees and save money on unnecessary executive searches and leadership recruiting.   2. Make succession planning objective. One reason many leaders don’t work out is that they’re selected using improper criteria, according to a Gallup report. For instance, most existing leaders want their successors to share many of their own qualities, but those aren’t necessarily predictors of leadership success.  “Many companies use a non-scientific approach to predict future leaders...,” write the report’s authors. “We have an exaggerated tendency to regard certain characteristics in others favorably—often characteristics where we also excel — and to discount less favorable characteristics. This affects our overall assessment of a person’s true capabilities and potential.”  Instead of relying on an existing leader’s biased opinion, predictive analytics can use hard data to predict which employees will be best suited for future leadership positions. For example, if your company’s best leaders have educational experiences in common, your analytics program can track employees with those specific degrees or certificates. With those data-based predictions in hand, HR can provide training and leadership experiences for promising employees to prepare them for future roles.   3. Manipulate the data measured to meet your firm’s needs. Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud includes HCM Analytics, built-in tools that can help HR leaders predict which employees are likely to perform well and would be good candidates for leadership, based on employee information already in your system. “In developing this tool, we defined variables for predicting which employees are likely to perform well, and when we ran it on 8,000 of our own workforce, it was about 80% to 90% correct,” says Julian Challenger, director of HCM Cloud product management at Oracle.  Those variables will depend on the characteristics shared by successful leaders at your organization or other predictors of success. For instance, they may include specific scores on personality tests, participation in certain training programs, or a particular length of service.  Oracle clients can focus on new attributes when they go into their systems to manage the predictive models. The key is to determine which types of measurable criteria current and past leaders have in common, and measure current employees against the criteria to find those who may be a strong match. Because those criteria may be different for each organization, savvy HR leaders manipulate the analytics to meet specific needs. To learn more about Oracle HCM Cloud’s succession planning capabilities, visit our new microsite here. 

Most years, 10% to 15% of global corporations replace their top leaders because of resignation, dismissal, retirement, or health problems, and in 2015, more than 16% had to replace their...

Guest post written by Cognizant & KBACE, Oracle Cloud partners and sponsors of Oracle HCM World 2017.  Making the transition to Cloud applications is not a matter of “if,” but “when.” Gartner forecasts that 30% of new software acquisitions by the world’s largest vendors will be Cloud-only by 2019 while IDC predicts by 2018, at least half of IT spending will be Cloud based, reaching 60% of all IT infrastructure and 60-70% of all software, services and technology spending by 2020. Clearly, Cloud is quickly becoming the dominant business software model for global businesses. So what does that mean for HCM and HR organizations? It’s already been proven by current adopters that Cloud applications for HCM can help lower operational costs, boost business agility, and increase efficiencies for compensation, benefits and payroll. What’s not so clear is what an organization will look like after Cloud adoption. How will the Cloud change how your people work and how your business operates? Are you ready for those changes, or do you need to understand how to prepare?  Before making a blind leap onto the Cloud, it pays to start by taking what we call a “transformational journey.” Cognizant Transformation services partners with Oracle to help customers step over potential landmines of change along the path to Cloud adoption. The goal? To customize and accelerate a successful journey to the Cloud. Transformation is your map for change management People often think that transformation is just another word for change management, but in reality each process has a very different and specific focus. Think of transformation as strategic planning, whereas change management focuses on the execution and management of the Cloud implementation. So transformation actually begins even before the project starts, and here is why it is so important. Oracle Cloud Applications follow best practices to help you continue your business in a lean way while having the latest and greatest software updates to support that business. It’s critical to understand what your organization would look like after implementing Oracle Cloud to ensure that this is the right move at the right time.  Whether you have made a commitment to implementing the Cloud or are still thinking about it, Transformation services provide a view of what your business will look like in its end state after Cloud adoption.  While transformation is not change management, a transformation approach helps you map out a clear path to the change management best suited for your organization throughout the project. For example, Cloud applications for HCM and HR introduce automation into what were previously manual processes. Sometimes HR departments manually enter a lot of employee data themselves, whereas a Cloud app may put that process into the hands of the employees themselves through a self-service model. Other operational tasks may either change or go away completely. Based on Cognizant’s discussions with you, we will undertake future-state modeling to illustrate what your business might look like with a Cloud-based HCM system in place. We may also perform a job impact analysis to determine how we can move your applications seamlessly to the Cloud and help you manage business changes in the same way. Through transformation we also identify other change-related landmines – often called disruptive changes –and offer ways to overcome them. For example, when migrating from an on-premise ERP system, we can examine how the Cloud will change the way your people work, both in HR and across the global enterprise. It’s not just all about the new technology. Think about the new ways HR will have to adapt to a very different service delivery model. How can you plan ahead and marshal the right resources to help HR weather this disruptive change? By following best practices and a well-defined process, you can help ensure successful Cloud adoption for HCM. Why transformation and what’s in it for you?  The big advantage of having a transformation approach is that you will already know what kind of changes to expect and how to successfully manage them after Cloud implementation. What’s more, the decisions made in transformation spill down into change management, which usually results in a faster track to Cloud implementation and faster return on investment. Cloud implementations usually happen faster than traditional ERP—26 weeks is fairly typical—so having a strategic plan of transformation and change management can save time and avoid delays. In addition, the transformation process will help ensure that your entire company is ready to take on this rapid change, not just HR. In fact, during the transformation process you’ll uncover many other ways that a Cloud-based HCM system can benefit your organization beyond the corporate HR department: Technology. The HCM Cloud implementation will likely drive the need for new and updated technology tools, systems and apps across the enterprise. Companies with the latest technologies are more likely to attract the best talent in today’s young, tech-savvy workforce.  Data sharing. A Cloud-based solution will make it easier and more efficient for HR to share HCM data with other areas of the business, including Big Data planning and strategy initiatives. In turn, employees throughout your organization will have access to more actionable business insights.  Capitalize on employee talent. Employees, too, will be empowered to provide more valuable information to the company about themselves, since they can continually enter and update their skills and interests themselves in the user-friendly HCM Cloud system. Business units throughout the enterprise can use this information to discover and capitalize on employee skills and talent, as well as promote proactive career development. Let’s talk Drawing from our experience of over 200 Cloud engagements, we’ve found that a successful Cloud deployment for HCM requires a balance between process and organizational transformation and pure change management. Remember, too, that a successful deployment of Cloud applications is a journey of many steps, rather than one big leap into the Cloud. Let’s talk about transformation before your move to the Cloud and how Cognizant can help you maximize ROI as you transition to Oracle Cloud Applications. To learn more from our cloud transformation experts at Cognizant and KBACE, contact us at salesteam@kbace.com.

