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Last Chance to Register at the Early-Bird Rate
 You can't change the HCM landscape and lead the future if you're not with your industry peers at the OHUG Global Conference 2014. You don't have to break the bank to go, either. If you register by April 21, you'll save $200!
Use the official OHUG Global Conference 2014 Session Search to find the E-Business, PeopleSoft, Fusion, Taleo and thought leadership sessions presented by Oracle customers and vendors that are relevant to you. Stay tuned for information on more than 40 Oracle sessions, including product roadmaps and keynotes.
(Note: Schedule is subject to change.)
Justify Your Trip
Do you need help justifying the trip to your employer? Use the OHUG Justification Letter to make your case. This year's event is sure to develop your skills and enrich your professional network.
Headlines
News from OHUG
Will You Be at INNOVATE14?
Upcoming Webinar: Discoverer’s Gone … What Now?
Scout Paper: How to Get the Most from Your Search Firm
Oracle Invite: Join the Oracle Customer Advisory Panel (CAP) Program
SIG Corner: Retail/Service/Hospitality SIG
Share a Success Story with OHUG Members
Industry News
Oracle Boosts Higher Education Portfolio
Nationwide Transforms to Hybrid HR
'Grab Hold' of Analytics or Get Left Behind, HR Warned
HR Ready for the Future? No Way, Report Says
The Rise of People Architecture
BG Group Turns to Cloud HR to Reach Staff in Multiple Countries
How HR Analytics Can Transform the Workplace
Rise of the HR Apps
HR 'Will Die in Its Current Form,' Says HR Technology Expert
What Does It Take to Move From HR Reporting to Workforce Analytics?
Study Finds a Distinction Between the Young and the Old in the Workplace
Innovation Gives HR a Leg Up
News from OHUG
Will You Be at INNOVATE14?
In partnership with the Northeast PeopleSoft and NY-NJ JD Edwards RUG, the E-Business Suite and Hyperion/EPM/BI Oracle Applications User Group of New Jersey (OAUGNJ) and the Oracle Financial Services Industry User Group (FSIUG), OHUG is co-sponsoring an exciting joint Oracle user group meeting (aptly named INNOVATE14), on Friday, May 16, 2014, at the Renaissance Woodbridge Hotel in Iselin, N.J.
In addition to access to Oracle ERP-specific HCM sessions, OHUG is presenting a complete track of HCM content applicable to all product lines.
The Greater Philadelphia PeopleSoft and JD Edwards User Group (PHRUG) is the newest INNOVATE14 partner. This event, with its expanded PeopleSoft and JD Edwards content, will serve as its spring meeting. PHRUG members should be delighted with the benefits of “going the extra mile” to get to INNOVATE14.
You can access an overview of the complete May 16 INNOVATE14 program by visiting the official INNOVATE14 event site. Registration is scheduled to go live in mid-April, once the educational program is posted.
Questions or requests for more information may be directed to Event Coordinator Joanne Brennan by email or phone at 617.510.2578.
Upcoming Webinar: Discoverer’s Gone … What Now?
Date: Tuesday, April 29
Time: 10-11 a.m. PT / 11 to noon MT / noon to 1 p.m. CT / 1-2 p.m. ET
Presenters: Moiz Kaka, Polaris Associates, Oracle E-Business Suite applications specialist
Oracle has announced the end of life of Discoverer, and the date is right around the corner. What are your organizations next steps? The options are bountiful, but understanding the requirements can be difficult. With companies now using more than a single reporting tool, come learn the benefits and pitfalls of new technologies emerging in the Oracle spectrum.
This includes options such as OBIEE and other replacement tools for Discoverer such as Polaris's Reporting Workbench, BI Publisher Reports and Microsoft Excel Reporting. This live demo will discuss these tools and can help simplify what direction fits best for your organizations goals in regards to real time reporting.
Register now.
Scout Paper: How to Get the Most from Your Search Firm
If you're like many small to medium-size businesses, you know that hiring is a challenge. As the economy recovers, the stakes for finding great talent have never been higher. As a part of a well-rounded talent acquisition strategy, many organizations also turn to specialty recruiters to help supplement their talent acquisition efforts. They aren't alone, either: 80 percent of organizations are using third-party agencies or independent recruiters to help fill their roles.
But to work effectively with a search firm, you should consider having a plan for the partnership that goes beyond just calling out of the blue when you have a requisition for them to tackle. OHUG sponsor Scout offers this paper to help you perfect your acquisition strategy and get the most from your search firm.
Read the full paper.
Note: You must log in to the OHUG website to download the paper.
Oracle Invite: Join the Oracle Customer Advisory Panel (CAP) Program
CAP is an opt-in network of Oracle customers that provides targeted input into Oracle's product and services strategies. This feedback is given directly to Oracle executives, product development teams and various Oracle lines of business to inform future decisions that affect your experience with Oracle products and services.
How does CAP work?
