PeopleSoft Human Resources has undergone several updates for two main reasons:

1. To refresh features in order to equip customers to comply with new legislative and regulatory updates easily
2. To enhance the overall user experience

At COLLABORATE 19, Julie Alonso and Jeremy Pelley, Product Management Directors at Oracle, gave a breakdown of all legislative and regulatory updates, how PeopleSoft complies with these updates, and enhancements to other features within PeopleSoft Human Resources.

Legislative and Regulatory Updates

There were several legislative and regulatory updates made that PeopleSoft users will need to comply with.

HR Legislative Updates (USA)

There is a potential change coming for EEO-1 reporting. Previously on hold, and now overturned by a judge, is the requirement to submit summary employee pay data and hours worked to the EEOC. There are rumors that this change could take effect in September 2019, but no official announcement has been made. Regardless, you must submit your existing EEO-1 report. The deadline for this document has been extended to May 31, 2019.

There are no expected reporting changes to EEO-4 or VETS4212, both due in September 2019. The VETS4212 has an expiration of March 2021.

OSHA reporting was due March 2, 2019.

Form I-9 expires August 2019. The Department of  Homeland Security has not posted a proposed change yet. In the meantime, PeopleSoft is exploring integration with eVerify and PeopleSoft Form I-9 as a free service within Core HR. Currently, the completed form goes to the HR Administrator, but in the future, it could run verification pullback information into PeopleSoft.

Employee Gender Self-Identification

With higher education already filing new guidelines regarding gender self-identification, it is expected that corporate America will soon follow suit. The current selections offered by the Department of Labor are male and female. Globally, however, we’ve already seen changes taking place. Germany allows citizens to select male, female, or diverse. The UK added MX to forms, and Australia utilizes the term non-binary.

In the U.S., ten states have voted to allow “non-binary” as an option on drivers’ licenses. Four additional states are working on similar legislation at the moment. These changes at the state level place greater pressure on the federal government to respond, as well. For now, there has been no actual legislation applied at the federal level, meaning the only options available on federal forms are male and female. This will pose an issue for submission of EO4 or EO1 reports within the states offering non-binary as an option. The system will simply not accept automated forms marked non-binary. Therefore, in order to best serve customers, PeopleSoft follows the federal government’s guidelines regarding this and will update options as allowed on federal forms.

General Data Privacy Act (GDPR)

The GDPR regulates the “processing” of data for EU (European Union) individuals, which includes collection, storage, transfer, or use. Any organization that processes personal data of EU individuals is within the scope of the law, regardless of whether the organization has a physical presence in the EU. If you, for example, allow applicants from EU countries, your company must submit to the GDPR in order to avoid fines of up to four percent of your annual global revenue or €20 million, whichever is greater. Effective May 25, 2018, you must allow Request for Consent, Right to Access, and the Right to be Forgotten to avoid penalties.

California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (AB378)

On the heels of the GDRP, California has begun requiring Request for Consent, Right to be Forgotten, and Children’s Rights—which makes it more difficult to share or sell data on children who are younger than 16—for all organizations that receive personal data from Californians and fit into one of the following categories:

• Annual gross revenues of $25 million
• Obtains personal information of 50,000 or more CA residents, households, or devices annually
• Obtains 50 percent or more annual revenue from selling California residents’ personal information

AB378 will be effective January 1, 2020, and applies penalties of up to $7,500 per violation (action taken by State Attorney General).

PeopleSoft Features for Legislation and Regulation Compliance

One of the new features in PeopleSoft is Personal and Sensitive Data, which makes the data privacy officer a new role. There are several pages for this role, and the user can see all information unmasked.

Another new feature, the Acknowledgement Framework, is easily configurable and assigns a template using Activity Guide Composer. In the onboarding process, you can require new employees to acknowledge that you are collecting their personal data, satisfying one of the facets of GDRP and AB378.

Person Data Delete Processes are also now available. This feature allows specific data erasure, meaning you can delete personal data but keep pay history in order to protect both personnel and company interests. You can also delete new applicants and new learners. It is recommended that you check requirements per country, as certain legality requires keeping information for a specified length of time, while other federal regulation requires deletion.

Employee Self-Service

Continued updates and new features include Employee Self-Service, which allows you to create a new announcement with icons and information in a manner of minutes. It is very simple to use.

Another enhancement concerns the now fluidized Company Directory and Organization Chart. You can show dot line reporting, display your peers and empty positions on the organization chart, and print or export to Excel or Vizio. One of the most exciting new features is the configurable ability to fluidize total rewards in order to show an employee’s total value to the company, including links to benefits and perks.

Furthermore, Employee Snapshot is a 360-degree view of the employee that has previously been offered as a feature but is now available to the HR administrator. You have access to see job data, personnel, compensation, and licenses, as displayed below.

From Employee Snapshot, you can jump directly into guided self-service to promote an employee. This screen will display a questionnaire that will load applicable fields based on information entered. The manager initiates the action, but it still goes through the approval process. To make it easy to see what has been changed for the employee during the promotion process, an orange dot highlights each updated data field. You can also pull up the analytics of team salary for comparison while deciding on new employee rewards.

Self-Termination is another feature within Employee Self-Service. This feature allows an employee to submit a resignation or retirement. The employee will input his or her last expected working day, reason for resignation or retirement, and additional comments as needed. The HR manager can override input dates as vacation days play into the official date. This feature will integrate with off-boarding in the future.

Profile Management

Enhancements within Profile Management include enhanced security, an enhanced compare tool, and the modernization of the overall look and flow. You now have the ability to define a role name to content security and to break down the administrator into the type of administrator. The intended roadmap of Profile Management’s enhanced security is best explained below:

Position Management

Position Management is recommended as a best practice for all customers. Several companies, two-thirds of the PeopleSoft customer base, are already utilizing its features. Recent enhancements address concerns brought about by those who have not taken advantage of it. The key advantages of Position Management include the ability to create and track position data and its history, maintain incumbent data, enter less data in job data, budget for positions by department, maintain headcount info, maintain organizational structures, and create positions with a status of approved, proposed, or frozen. You can even request a clone position through guided self-service and display an empty position on either My Team or Company Directory. View the benefits of using an effective sequence with Fluid position below.