West Coast University & American Career College share their big wins and lessons learned from their experience using HCM cloud products in this video.  On the cloud since Release 4, Jackie Rodriguez, Senior Systems Analyst, reviews which implementations yielded positive outcomes for her organization, their responses to areas in which expectations were not met, and the evolution of their upgrade process as the product has matured. This real user experience insight offers a roadmap for those not yet already on the HCM cloud.

Life before Oracle Cloud for Rodriguez’s organization?  It included a reliance upon manual, paper-based HR processes such as the

• manual entry for the hiring process and benefits
• merit cycles maintained through spreadsheets
• and paper-based performance reviews.

Today, West Coast University & American Career College use Core HR, Benefits, Performance, Goals, Compensation, BI Reporting and Publishing, in addition to having upgraded to the enterprise version of Taleo for recruiting, onboarding, learning, and social sourcing with integrations. Six years since initial implementation, West Coast University & American Career College have experienced these positive discoveries and successes with cloud applications:

• Implement each module when you are ready.  Rodriguez’s organization strategically implemented modules upon the availability of resources beginning with Core HR, Benefits, Performance, and an ADP interface.  The upgraded enterprise version of Taleo followed two years later.
• Automate the onboarding process.  In moving paper processes to an online automated format, West Coast University & American Career College shifted their new employees’ Day 1 from a paper processing event to being a day of orientation with onboarding processes pushed to new employees before their first day arrival.  Additional benefits have included:
  • Reduced total time between hire and adding to the payroll/timekeeping system.
  • Improved accuracy of data for the new hire process.
  • HR staffing efficiency despite a growing employee headcount.
• Integration can fit your organization’s needs.  Rodriguez’s organization integrated goals in Goal Management with their compensation plan.  Moving away from the use of separate spreadsheets, West Coast University & American Career College began to easily track their bonus-eligible population, provide consolidated reports and return payouts with greater efficiency through this increased automation.
• Benefit from the carrier interface with HCM.  Previously relying upon the offshore support to perform system testing, Rodriguez’s organization improved the accuracy between the carrier, HCM and payroll systems to a point where their offshore team was phased out and HR administrative staff was reduced.
• Utilize Oracle’s Resources.  For West Coast University & American Career College, the upgrade process improved with time and relative to the product’s maturity.  Rodriguez highlights the utility of Oracle’s site in informing their upgrade process.

No journey is without challenges and lessons learned.  Rodriguez’s organization set their sights on these adjustments to address the challenges they encountered:

• Build in the automation you need.  When Rodriguez’s organization initially rolled out self-service, they implemented Manager Change, which is auto-approve managed direct reports, to address the limitations they experienced in the automated process between Taleo.
• Utilize Oracle’s help.  Initial issues with creating approval roles for pay changes were resolved with Oracle’s assistance.
• Automation on the horizon.  Keep in mind, some integrations are in the pipeline.  For West Coast University & American Career College, this is the case for managing retroactive transactions with integration.

Delivered to a user audience containing few already on the HCM cloud, view this video to learn more from real user experience insight on life after initial cloud application implementation.