Guest post written by Cognizant & KBACE, Oracle Cloud partners and sponsors of Oracle HCM World 2017.  Making the transition to Cloud applications is not a matter of “if,” but “when.” Gartner...

There’s never been a more exciting time to be an HR professional, and ample proof of this was on display at last month’s annual Oracle HCM World conference. Over the course of three days in a surprisingly warm Boston, hundreds of global customers and experts from every sector converged to explore how human capital management software is driving business growth and transformation like never before.  Festivities kicked off with an extensive morning keynote address that set the stage for the conference’s focus on global growth and connectivity. Oracle CEO Mark Hurd, speaking of recently doubled growth and sharing a slide of customer logos, touted more than just marquee enterprise accounts. “You’ll see some brand names you’ll know and some you won’t,” Hurd told the packed hall. “Some are among the most exciting startups in the world.” Diamonds in the Rough Oracle’s ability to service “any company regardless of size and geography” was shown by the HCM Cloud Rubies winners, which were introduced next. VP of HCM Transformation Cara Capretta unveiled an impressively diverse group of global winners, including Save the Children UK, which won for “Modernization;” and the rapidly expanding Dubai Airports, which took home the “Keep it in the Family” award for the finest talent retention strategy.  The scope of the awards was a testament to how complex the field of human resources is. As Hurd said during his address, “HR is not an app—it’s a process.” Mobile Matters Gretchen Alarcon, Group Vice President of product strategy, delivered a well-received presentation focused on how deep mobile functionality can increase productivity for HR decision-makers. In a demo that was much buzzed about the following two days, she showed how easy and efficient you can be from a smartphone: not only can an HR manager view that day’s meetings, he or she can find the geographic location of an unknown colleague and make plans and reservations for a lunch meeting in another city the next month.  The requisition viewing and candidate comparison functions Alarcon shared also interested the audience, as did the text message demo. Simple text messages were converted into formal feedback for employees and a conveyance for quick and easy way to find answers for common benefits questions. Helpful videos just hinted at the training possibilities for HR professionals.  Following this demo, Hurd reminded us all of the high-level importance of such efficiency gains. “The average CEO lasts 18 quarters,” he said. “With only 1% revenue growth and 6% wage growth, you need to take market share from someone else.” C Is for Culture Although the keynote session concluded with an enlightening analytics roundtable hosted by Bertrand Dussert, VP of human capital transformation, transforming employee culture was a key theme that lasted throughout the conference. Deloitte’s Josh Bersin delivered an engaging presentation outlining the top 10 human capital trends based on recent research. With engagement stagnant, it’s no surprise that building “the organization of the future” took the top spot, with only 11% stating they actually know how to fix the company’s HR problems.  “The most important relationship is between HR and the hiring manager,” said Bersin when speaking of talent acquisition, the #3 trend discussed. The widespread problem of not building leadership early or fast enough was best illustrated in the results of a fascinating Deloitte study focused on Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. According to the results, in a conventional company, the internet mogul would not yet have reached the level of director by his current age of 32.  Author Erica Dhawan went deep on this subject in a presentation on “connectional intelligence,” the subject of her acclaimed book Get Big Things Done. “Connectional intelligence is what emotional intelligence was in the 1990s,” she said, before introducing the three types of roles in modern companies: thinkers, enablers, and connection executors.  It all comes down to measurable results, of course: “Strong internal networks are directly proportional to sales performance,” Dhawan concluded. Subscribe to the HCM Cloud to stay updated on additional HCM World highlights and recaps of HCM World 2017.  

