Creighton University made the move from their legacy application, Oracle E-Business Suite, to Oracle HCM Cloud in order to achieve a more modern solution and HR practices. Read on to learn more about the decisions made during their transition to Oracle Cloud for higher education

About Creighton University

Creighton University is a Jesuit, Catholic university located in Omaha, Nebraska. The university was founded in 1878 and now has nearly 9,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students. Creighton University is one of only 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States.

The university was on Oracle E-Business Suite before moving to the Cloud. They had additional bolt-on systems and a high volume of paper processes as well. The faculty started asking for a better system, and they eventually realized that their current system wasn’t meeting the university’s needs. Creighton University started their new Cloud project, which was branded “myHR” to help bring a sense of ownership of the new system.

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Why did Creighton University decide to move to Oracle HCM Cloud?

Creighton University decided that it was time to shake off legacy platforms and processes in order to move to a more modern solution and practices. They knew that they wanted to streamline HR systems, increase the focus on Talent Management, and maintain alignment with their digital strategy. Their Talent Management goals required an HR suite that was designed to cover all aspects of HCM, and Oracle Cloud for higher education provided the underlying core infrastructure with additional resources for Talent Management, Performance Planning and Succession Planning.

Did they have a phased approach or a big bang?

Creighton University decided on a phased approach for two reasons. The first reason is that they had limited resources. Both their IT and HR teams are relatively small, so they had to be smart about how they used their resources. The second reason was change management. They realized that people can only handle so much at once, so the phased approach would make it easier to handle all of the change that was coming from this project. When making the transition to Cloud in your own organization, it’s important to consider the trade offs and benefits of a big bang vs phased approach to implementation.

What challenges did Creighton University face during this project?

The executive buy-in of the project was one challenge of the project. Key players like the President, Provost, CIO and CHRO were obviously invested in the project. Focusing on change management throughout helped people understand the basis for change. They also showed the system early and often to help socialize students, faculty and staff with the system throughout.

Change management was one of the main focuses and challenges within this project. To help build a positive environment around the project, the project team went out of their way to recognize and appreciate key initiatives and players throughout. They also brought in myHR “swag” like pens, notepads, and polos for team members. Creating a comprehensive timeline and knowledge transfer plan also helped the team deal with change management throughout the project.

Another challenge of the project was the structure of the team. The project team included a faculty advisory group throughout the process, so they had to carve out time early in the project to engage them. To help keep the faculty advisory group stay involved, they set a cadence of meetings early on, engaged them in testing early in the project, and focused heavily on communication and change management.

What were the lessons learned from this project?

1. Change management and training is a crucial part of the success of the project.
2. Learning the system thoroughly during implementation is key because once go-live comes, you must be prepared and able to understand the system.
3. Moving to Oracle Cloud for higher education is an opportunity to rethink how HR supports your organization or university.
4. Opportunities exist for improvements as additional modules are added.

What benefits came from this project?

Moving to Oracle Cloud for higher education allowed Creighton University to improve the way they search for new candidates. Their search became more targeted, which resulted in 60 percent of submissions receiving an interview. From that 60 percent, 51 percent are actually hired. There is a 100 percent offer acceptance rate. In addition, the time to fill was decreased from 67 days to 38 days.

Another improvement after moving to Cloud was the addition of an employee referral feature, which Creighton University did not offer before. Now, 36 percent of their applicants and 82 percent of their hires come from employee referrals.

As part of their Talent Management initiatives, Creighton University saw an increase from 45 percent to 83 percent of the staff that had entered goals that got approved.

Learn more about how Creighton University and other universities are using Oracle Cloud for higher education to shape their institutions in the related content below.