In his decades of experience in customer-facing sales and executive roles, Oracle CEO Mark Hurd has learned a thing or two about understanding people. Operational and people skills are a critical part of managing Oracle, one of the world’s largest private employers, and addressing the constant need for new talent to sustain its growth. When Hurd joined the company eight years ago, Oracle had roughly 105,000 employees. Today, its global workforce comprises 137,000 people. It’s no surprise that keeping this many people happy, focused, and productive isn’t easy, and it would be unrealistic for Hurd to think he can treat every employee the same. Hurd addressed this personnel challenge by directing Oracle to deploy people- and system-driven approaches to enable Oracle’s HR department to develop personalized employee interactions and ultimately improve job satisfaction.

There truly is strength in numbers. Human Resources lays this foundation at top performing companies. HR encourages hundreds, if not thousands of people to work toward the same direction and goal. This creates a shared sense of purpose and an engaging culture. Establishing an engaging culture that encourages people to work together, continue learning, and grow their careers in a meaningful way will motivate your workforce to create value. One of the best ways to facilitate this is with an intelligent, personalized HR technology. Unfortunately, not all technology is as simple and supportive as it sounds.

A recent Oracle blog talked through the reasons to tackle your ERP/EPM and HCM systems together to create an integrated Cloud solution. It starts with a scenario: Imagine that you’re getting a promotion to a management position, which would impact your purchasing authority, approval workflows, travel allowances, and pay structure. On top of that, you’re moving to North America to Europe, where your company operates under a different legal entity. How long will it take before your new role is reflected in your company’s Human Resources system, you start getting paid at your new rate, and your new team can start submitting expenses to your for approval?

One obstacle that many HR executives face is trying to convince a skeptical CFO to make the move to HCM Cloud. Your CFO will likely want to see a compelling business case before approving your idea, which is understandable. Business cases are packed with financial analyses and justifications—right up your CFO’s alley. A recent Oracle blog explored the best ways to build a winning HCM Cloud business case to convince your CFO and your organization to move to HCM Cloud.

For Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, adopting Oracle HR Help Desk was the logical next step in the company’s Oracle Cloud journey. With a relatively aggressive timeline for an organization of their size, Yum! Brands went from its initial Oracle Cloud project kickoff in 2016 to the eventual go-live of HR Help Desk in under three years.

At COLLABORATE 19, Hunter Bohannon, the HR Oracle Cloud Support Analyst at Yum! Brands, spoke about how Yum! Brands conquered challenging payroll business requirements with Oracle HCM Cloud and Cloud Payroll.

There’s no question that the payroll manager plays a crucial role in the success of both HR and Finance. At COLLABORATE 19, there was discussion around the role of the payroll manager during a Cloud implementation, during readiness preparation, during go-live, and when business is simply moving along as usual. While the payroll manager has relatively similar daily responsibilities both on-premises or in the Cloud, there are several roles that the payroll manager additionally takes on during implementation, readiness preparation, and go-live.

Lori Pierson, Vice President of HCM Transformation at Oracle, laid out five dangers customers should avoid when upgrading their HR system to HCM Cloud. Moving on-premises human resources applications to the Cloud is continuously becoming more and more popular. If a company wants to take its HR applications to the next level, it’s important to take advantage of new technologies and deliver a better experience for current and future employees. Organizations need to prepare for what lies ahead before making the move to the Cloud and learn how to avoid the five dangers Lori listed when upgrading to HCM Cloud.

Sue Shaw, Director of IT Operations for ATCO Group, spoke at COLLABORATE 19 about how to manage change after you’ve made the move to the Cloud. Sue discussed the scope of ATCO’s Cirrus Cloud Project, the types of changes companies may face during Cloud projects, and tools that are available to help with Cloud implementation change management.