During Quest Forum Digital Event: Cloud Week, Sherri Bartels, Oracle Cloud HCM Product Strategy, presented how to address the challenges and solutions to managing represented workers around the world by utilizing Oracle HCM Cloud. While most represented workers in the United States are union workers, there are other types of represented workers, as well. For the purpose of this post, union workers and represented workers may be used as interchangeable terms.

Bartels broached the challenge of utilizing multiple systems of varying effectiveness to manage the complexities of union requirements. However, she explained that much more is possible now through Oracle HCM Cloud than has been in the past. Oracle Cloud HCM takes advantage of new technologies in order to move the complexities behind the scenes, and integrate a simple, more connected system.

Management of Represented Workers

Then

Many years ago, Bartels was preparing to go to college by way of scholarship. Her father had been a union worker for 40 years in California. When she made the choice to attend college, he wondered why she would choose university over union life. Bartels was puzzled at his reaction, but after working with customers who employ union workers, she understands why the privileges and benefits of unionization are attractive.

In the past, managing union workers was very difficult. There were complex processes with terms and conditions that resulted in reduced worker engagement. Workers were not receiving what they were entitled to. Therefore, they were disgruntled and disengaged.

Furthermore, complicated compliance rules for Labor Relations or HR Administrators led to high payroll error rates, compliance violations, grievances, and high adjustment rates. Additionally, complex time regulations led to organizational drag.

Now

In today’s landscape, flexible solutions offer ease to the management of represented workers. Oracle HCM Cloud enables you to track seniority rules for just-in-time processes. This brings about increased engagement and compliance.

Hyper personalization in the case of companies with a myriad of positions increases retention, predictive notifications, and compliance. An example of an organization type that would benefit from hyper-personalization is higher education, in which facility workers, teachers, healthcare workers, and others are all part of the same system. Different positions in the organization have different needs in terms of time tracking, absence entitlement, and interaction with the system. As you apply a UI that fits the user more precisely, it is easier to remain compliant. This streamlined, effective process results in better time management and increased employee morale.

Managing Represented Workers With Oracle HCM Cloud

Union complexities touch an entire life cycle of a worker. Everything from hiring to onboarding to capturing time to allowing absences and leave to managing compliance violations to pay and benefits are all a part of this web. Furthermore, COVID-19 furloughs and layoffs have caused Oracle Cloud customers to look to Cloud HCM for help in managing the crisis.

Oracle Cloud HCM provides health and safety solutions for free to current customers. Many partners of Oracle have offered free implementation, and free learning is available. Customers are utilizing these resources to manage sick leave, notification, and workspace closure. Take advantage of these offerings to meet the needs of your organization and users.

Oracle HCM Cloud Features

A powerful system, Oracle Cloud HCM’s HR Admin and Labor Relations Management of Contract Rules can help you to manage the following:

• Union tracking
• Bargaining Units
• Contracts
• Reps
• Seniority Rules
• Eligibility Rules
• Deductions & Pay Rates

In Germany, as workers move from one company to another, they take seniority with them. Oracle HCM Cloud makes this an easy transfer. Eligibility Rules look at all rules within HCM to apply to benefits, absences, and entitlement according to union rules. Everything regarding the worker profile is leveraged downstream. This all-in-one solution of HCM eliminates the need for and consequences resulting from passing data back and forth. You no longer have to worry about data latency or data integrity issues. Downstream processes can react in real-time.

The HR Admin, Manager, or Worker tries to manage time to pay, usually with difficulty. Oracle HCM Cloud allows capturing time and absences in various ways according to preference. This can include a web clock for clocking in and out of shifts, recording the time a user is at his or her desk answering phones, and taking note of the number of hours worked when on-the-go.

You can also enforce compliance violations. These violations can even be used to prevent compliance issues. With intelligence web clock, for example, a worker clocked in at 8:00 am and is required to break after three hours of work will receive a notification at the 2-hour and 45-minute point if such settings are applied.

Applying union rules to time and regulations can be challenging. The Oracle HCM Cloud Time and Labor solution allows for the utmost flexibility in responding to the most out-of-the-box union requirements.

Oracle HCM Cloud Time to Pay effectively and flexibly applies:

• Capture of Time & Absences
• Application of Union Rules to Time
• Avoiding Compliance Violations
• Pay Workers
• Grant Benefits

The Union Worker Experience is managed in Oracle HCM Cloud, as well. Each of these categories applies:

• Grievances
• Disciplinary Actions
• Health and Safety
• Worker Experience

HR Admin and Labor Relations within Oracle HCM Cloud manage the following:

• Job Bidding
• Layoffs
• Recalls
• Reinstatements
• Forced Rankings

Oracle HCM Cloud delivers value for customers. Studies have shown that leveraging Oracle HCM Cloud and solutions improved reporting productivity by 79 percent and reduced compliance costs by 70 percent. There is great value in moving to the Oracle HCM Cloud solution with breadth and depth to manage large populations of union workers.