There’s never been a more exciting time to be an HR professional, and ample proof of this was on display at last month’s annual Oracle HCM World conference. Over the course of three days in...

As the role of HR professional rises in strategic importance, so does the need for a formidable talent pipeline, the pool of talent ready to fill open positions. Avoiding business disruption and shortening hiring time are two key benefits of a smoothly running talent pipeline.  Unsurprisingly, business leaders are paying more attention to the ins and outs of recruitment and retention. In the 2017 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends report, 83% of respondents to the survey ranked “attracting skilled resources” as a top-three concern. This is great news for long-suffering human resources teams, who’ve known firsthand that a successful recruiting strategy has as much to do with company culture as a varied sourcing roster. To capitalize on this new executive mandate, companies should take four essential steps to creating and maintaining an effective talent pipeline.  Determine Current and Future Needs: The first step toward an effective talent pipeline is a deep dive on your organization’s current and future staffing requirements. Determining which roles and skills are critical—and will be critical—allows your team to form the foundation of a talent strategy that secures growth. This initial stage is the most crucial, and it’s one that requires executive buy-in to connect all the departmental dots.  Create detailed charts of the ideal workforce, today and five years down the road, that consider all factors, from labor market trends and impending industry regulations to anticipated effects that automation and other technologies will have on the jobs themselves.     Cross-Reference with Company Deficiencies: Once you reach a consensus on which roles are most mission critical, you can see how this aligns with your company’s “problem” positions with the most turnover. Possible pathways for future advancement will present themselves, while deep demographic analysis may reveal candidate traits that suggest longer-term employment. While anecdotal evidence may suggest your high-turnover positions are a priority, you must be data-driven in your decision-making. If you use succession planning and “what-if” scenario modeling, you’ll be able to objectively choose where to devote precious recruiting resources and budget.    Reconfigure for True Employee Advocacy: The goal for your talent pipeline strategy should be longer, more-fruitful employee tenure. But the job market has changed significantly since the days of decades-long employment that led to a gold watch—three years is now considered a long time to work for the same company. The white whales of recruiting—skilled millennial workers—are more likely to switch companies than previous generations. The opportunity for career progression tops the list of desirable workplace qualities, cited by 52% of millennials.  If your company invests in employee development (including education, training, performance-based incentives, and wellness programs), it’s much more likely to keep workers engaged, productive, and loyal. Focus on flexibility and work-life balance, which is important for both millennials and the parents many will become. Once you’ve committed to an employee-centric talent pipeline strategy, shout it from the virtual rooftops, so all university programs, partner companies, and trade publications know. And who’s a better spokesman for this new company culture than your CEO?   Annually Reassess Your Talent Pipeline Strategy: Globalization and new technologies will surely shift your business’s challenges and opportunities, and it’s imperative that your talent pipeline strategy adapts. Schedule yearly assessments of your recruitment and retention plan, involving all stakeholders who participated in Step 1, to ensure that your company is meeting established goals for turnover reduction, succession planning, and employee satisfaction and engagement. Ongoing executive involvement is necessary to make sure each department aligns to the goal of recruiting and preparing your company’s future leaders.  To be truly agile and future-ready in your talent pipeline, your company should wield human capital management system that possesses social, mobile, analytics, and cloud capabilities. This can be a strong backbone for a successful talent pipeline built for future growth. For more info, read our Gartner newsletter, How to Develop Workforce Analytics Maturity to Increase Business Impact.

As the role of HR professional rises in strategic importance, so does the need for a formidable talent pipeline, the pool of talent ready to fill open positions. Avoiding business disruption...

 Guest post written by Jeff Haynes and the team at Baker Tilly's Human Capital Services practice.  Has your core seen better days? Has it been several years since your core was worked on as the foundation for all the critical activities that add value? Wait, are we talking about your life or your HRIS?  The analogy doesn’t end there.  Just like anyone who has hired a personal trainer knows – everyone’s fitness goals are different and personal trainers do not always take the same approach with every client. Similarly, a highly tailored workout plan built for an organization’s unique fitness goals is the optimal way to enable them to flex their muscles in Human Capital Management.  And that’s the approach we take. All of our (Baker Tilly) clients have followed a distinctive journey warming up to the execution of their unique workout plan in order to strengthen and leverage their core in new and better ways. Here are 8 steps we (Baker Tilly) follow to ensure our clients’ strengths, as well as opportunities for improvement, are assessed and a custom workout plan is developed to help them accomplish their goals and achieve the outcomes they envision. Set your workout goal:  What is the outcome you are looking to looking to achieve?   Is it better efficiency (e.g. speedier process time) and / or effectiveness (e.g. wise decision-making by your managers)? Identify your fitness imperatives:  How will you achieve your workout goal?  Is this a matter of process-reengineering or technology or both? Isolate muscle groups and define their roles:  How does each “muscle group” (e.g. business suits and job functions) need to contribute to your “fitness” goals and plan?  Do some play a great role?  Are they currently strong enough? Dust off your equipment:  Are you organized with the tools and “equipment” to be successful? Understand an organization’s existing tools, processes, routines, business calendars and related initiatives. Tailor plans to unique requirements and conditions:  Every athlete is different, every sport is different. Consider situational complexities. Understand and set priorities:  Evaluate all known choices and alternatives for techniques and processes. Evaluate and plan resources wisely:  How much time does the athlete have to commit to this workout plan? What existing skill level does the athlete have, and what monetary obligation can the athlete make? Build the Tailored Workout Plan!  Combine all tailored elements to create an executable plan and begin to work against it. That’s not all!  Here are additional training tips as you warm up for a core transformation: Build a strategic workout plan that looks beyond just the technology – incorporate process reengineering and change management up front. Investigate your Personal Trainer.  HCM Cloud consultants have different approaches and results – investigate and select the right one for your “Core Transformation” journey. Look to the future!  Don’t bring yesterday’s processes to today’s platform – consider leading processes, many of which are likely already enabled in the technology. Don’t confuse product expertise with implementation expertise – strategic consulting partners will guide you beyond one vendor’s technology and build integration between your disparate systems Don’t apply old techniques and evaluation processes to your new workout equipment.  Implementing Cloud software is not about requirement documentation – it’s about agile, iterative design sessions. We hope that this view into Strengthening your Core has been helpful. Join us at Oracle HCM World 2017 – Baker Tilly is sponsoring the Core (HR) Strength track and will open the conference sessions with Engage your Core! A Tailored Workout Plan to Build your Core (HR) Strength (Wednesday, April 12, 11:30 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. | Salon E).  

