Guy Waterman, Director of Product Strategy, recently presented a webinar at Quest Experience Week – Cloud Day about the Oracle SaaS Cloud Strategy. In his webinar, he says “Everybody will eventually move to the Cloud.” Is Waterman just preaching to the choir when he says this?

The HR industry, the focus of his session, is one of the many industries that has embraced cloud technology. You know this. You also know, though, that some are further along on that journey than others. This is exactly what Waterman addresses in his session. “(At Oracle) we know that it (transitioning to the Cloud) will be at different paces,” he said, “and we have to provide solutions that enable you to incrementally adopt them.” HR enterprises can learn the details about the different solutions along the way by listening to this session, which can be found in the Quest Content Library. For now, though, we can hit the high-points of the journey.

Waterman starts by giving the background – the part of the journey before there were any users at all. In planning the Oracle HCM Cloud, developers noticed the fragmented environment of HCM but recognized, too, similarities in underlying structures. They capitalized on this and combined SaaS functions so that HR enterprises can adopt them independently of one another but keep them on a common framework for a single solution. That means fragmented environments can be a thing of the past. It means you can have social, module, analytics and integration platforms. It also provides flexibility for the cloud journey.

The core benefits across all the levels of service:

• Future solutions and upgrades are available to you AND you can customize. You don’t have to sacrifice one for the other.
• With Oracle HCM, HR enterprises can have connectivity – mobility, infrastructure, business intelligence, etc.
• Security and controls are integrated throughout the system.

Waterman outlines each of the services with the HCM Cloud. This is where the journeys can move at different paces. An HR enterprise can opt into different packages at a rate that works for them. Waterman gives lots of demonstrations, so you can see exactly what is offered. You’ll want to watch the demonstrations in his session but here are the highlights:

• Global HR – You can efficiently and effectively manage a globally integrated workforce (the all-important real-time data) with lots of professional and personal profile information and opportunities for social collaboration.
• Workforce Rewards –This is critical to managing benefits in a streamlined manner and tailoring compensation while monitoring spending.
• Workforce Management – You can control labor costs, manage projects efficiently and improve operations.
• HR Service Directory – This is used to manage wellness programs, the HR help desk, volunteer programs for the company brand and similar work.
• Talent Management– You can access tools to source, recruit, develop, retain and motivate the most talented employees.

Additional Oracle solutions and new HCM Cloud services include:

• Learning and development – This solution uses tailored learning plans and all types of formal and informal learning opportunities.
• Business intelligence, social and mobile – These solutions have embedded reports for analytics and planning.
• Recruiting – Use updates to innovatively recruit with a new candidate-friendly experience.
• The four new HCM Cloud services:
  • Governance risk and compliance for HCM with audit reports and discovering anomalies (such as duplicate paychecks)
  • Workforce Health & Safety
  • My Volunteering
  • Recruiting

Waterman ended by speaking about the features of human interface. These are always the crowd pleasers and Oracle delivers with access and responsive design for mobile capabilities, messaging, chat boxes (automated even), camera input, voice, and augmented reality.