Customers will opt in to the program via this URL. During this registration, you will provide your specific areas of interest, and Oracle will tailor its content to you based on these preferences. Oracle conducts focus groups, surveys and polls across its customer base as part of the CAP program, but you will never be invited to provide feedback more than once per month.
What are the benefits of joining CAP?
CAP panels are sponsored by the respective product development general managers for the product families. These GMs and their teams have committed to using your feedback to inform future product and service roadmaps. In return for your valuable input, Oracle leadership will share feedback results, insights and planned initiatives with you.
How do I join CAP?
Simply click here and you will be directed to a registration site. Upon completion of this one-page form, you will receive an email requesting additional information that will help us tailor the CAP experience to your needs.
SIG Corner: Retail/Service/Hospitality SIG
Managing a diverse and dynamic workforce with unique compensation rules can be a challenge, but don't fear! The Retail/Service/Hospitality SIG is here to support you and share experiences. Known for a long time as the Retail SIG, its scope expanded a few years ago to include service and hospitality industries, which have similar challenges to retail. SIG members run PeopleSoft, EBS and Fusion applications as well as third-party point solutions.
SIG leaders Carrie Hollack and Megan Martens have over 20 years combined in the retail/service/hospitality industries working with Oracle HCM applications. They are passionate about sharing knowledge and have been SIG members nearly since its inception over 10 years ago. Meeting topics and discussions are driven by attendees, and the meetings are always very lively and full of networking.
Learn more and join the SIG.
Share a Success Story with OHUG Members
We are looking for new and exciting Oracle customer content to add to our popular iParticipate Webinar Series! This series offers information, tips, and training on topics that are trending now in your industry. Webinars are available to all OHUG members and the recordings are available for download following each presentation. This is a wonderful opportunity to share your organization success story with the OHUG membership. To get started, please visit our iParticipate Webinar Archives and view what other members have presented in the past. Submit your topic here.
Industry News
Oracle Boosts Higher Education Portfolio
CIO Today (03/25/14)
New Oracle products will enable institutions to operate their student and enterprise resource planning systems on premise or to switch to a cloud-based implementation. Oracle says it will offer the new Oracle Student Cloud to fulfill the requirements of organizations that are altering their institutions to accommodate configurable standard business processes and to liberate IT resources for mission-critical activities in learning, teaching, and research. As an element of the Oracle Education and Research Cloud, the Oracle Student Cloud will feature flexible core structures and extensible architecture to handle both traditional and non-traditional educational offerings. The product features a dynamic user interface that enables interaction and collaboration, while the Oracle Student Cloud also will support enrollment, payment, and assessment capabilities in the product's first phase, targeted for next year. Oracle says the offering will exploit the support of its design partners in defining solution capabilities through each delivery phase, constructing a comprehensive, cloud-based student information system. In addition, Oracle says it intends to roll out higher education-specific functionality in Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud and Oracle ERP Cloud in 2014 and 2015. These solutions will embed the best capabilities from Oracle's existing product lines and improve them with new mobile, social, and analytic features.
Nationwide Transforms to Hybrid HR
ComputerWeekly.com (03/28/14) Goodwin, Bill
Nationwide Building Society will integrate cloud-based human resource services with traditional on-premises software, as part of a three-year initiative to re-engineer its HR technology. The organization intends to grow the capabilities of its on-premise Oracle PeopleSoft HCM software with the addition of Oracle Fusion HR services in the cloud. The combination will enable Nationwide to maximize value from its existing technology investment, and clear a path for a complete cloud migration in the future, according to HR operations director Neil Lewis. The mutual's heavy customization of Oracle PeopleSoft HCM has made it more challenging to directly transition to a cloud solution, and Lewis says "a halfway solution allows us to get to the cloud, but lets us capitalize on the benefits of PeopleSoft." The organization aims to streamline PeopleSoft by eliminating as much customization as possible, with the goal of a complete cloud switchover from 2020. Lewis says some customization will be retained, for example where there are legal and compliance mandates. Nationwide also plans to supplement the PeopleSoft system by deploying cloud technology for performance management, talent management, and compensation. Lewis says Nationwide also plans to upgrade to the latest PeopleSoft iteration and introduce an updated case management system to handle HR queries more effectively and free up staff from administrative chores.
'Grab Hold' of Analytics or Get Left Behind, HR Warned
HRMagazine.co.uk (03/13/14) Jacobs, Katie
Human resources will lag behind other functions unless they get a firm grip on analytics, warned Deloitte's Laurence Collins at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's recent HR Analytics Conference. "We are falling behind the curve, [being overtaken] by functions in finance, supply chain, and operations," Collins says. "How much do we really want to grab hold of analytics as an enabler for improved HR? How far behind are we as a profession?" Eighty-six percent of firms reported no analytics capabilities in the HR function and 67 percent graded themselves as weak at using HR data to anticipate workforce performance and improvement, according to Deloitte's Global Human Capital Trends 2014 report. Just 8 percent of companies said they have strong HR analytics capabilities. Collins calls on HR departments to consider how analytics can play a role in value creation rather than concentrating too early on predictive analytics. "Build a sustainable foundation and find one or two projects where you can go play in a business-impactful way," he advises. "That will give you permission to go back for more and builds credibility." Standard Chartered Bank's Andrew Thornton stresses the importance of HR correctly understanding the fundamentals of analytics first, including the onerous, time-consuming task of cleansing data and defining "golden sources of data."
