Coaching with Clarity: Changing the Game in Learning and Growth!

Last year we announced our Oracle ME employee experience platform to help our customers deliver unique, hyper-personalized, immersive experiences to every individual. As part of Oracle Cloud HCM, it provides capabilities to streamline communication across the organization, increase productivity by guiding employees to relevant tasks, help build the manager-employee relationship, and connect your employees with their peers to build professional networks. And since its announcement, Oracle ME has received fantastic recognition from industry experts and analysts, and customers are leveraging the capabilities to innovate and drive impact.

But, as we continue to innovate alongside our customers, we again find that we are in yet another period of unprecedented change (rapid evolution of skills, volatile economy, etc.). And we are hearing more about headcount reductions in parallel with skills/talent shortages. As such, many organizations are being asked to do more with less, while still chasing in-demand skills – often with reduced budgets. This means it is more critical than ever to remain steadfast in their commitments to their workforce -- and not putting at risk any strides they have made with respect to employee expectations and experience -- to remain competitive and growing.

If there is anything we CAN count on, it is uncertainty and change. In a recent research article, Deloitte points to the need for adaptability and resilience to navigate this highly dynamic world, with an organization’s people as the foundation. In a recent survey, they found more than 70 percent of global executives identified “the ability of their people to adapt, reskill, and assume new roles” as the top-ranked item to navigate future disruption^[1]. According to the article, as environments change, so do business priorities, and effective organizations will position their people to adapt to meet them.

As such, how do organizations and workers continue to develop the RIGHT skills in this dynamic environment -- to stay focused on customer satisfaction goals, workforce productivity, stop turnover, keep people motivated, and support the overall revenue of the business? What is in their way that this has not been licked yet -- despite the hundreds of billions of dollars spent in the corporate training industry?

In the Deloitte article they point out many organizations proudly state that they “empower their workers to own their own careers” – but in most cases, to do this, employees are simply given access to expansive libraries with little personalized or purposeful guidance. And often organizations are also trying to solve for this with disparate systems – if at all. This approach leads to multiple challenges including poor engagement – especially since trying to work through multiple interfaces adds more work for, and onus on, the individual. Without the ability to dynamically connect all these solutions and data sources, employees have poor visibility into role expectations – much less, career growth and opportunities. And the business is unable to know and grow the skills they need – much less, tracking the progress and impact of upskilling and reskilling initiatives.

I personally love the call to action for “growth in the flow of work” from recent research by Nehal Nangia, L&D Research Director of the Josh Bersin Company –  an article where they call for a new strategy in Corporate Learning. We also strongly believe that “learning is the linchpin - the most critical piece for developing skills, enabling growth, fostering future talent, and resolving the talent crisis of today” – and we are investing accordingly. This is why I am so excited to announce our newest solution to the Oracle ME employee experience platform, Oracle Grow, for our Oracle HCM suite customers. Think of it as an AI-powered coaching experience -- with personalized, intelligent, and most importantly dynamic guidance -- focused on worker potential, growth, and agility.

So what makes our approach with Oracle Grow different than what other vendors are doing? This is a brand new, first-of-its kind EXPERIENCE – connecting what your workers need from our suite for learning, skills growth and career mobility growth in one simple, clear experience.. We are uniquely taking -- for many what is passive, historical data – and transforming it into intelligence (AI) based recommendations that guides workers – and their managers --through key development choices to help them succeed in their roles today, and for the future. This really is a next-generation approach to continuous, life-long learning, giving individuals transparency and agency over their growth plans while amplifying organizational success.

It helps guide workers and managers through key upskilling and reskilling decisions and actions -- making it simpler and easier.  With our unified, natively-built suite of tools and single data model, the technology acts as an extension of your team doing the work – like a coach and advisor -- so your people can save time, be more engaged, and have access to real-time, dynamic, and tailored growth insights and guidance.

Finally, employees can alleviate some of the guesswork out of what will help them level up in their role or to their next role -- maybe in ways they never have considered or imagined. I know for many of us, we’ve used our networks – or simply just got lucky -- to find opportunities to grow within the organization, but can you imagine getting personalized advisory, or even seeing a visual representation, of the different ways you could move in the organization? All based on real-time patterns and trends in your organization’s people data in conjunction with your own preferences -- AND the things you need to better qualify for those roles?

That kind of information can be life changing. And finally, managers can now also play a more direct, focused, and purposeful role in delivering a great employee experience. With Oracle Grow they have the tools to ensure their team is on the right track and cultivating the skills they need to move themselves, their team, and the business forward. I am excited for the future and the value our customers – and their workers -- can get with Grow.  Let’s  do this!!

Learn how you can amplify the success and future growth opportunities of your people with Oracle Grow.

[1] New fundamentals for a boundaryless world, Deloitte Insights / Christina Brodzik, et al., 2023.