 Guest post written by Jeff Haynes and the team at Baker Tilly's Human Capital Services practice.  Has your core seen better days? Has it been several years since your core was worked on as the...

Oracle, on behalf of KPMG’s Management Consulting practice, invites you to participate in the 2017 HR Transformation Survey. The survey provides key insights and benchmarks to help organizations make decisions around HR transformation, technology capabilities and operational strategies. Last year 854 executives from 52 countries participated. This year, the survey focuses on the following topics: HR initiatives HR technology HR data and analytics Driving value from HR/HR capabilities Digital labor The survey will close end of business day on April 14, 2017, so hurry and get your responses in! When will the results be available? The final global results will be available in mid-2017. We care about maintaining the confidentiality of your data. Please be assured that all responses will remain strictly confidential and results will only be published in aggregate. If you would like more details on the research effort or survey, please review the FAQ document or contact HRSDsurvey@kpmg.com. For 2016 survey results and insights please click here. Your insights are important to us. We want to personally extend this invitation to you as we value your insights and trust the resulting data and analysis will be a rich source of information as you plan your HR service delivery and technology strategies and build a business case for change. Whether you are a long-time participant or this is your first survey, we appreciate your participation and thank you for your continued support. Click here to participate in the survey and make your voice count!

Oracle, on behalf of KPMG’s Management Consulting practice, invites you to participate in the 2017 HR Transformation Survey. The survey provides key insights and benchmarks to help organizations make...

Guest post written by Michael Stephan and Michael Gretczko of Deloitte Consulting LLP and originally published on the Deloitte HR Times Blog We (Deloitte Consulting) are often asked to help large global clients craft HR strategies in response to the prominent digital age and workforce disruptions. And, as noted in this portion of the 2016 Global Human Capital Trends Report, Digital HR: revolution, not evolution, we are familiar with the view of digital HR as a catalyst for “revolutionary” change. Let’s face it, a revolution can feel scary, overwhelming, hard, and sometimes unrealistic depending on your organizational culture. But from what we’re seeing and hearing from our clients, many are realizing that while it is scary and difficult, their employees and businesses are demanding it, so they’re taking the leap onto their own digital HR trajectory. In our experience, there are two types of “gaps,” or organizational pain points, that must be owned by the HR leadership team in order for this type of breakthrough to occur: performance gaps, or how well HR is currently delivering against employee and business expectations, and, opportunity gaps, or what might be possible with a radical new digital approach. HR Performance Gaps Owning the performance gaps is key to developing a stronger understanding of the potential barriers preventing your ability to leap forward. Let’s simplify it further—how you are organized as an HR function, how you deliver services to your customers, and what technologies you have in place can all enable or limit the leap. Here are some questions we often ask HR leadership teams in order to assess their awareness of, and commitment to dealing with, current-state performance gaps: Operating model—Is your global HR operating model in sync with your organization’s global business model? Are HR’s governance, resource allocation, and talent management approaches adaptive enough to flex in the face of rapid acquisitions, new business designs, or disruptive technologies? Service delivery model—Does your global HR service delivery model leverage consistent roles and channels to deliver services? Does it accommodate generational, geographic, and individual differences in how HR customers want to engage with HR services? Enabling technology—Does your HR technology enable the continuous evolution of your HR operating model and service delivery model? Do you have a strategy for leveraging digital HR to better equip global HR customers to control their own experience? Many organizations decide to address one or some of these challenges in the near term as the case for change. Yet, in a world where digital disruption continues at a relentless pace, possibly it’s time to look more broadly to more fundamentally transform HR for the digital age and cross over into the realm of “revolutionary.” HR Opportunity Gaps Regardless of the company industry or geographic footprint, an adaptive response to disruption often seems to come down to the ability to create capacity, grow capability, empower your community, and boost HR credibility. Our colleague, Erica Volini, introduced the importance of the 4Cs in her post on Sustainable HR. To understand how opportunity gaps enable or limit the digital leap, here are questions we often ask HR leaders through the lens of the 4Cs: Capacity—If you were able to increase HR capacity through process automation or work simplification, do you know where you would invest the available resources to get the largest return for the organization? Capability—Is HR equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to guide the organization through the coming digital disruptions? Is HR at the forefront of curating user and expert-generated video content to support the digital age learner? Community—Is HR adept at mining social networks to better understand how work is really getting done? Does HR model and celebrate a culture of sharing information and learnings across organizational boundaries? Credibility—Will HR be in the boardroom when new digital-age business designs are being developed? Will HR lead the way in the development and deployment or experiential learning programs designed to accelerate the growth of global leaders? Indeed, will HR be trusted to lead the digital HR revolution? To leap or not to leap… Some global organizations may find that the business value associated with closing these gaps justifies the leap to a global cloud-based HCM system of record, with a subsequent commitment to digital HR. Others, however, may take a more tactical approach, leveraging a digital workplace strategy that focuses on improving work and life event workflows for prioritized HR customer segments as a way to build momentum for the broader digital HR transformation. In a recent thought leadership perspective, Sustainable HR in an age of disruption, Michael Gretczko, our Deloitte Consulting LLP leader of digital HR and innovation, describes how this approach can provide improvements in the HR customer experience while preserving and leveraging current investments in systems, processes, and people. Whatever deployment strategy is right for your organization, the new priorities within HR fall under the digital HR umbrella: cloud, connectivity, real-time operations, design thinking, simplicity, embedded analytics, and mobile-first. Harnessing these new capabilities to close the HR organization’s prioritized performance and opportunity gaps can ultimately help to prepare you for a revolutionary leap forward. Are you ready to take the leap?