One example of an organization utilizing Oracle HCM Cloud is Baylor University. Baylor has been able to deliver a better campus experience for students, faculty, and all workers through their use of Oracle HCM Cloud.

Oracle HCM Cloud: A Single Global System

Oracle HCM Cloud is a single global system for all workers. Employee profile provides eligibility, seniority rules, and all other data available. Employee and manager self-service are accessible from any device. It can be managed, and action can be taken on the team from anywhere. Intelligent auto-complete, populate, and validate is incredibly advantageous to the user and the organization.

Grade Step Progression is common in union organizations. Oracle HCM Cloud provides the most flexible solution for managing seniority dates. You are able to progress workers automatically from one grade or step to the next. Take advantage of the ability to include or exclude individuals from the calculation result in the case that certain workers have negotiated different terms. Important to note, seniority and tenure criteria can be date-based or activity-based.

Oracle HR Position Management allows you to create and manage position hierarchies. It is important that headcount and budget are managed by preventing workers from being placed in positions where the budget is not there. You can ensure the supervisor hierarchy is maintained.

Customers can use position management to view open positions with or without a requisition. They can manage positions across the manager hierarchy, optimize organizational management, enforce position control, and manage position budgeting.

Oracle HR Absence Management is part of the HR solution. This is important because absence entitlement and accrual are based on HR data. The delivered global solution can be tailored locally.

Rules are based on unions or collective bargaining agreements. Compensatory time is shared across Time and Labor, as well as Absence Management, as employees are working overtime. Absence management can even accrue from time and labor. Furthermore, expiration dates can include 90 days until expiration, etc.

In addition, many organizations with union workers often have the need for leave donations. This occurs when a worker goes out on catastrophic need, but they don’t have enough absence balances to take paid time off. Often, organizations will host a campaign in which other workers can donate leave balances to a worker that has been approved for catastrophic leave.

Another caveat of union rules is that of allowing workers to sell their time off in order to receive more money. Absence Management allows workers to self-disburse allowable balances. This is unified with Oracle Cloud Benefit, meaning users can enroll in the sell program, and Absence Management and Payroll will react accordingly.

Balances are reinstated as employees move across the company or return to the company with rules being taken into consideration. Balances can be transferred or rolled over at the end of the plan year. Finally, the ability to analyze absence costs and trends is critical to your organization. This figure impacts productivity. Analyze each area in order to take proactive action.

Time and Labor is flexible. It is unified with Absence Management, Payroll, and HR. Time can be tracked for the worker anywhere, in any way. It effectively manages worker shifts. You can define rules based on unions or collective bargaining agreements.

The screenshot shows entered time. This is all configurable in terms of totals presented to workers. What makes up overtime hours or productive hours versus non-productive hours? You can compare scheduled hours to hours worked and more.

Additionally, you can easily copy a previous timecard or tag a timecard as a favorite for frequent copying. Project workers can import assigned projects via Oracle Cloud Project Costing. You can easily default costing segment with GL.

You have the ability to handle alternate OT periods, rate overrides, and differentials. Ensure accuracy with compliance alerts, attestations, and auditing. Automate adjustments to payroll and analyze labor spend and productivity.

Oracle Workforce Health and Safety allows employees to engage via a simple UI in a quick three-step process. Capture more incidents earlier. Oracle Cloud has provided this module free for current customers in order to help with COVID-19.

It is very important to be able to plan, model, and measure organizational chains quickly. Union makes this a more complicated issue. Through Oracle Strategic Workforce Planning, you can take into account seniority and tenure rules. Implement change management quickly with an approval workflow tool, and even include labor relations in the process.

It is important to be able to know that a worker has performance guidelines with performance stipulations. Oracle Performance Management provides, traditional, annual, or mid-year evaluations, Additionally, however, Oracle Performance Management can be tailored for more frequent active dialogue between employee and management. All of these things can be documented. Therefore, when grievances do arise, it is easy to show what actually transpired.

Oracle HR Helpdesk is a full case management solution with a 360-degree view of the worker. You can easily access transactions and set up automated action plans. This allows you to roll out global and industry compliance, as well as involve employee relations in the HR Helpdesk processes. Key to the offerings of HR Helpdesk, because it is part of Oracle HCM Cloud, you don’t have to worry about data privacy issues. It is a secure case management solution, as it adopts the HR security previously instilled.

Key Takeaways

The Oracle HCM Cloud system was designed to help you conquer the management of your union workers throughout the entire lifecycle. You can deal with the complexities full force. View the image below for a visual representation of how you can use Oracle HCM Cloud for your organization.

To learn more, check out the Quest Form Digital Event presentation attached below.