5 Practices to Ensure Oracle HCM Profitability

Oracle has more than 2000 organizations using their Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM) solution.

For each organization, the results and benefits of the system have been different. While some organizations reported a reduction in the employee attrition rate by 11%, there are organizations that managed to reduce HR processing time by 50% and reduce external IT support by 80% (Source).

The success of Oracle HCM is dependent upon many different factors such as the modules selected for the organization, their usability in fulfilling the business goals, adaptation of the system by the users of the organization, readiness of the organization towards the change and many more.

Each organization has its own set of challenges and changes that they have to manage to make the most of digital solutions. While each implementation and adoption journey is different, certain business best practices can help you improve the return on your investments in the Oracle Cloud HCM both pre and post-implementation.

5 Business Practices to Employ Pre Implementation

1. Align your HCM goals with your business objectives:

When you strategize for the implementation of Cloud HCM, the first task is to determine the business goals that you wish to achieve. You’ll need to determine the HCM modules, integrations and capabilities that you wish to integrate into your IT infrastructure that must automate and streamline HR processes helping you attain those business goals.

2. Select a value-driven HCM technology implementation partner:

When you are selecting your HCM technology partner for effective planning, strategy and implementation, it is essential that you choose an ideal partner as the partner and its resources will be in a long-term association with you helping you drive a successful exectuion.

Along with their experience in the domain and their expertise in Oracle HCM implementation, it is essential that the partner can provide detailed documentation, dedicate resources for training and provide managed support and services for seamless functioning and on-boarding of your resources.

3. Create a Centre of Excellence for all relevant stakeholders:

In a survey from McKinsey, it was found that when the front-line staff members feel a sense of ownership and are encouraged by the leadership, the change becomes seamless and there is 70% chance of success rate for transformation. (Source)

Thus, enterprises must communicate to the resources the benefits that Oracle HCM Cloud will bring. Also to ensure the system has optimum adaptability, all the stakeholders must be involved in the process in their own capacity.

4. Analyze the required talent capabilities:

With the new IT ecosystem being integrated into your organization, your enterprise undergoes a major transition that requires certain resources with specific skills and capabilities. To ensure that you have the required resources for a seamless transition, you must analyze your current talent pool, identify the gaps and recruit the required resources.

5. Choose experts for effective change management:

With the introduction of mobile solutions, integrated services and real-time data availability, there will be changes in the roles and relationships between HR, IT staff and employees of the organization. To ensure that there is a seamless transition and optimum adaptability to the new processes and IT solutions, an organization must have an active change management function for communication, training and onboarding during every phase of project go-live to make each of these business stakeholders aware of the advancements and expectations.

5 Business Practices to Execute Post Implementation

1. The transition of knowledge from partner resources:

Whether you have recruited external support experts or have the internal business super users, the technology partner has to transfer the detailed documentation and knowledge of the system to the business super users before they depart.

Create a list of all the reviews that need to be conducted such as functional review, technical review, security review, operational review, Cloud operations review as well as the training material review. An ideal technology partner will also provide detailed documentation and user manuals for each aspect of the solution for future references.

2. Creation and implementation of shared support model:

To ensure that no matter how big or small the issue, each issue must be documented as soon as possible, and then routed to the authorized support personnel, consulted with the expert if required and resolved with a formal acknowledgment and closure from the user who raised the issue.

There must be a dedicated support staff that would help users resolve their issues and the staff must also have access to the required materials and sources to solve the problems. For instance, if the issue is not resolved even by the resident Business Super User or expert, the support staff can then formally turn to Oracle Support Staff and raise a service request with them for quicker resolution.

3. Instance Management Documentation:

Any new system often causes confusion among the end-users, especially from the users that are not from HR and seldom use the system for administrative purposes. For such resources and every other non technical resource, there must be an incident response document that users can refer to. These documents can guide the users in the right direction and provide them with appropriate response protocols that they can conduct to quickly resolve the issue or confusion.

4. Continuous Training:

To train your users with updates and changes in the system which could be frequent in the initial phase post-implementation, there must be certain resources that can continuously monitor the changes and communicate and guide the users about them. The resources can also keep a formal log of all the changes and issues faced and communicate the concerns, changes and responses with the authorized stakeholders as and when required.

5. Create an update readiness team:

Oracle updates its system quarterly with new functionality and services. These updates are pre-scheduled with the non-production environment on the first weekend of the quarter and a production environment on the third weekend of the quarter.

The cadences are released in the following patterns:

• Jan-Apr-Jul-Oct
• Feb-May-Aug-Nov
• Mar-Jun-Sep-Dec

In between the non-production environment release and production release, organizations get two weeks to test the update and ensure that it would not hamper the business functions. Also, during the time of implementation, the updates can come monthly. To manage these updates efficiently and to ensure that they do not hamper business continuity, it is essential that there is a team that manages, communicates and tests these updates.

It All Boils Down to Adaptability

To ensure that the transition from on-premise to the Cloud is successful and profitable, the end-users of the Oracle Cloud HCM must adapt the system completely and use its capabilities to increase the efficiency and productivity of the business.

To understand more about the capabilities of Oracle Cloud HCM and its edge over on-premise solutions, read our detailed white paper “Is your on-premise HR system holding you back from sustainable business goals?“