Guest post written by Michael Stephan and Michael Gretczko of Deloitte Consulting LLP and originally published on the Deloitte HR Times Blog We (Deloitte Consulting) are often asked to help...

Just when you’d adapted your workplace to millennials, it’s time to prepare for Generation Z, those born between about 1996 through 2011. More than a quarter of America’s population belongs to this demographic, and with the first of them turning 21 this year, it’s time to figure out how you can engage their talents.  “This generation is ... ready to run with whatever is given to them,” says John Boitnott, writing for Inc. Magazine. “They are not above working hard for their paycheck, they are loyal, and are able to innovate your company to match the changing times.” Ready to find out more about Gen Z? Here are some essential facts you need to know. Meet the first true digital natives Members of Gen Z grew up playing games on their smartphones and tablets, and 79% of them display symptoms of emotional distress when kept away from their personal electronic devices. While millennials can multitask across three screens, Gen Z can take in information instantaneously across five. Gen Z expects personalization and relevance, and can lose interest quickly, with an average attention span of 8 seconds (down from 12 for millennials).  Get strategic about how to make the most of Gen Z’s techno-centric nature. According to Jim Link, chief human resources officer with Randstad North America, your challenge will be to figure out how to “get value from them in the same burst of time that they’re able to get information today and communicate with others, which is instantaneously.”    Attract Gen Z by offering what they value Appeal to Gen Z with “a strong employer brand that is consistent across technologies … targeting the brand’s ideal Gen Z employees through tools like social recruiting and talent CRM targeted emails,” advises Seth Matheson, director of talent fusion for Monster’s team of in-house recruiters.  Surveys offer conflicting views of what Gen Z members value most. Some say members of Gen Z—raised during the Great Recession—are more cautious than millennials and value more traditional benefits. “Their top three ‘must haves’ for their first job are health insurance (70%), a competitive salary (63%), and a boss they respect (61%),” says Matheson. But in another survey, college students prioritized opportunity for career growth (36%), fulfilling work (19%), and stability (19%)—ranking friendly work environments (10%), flexible schedules (7%), and salary (6%) lower in priority.    Communicate Visually Gen Z could be the most collaborative team players to date, but the collaboration will need to be visual. Expect them to communicate most effectively using videoconferencing or presence rather than email.  In written communications, members of Gen Z often prefer to express themselves with emoticons and emojis. This communication leaves a lot of room for interpretation, however. Watch out for potential misunderstandings in the workplace due to poor writing: 68% of their teachers think digital tools make Gen Z more likely to take shortcuts and not put effort into their writing.   Look for potential leaders Gen Z and millennials are both entrepreneurial minded: They grew up watching young innovators disrupt traditional industries. Compared to millennials, 5% more Gen Z workers—nearly 84%—said they aspired to be leaders themselves, and nearly half of them want to have their own businesses, compared to 32% across all working generations. This could be great news for your organization, if you can tap into that drive by fostering entrepreneurial groups or opportunities.    Keep Gen Z engaged Retaining Gen Z is likely to be a challenge, as 27% of today’s students believe you should only stay at your first job for a year or less. The best way to change this mindset is to keep them engaged with new professional development opportunities, so they can feel they’re continuing their career growth.  One of the best ways to do this is to foster a culture of mentoring: 45% of Gen Z said they wish to be mentored. They want frequent feedback, so forget about an annual evaluation. Think about implementing daily check-ins and monthly or even weekly goal-setting.  Even though Gen Z is fluent in electronic communications, they’d much rather have genuine conversations and connections with higher-ups. Here’s where your older workers can capture the attention of Gen Z, and together, the two can strengthen your organization by integrating its values and strengths with the energy and technology savvy of the younger generation.  

Just when you’d adapted your workplace to millennials, it’s time to prepare for Generation Z, those born between about 1996 through 2011. More than a quarter of America’s population belongs to...

The past few months have been unbelievably inspiring and educational for me and my team members as we reviewed the Rubies Awards nominations. We’ve read about your innovative ideas and how using Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud has helped you turn them into successful projects. We’ve also read about the challenges you faced, the lessons you learned, the creativity you used and the incidental discoveries that all contributed to taking your HR organization to the next level.  We think it’s essential to recognize those HR team members who work with our solutions every day, and we’re excited to share their stories with you and learn which ones you think are most impressive. I believe that everyone who votes is a winner, because the process of reading the nominations is eye-opening and just might spark your next great HR idea.    Check Out Each Award Category The eight categories include awards for innovation, talent acquisition and management, and engagement/retention. To recap briefly, they are: Game Changer Award—Modernization: Recognizes teams that did something unique with Oracle HCM Cloud and took their HR function out of the dark ages of manual processes and out of date tools to the modern digital age.  Game Changer Award—Transformation: Recognizes teams that did something unique with Oracle HCM Cloud to transform and streamline their HR business processes. Happily Ever After Award: Recognizes businesses that relied on Oracle HCM Cloud during a major merger or acquisition or moved a divestiture to the cloud. Talent Show Award: Recognizes teams that leverage Oracle HCM Cloud’s recommended jobs and workforce visibility features to drive internal mobility, retention and development. It’s All in the Numbers Award: Recognizes an organization that is using Oracle HCM analytics to improve talent management, retention and organizational insight. Time Is on My Side Award: Recognizes organizations that use Oracle HCM Cloud to dramatically reduce their time to hire. Express Lane Award: Recognizes companies that have gone live on HCM Cloud in the shortest time possible. Dynamic Duo Award: Recognizes teams that have experienced exceptional results using a combination of the different Oracle Cloud solutions together, i.e., ERP and HCM. Click here to read our nominees’ stories and vote on your favorites!   Get Recognition from Your Peers—and Ideas from Their Projects  You’ll hear more about the winning HCM Cloud projects when you go to Oracle HCM World, April 11 to 13, in Boston. And if you’re one of the winners, you’ll also get your turn on stage at Oracle HCM World, when you’re recognized by your peers for your creativity and successful implementation. Even better, offstage you’ll get opportunities to talk to our developers and product managers and ask for the features you want to see in upcoming releases. And winners will get to meet the Goo Goo Dolls backstage! You can vote for your own projects and still have votes left over, because you can vote for a nominee in each of the eight awards categories. Voting is easy. Just go to this web page to read about the nominees and cast your votes. Then get ready to take notes and ask questions of the winners at Oracle HCM World!   And the Winner Is… [You Choose] In my next blog post, I’ll announce the first-ever Oracle HCM Cloud Rubies Award winners. We’re excited to be able to recognize our customers’ successes, so please help me out by voting on which nominations impress you most. I couldn’t possibly narrow down the winner in each category on my own—there’s so much great stuff in these stories. Read them, and you’ll see what I mean.   

The past few months have been unbelievably inspiring and educational for me and my team members as we reviewed the Rubies Awards nominations. We’ve read about your innovative ideas and how using...

Guest post written by Kraig Eaton, Katy Norris, Maribeth Sivak, and Lauren Seidman of Deloitte Consulting LLP and originally published on the Deloitte HR Times Blog Your organization is responding to disruptions that are simultaneously impacting your business and your workforce, driving changes in the way your enterprise runs, and intensifying the need to focus on the customer experience to drive growth. As an HR leader, you understand the critical linkage between your company’s business strategy, workforce performance, and HR. This includes HR’s role in promoting a positive employment brand that both attracts candidates and serves HR customers throughout the employment life cycle. But how do you craft HR processes that deliver? How do you delight and engage the workforce (and potential workforce) at the moments that matter most? The answer may lie in applying design thinking to HR process transformation. Here’s an example of how one of Deloitte's clients is transforming its HR processes by looking beyond process efficiency and focusing on the HR customer.   Applying a design thinking framework to transform HR processes Effective HR process transformation requires an approach that is iterative and grounded in design-thinking concepts. Design thinking is an agile and iterative methodology for solving problems by focusing on the customers’ needs and values to create solutions that are intuitive and deliver against those values. At its core, design thinking involves understanding the physical, cognitive, and emotional needs of HR customers in order to develop “personas” that guide the design of services and products. It relies on creativity and innovation to generate ideas quickly, and on testing prototypes that generate further ideas, digital tools, and solutions. Design thinking applied to the HR customer experience A real-world example For one of Deloitte's clients, the disruptions impacting its business and workforce inspired it to transform its current HR structure, technology, and associated processes by moving to the cloud. But rather than designing purely to support the move, the company is taking advantage of the opportunity to meaningfully enhance the experience for HR customers, putting the customer moments that matter front and center as it designs for the future. The first, strategy phase of the transformation involved defining customer personas (e.g., a manager, a new recruit, an experienced hire, etc.), identifying the moments that matter to those customers, and creating journey maps of their employment experience. Now the company is using a Hybrid Agile methodology that employs models, prototypes, and multiple voices to design, test, and refine solutions. Tactically, this includes: Leveraging “fit for purpose” strategic design decisions to formulate the desired customer experience Inserting moments that matter into end-to-end process maps to further enrich the employee experience Conducting process design workshops, where each process is reviewed from the lens of the personas to validate that it delivers what matters most to that particular HR customer segment Conducting focus groups and voice-of-the-customer surveys to test the experience early on in the design Building checks on the customer experience into user acceptance testing by asking, “Is the process delivering the desired sentiment expressed in the persona?” Incorporating learning gained from quickly iterating customer experience solutions, revising ideas early and often The typical validation process no longer jumps from demo to impact assessment to closure. Instead, customer experience-driven steps are deliberately added to validate the new process through personas before the process is confirmed. By embarking on an HR transformation with a keen focus on customer experience, the company is setting itself up to improve the quality of HR interactions, increase process efficiencies, and drive increased workforce engagement and productivity—all in one shot. This is just one example of how HR can apply design thinking to transform HR processes by looking beyond simply achieving process efficiency to actually crafting the HR customer experience in ways that meet multiple goals—efficiency plus convenience plus ease of use plus elegance plus more…for a truly value-added solution. Why is this so important? Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2016 research reveals that the more importance an organization places on design thinking, and the more ready it is to embrace it, the faster the organization grows. According to the data, companies growing by 10 percent or more per year are more than twice as likely to report they are ready to incorporate design thinking compared to their counterparts that are experiencing stagnant growth. We would love to hear your story about how you applied design thinking to transform your HR processes.

Guest post written by Kraig Eaton, Katy Norris, Maribeth Sivak, and Lauren Seidman of Deloitte Consulting LLP and originally published on the Deloitte HR Times Blog Your organization is responding to...

Human resources leaders are more sophisticated than ever in how they use information to increase the business impact that talent, leadership, and culture have on their company. To add real strategic value to the company, HR expert, partner of the RBL group, and professor of business at the University of Michigan Dave Ulrich says HR leaders need to have a process for using information throughout the entire organization.  In a Harvard Business Review webcast, Ulrich outlines his research and provides a framework for HR’s role in building and sustaining information as a fundamental organizational capability. Ulrich believes that to create a greater business impact, HR teams must identify, import, prioritize, disseminate, and leverage information with these six steps: Identify market information. HR must look outside the organization and determine how information such as regulatory changes or customer information will affect the company. One HR team that Ulrich mentions uses company training sessions to gather unstructured information about customers.  Import market information into the firm. Potential sources include analysts, investors, current and former customers, and suppliers.  Prioritize the information. Determine which information has low value and eliminate it from further consideration.  Disseminate organization-wide information. This effort should focus on what the firm wants customers to know about the organization.  Leverage information. The goal is to use information to support decision making and action.  Create an external brand. HR must cultivate a brand with external stakeholders.  HR Capabilities to Impact the Business In the webcast, Ulrich also shares his HR Competency Model as a guide to a more strategic HR organization. The model is based on how HR’s various skills can be grouped into three broad categories for improved business impact. Many of the skills may be nontraditional skills and terminology in the HR world, but the webcast goes a long way to explaining the meaning and impact they all have on business. Organizational Enablers: Culture and Change Champion, Human Capital Curator, Total Reward Steward Core Competencies: Strategic Positioner, Paradox Navigator, Credible Activist Delivery Enablers: Compliance Manager, Analytics Designer and Interpreter, Technology and Media Integrator HR leaders must take the lead in leveraging the information agenda to add value and drive business results. Watch this on demand webcast to help transform your HR organization into one that embraces data and information to make better business decisions.   

Human resources leaders are more sophisticated than ever in how they use information to increase the business impact that talent, leadership, and culture have on their company. To add real strategic...

HR executives have a wealth of information at their fingertips: data on employee performance, onboarding, recruiting campaigns, and much more.  You would assume this knowledge would translate to the power to understand HR performance, validate decisions, and make smarter decisions for your business.  But this isn’t necessarily true. Although many executives are comfortable managing and interacting with data, most HR executives don’t truly understand how to use this data to make smarter, more strategic decisions and experiences.  Imagine being able to show how employee productivity and engagement affect bottom-line sales, or determine whether your learning program affects how long an employee stays with your company. Imagine being able to predict and prevent employee turnover. HR analytics can help organizations achieve these goals and others critical to strategic planning. Mature analytics practices can link HR decisions to business results, which means HR will play a more central role in strategic business conversations.  If you’d like to play a more strategic role in your organization’s growth, these five steps can help you build and refine your HR analytics strategy:  Step 1: Lay the Groundwork  The most important step to take in advancing your HR analytics strategy is to set goals. What are you trying to achieve with your data analysis? Beyond HR, what other systems will you need access to? What systems do you have in place for accessing and analyzing these sources? Answering these questions can help lay the groundwork for a focused plan of action. Step 2: Expand Your Strategy Your organization is likely already doing HR analysis of some kind. The primary goal is to assess where your HR strategy currently is, and then identify ways to expand and leverage data sources so you can reach the goals you set in Step 1.  Say you want to gauge whether your employee referral program improved hiring rates. You would need to use analytics to track every aspect of the campaign: how many emails were sent; the email open rate; the actions taken from the email; and so on.  Analyzing this chain of events helps you determine whether referral programs help you find your strongest candidates. And if the data doesn’t confirm this, it can help you determine where and how you can improve your initiatives.  Step 3: Enrich Your Team to Support Your Goals Take a look at who’s responsible for the analytical work on your team. Does someone have strong analytical abilities? Can he or she aggregate, manipulate, and analyze data to spot trends and identify opportunities? Or are you trying to manage all this work yourself? Now more than ever, we’re seeing executives trying to hone their data analysis skills. But you need a true data expert, even a scientist, to make a true impact. Consult someone from your organization who plays a role in data analytics or, even better, see if you can hire one person (or a team) to be responsible for driving your HR analytics strategy.  Step 4: Use Technology to Connect Disparate Data Sources  Your goals determine how broad and deep you’ll need to get in your data collection. Narrow your focus on the HR data that will serve as your foundation. Then determine which data sources from different departments you’ll need to help your decision-making. Whether this data is stored in on-premises systems or stored in the cloud, technology should help you bring these insights together and provide insights for all business users.  There are many people who can’t drill down into complex data and conduct their own in-depth analysis. You need technology that can simplify data into easy-to-digest reports, visualizations, and dashboards.  Step 5: Get Predictive and Prescriptive When HR can access, aggregate, and draw conclusions from disparate sources, data turns into powerful insights for the entire business. These insights can help HR have more productive discussions with executive team members and present more effective solutions for future success. This is beyond entry-level analytics—it’s predictive analytics. By embracing advanced analytics, you can get a glimpse into what may be ahead for your business and how to address potentially detrimental developments. Who’s likely to leave your organization? How will changing your compensation strategy impact performance?  Another trend best-in-class organizations are starting to embrace is prescriptive analytics, which helps people uncover recommendations and solutions from the data they analyze. So in addition to identifying a pool of employees who are likely to leave over the next year, you’re also able to identify actions you can take to address the situation quickly and efficiently. Currently, very few companies are embracing prescriptive analytics, but being able to make smarter decisions faster is where the future lies. HR analytics is the foundation that will help you get there.  To learn more from industry experts about how you can develop HR analytics maturity and increase business impact, download the Oracle HCM Analytics Newsletter featuring Gartner Research: How to Develop Workforce Analytics Maturity to Increase Business Impact. 

HR executives have a wealth of information at their fingertips: data on employee performance, onboarding, recruiting campaigns, and much more.  You would assume this knowledge would translate to the...

Guest written by Yazad Dalal, Head of HCM, Oracle APAC A business can’t thrive without delivering the right customer experience. But what about the experience of employees? Oracle believes that the employee experience should sit at the heart of every great HR strategy. Putting the employee experience at the heart of HR means a shift in focus. Instead of concentrating on how to manage people, businesses must consider how to provide their people with the best possible experience at work.  Oracle helps businesses put employee experience front and center with the help of human resource technology that’s innovative, empowering, and easy to use. Oracle’s HR technology improves and modernizes the processes that define every employee’s experience at work—from initial onboarding to collaborating with colleagues to long-term skills development..   The key insight behind Oracle’s technology is that employees—like customers—expect an efficient, interactive digital experience at work. They want quick access to information about their salary, benefits, time off, and how they’re progressing toward career development goals. Employees expect the latest cloud tools so that they can communicate and collaborate with their colleagues from any place, at any time, across any device. When it comes to timesheets, expenses, and other HR tasks, employees want efficient, modern processes so they can get back to the work that matters most.  Improving the employee experience also has myriad benefits for HR management and C-suite executives looking after the bottom line. Technology that helps employees self-manage frees up HR staff to focus on strategic development rather than paperwork. Data-driven workforce insights also enable HR to better understand which employees are doing a great job and reward them fairly. Satisfied employees are productive employees, and by putting employee experience at the heart of HR, Oracle’s HR technology can improve the business’s bottom line.  Innovation doesn’t stand still. Oracle is dedicated to rolling out product updates constantly to meet market needs and pave the way for the future. For example, Oracle is hard at work on HR chatbots that help employees better understand workplace policies—all they need to do is simply message the chatbot. Oracle is gamifying wellness initiatives and automating recruiting applications that let new hires accept their offer with one click and start the onboarding process well before their first day in the office. All these developments go a long way to improve the employee experience. This Valentine’s Day and throughout the year, show your workforce a little extra love by putting the employee experience at heart. 

Guest written by Yazad Dalal, Head of HCM, Oracle APAC A business can’t thrive without delivering the right customer experience. But what about the experience of employees? Oracle believes that the...