HR Ready for the Future? No Way, Report Says
HR Morning (03/12/14) Gould, Tim
Employers are unprepared for the human resource challenges that lie ahead, according to the Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2014 report. "Reskilling" the HR function was listed as a top challenge by survey respondents, but most agreed their organizations are not ready to meet such a challenge. Forty-three percent of respondents cited organizational weakness in terms of providing HR with appropriate training and experiences, while 47 percent described their organizations as weak on readying HR to deliver programs calibrated to business needs. The study found many HR teams lacking the skills and data they require to understand the contemporary global business environment, local labor markets, changing workforce demographics, technological shifts, and the evolution of work itself. “Today’s HR departments are not equipped to face the challenges of this new role," says Deloitte's Jason Geller. "When you add to this the rapidly changing landscape of HR technologies, such as cloud and big data, and their impact on attracting, retaining, and developing talent, it becomes clear that reskilling HR teams is arguably the most critical mission for organizations today.” Among trends highlighted by the study is that talent analytics is beginning to enable HR departments to make informed talent decisions, anticipate employee performance, and facilitate advanced workforce planning. In addition, organizations are withdrawing from legacy systems to deploy a new breed of highly integrated, cloud-based talent and HR systems.
The Rise of People Architecture
Computerworld (03/24/14) Eckle, Jamie
People architecture is becoming more popular, according to Foote Partners' chief analyst David Foote. He describes people architecture as "very similar in principle to traditional IT architecture initiatives, but applied to workforce management and IT human capital practices." Foote emphasizes that "it's about how key human capital management elements such as job definition, skills acquisition, compensation, professional development, work/life balance, and recognition plug into an overall optimized operational model." He says much of people architecture can be deployed in months, but it is typically implemented in increments over a period of years. "It starts with adopting a model in which technology professionals inhabit broad, horizontal roles rather than hundreds of siloed and somewhat disconnected jobs," Foote notes. "Typical roles include analyst, architect, project and program manager, consultant and tech specialist." Foote says standards are logically characterized and calibrated within each role, encompassing subjects such as competence in the technical, business, and soft skills required for moving along development and promotion paths. Foote calls people architecture deployment a necessity, given the problems CIOs have in finding and keeping people who can perform at a high caliber on increasingly challenging tasks. Another factor he cites is the IT workforce's diffusion throughout the enterprise doing multidimensional jobs.
BG Group Turns to Cloud HR to Reach Staff in Multiple Countries
ComputerWeekly.com (03/10/14) Goodwin, Bill
BG Group is phasing out its current human resources management system in favor of an Oracle cloud HR service in order to provide online training programs, employee appraisals, and other HR services to 6,000-plus employees and contractors working in more than 20 countries. “When we looked at software as a service [SaaS] and that sort of forced innovation that comes with using the latest version, it became quite attractive,” notes BG Group's Luci Love. She notes their current system could not always accommodate the growing number of employees BG Group had working outside the business in the joint venture alliances often found in the oil and gas industry. Love stresses a close working partnership between BG Group, Oracle, and IBM made her confident the project could be deployed in the more than 20 nations within seven months. She notes the costs saved by decommissioning just some of BG Group's legacy online training systems will more than compensate for the yearly costs of the Oracle Fusion software, which is the basis of its new SaaS HR platform. The platform offers greater ease of use for staff than the earlier system, and is more intuitive as well. A major consideration for BG Group in choosing the new HR system was the need to ensure that the personnel data of its staff was stored securely in the cloud.
How HR Analytics Can Transform the Workplace
CITEworld (03/28/14) Nerney, Chris
Despite the fact that enterprises would reap dividends by tapping human resources analytics for talent identification, recruitment, development, retention, and workforce planning, a 2013 SHL survey found that 77 percent of HR professionals are unable to determine how their enterprises' workforce potential is affecting the bottom line, while 44 percent employ objective data regarding talent performance to inform business decisions. Moreover, too many enterprises are not using data analytics to identify and nurture future talent. In order to leverage HR data analytics to make strategic staff decisions, enterprises must first acquire software. The next step is selecting an HR analytics software-as-a-service vendor, and if the enterprise is looking for a comprehensive workforce management platform, a large vendor is the most viable option. Oracle provides several workforce management platforms, including Talent Management Cloud, Human Capital, HR Analytics, and Peoplesoft Human Capital Management. After obtaining HR analytics software, the next step is mining and interpreting the data, and HR departments either need to develop analytical talent in-house or hire data scientists to work in human resources.
Rise of the HR Apps
Human Resource Executive (03/13/14) McIlvaine, Andrew R.
Benefits communication and recruitment may only be the start of the potential uses for mobile human resources apps, with experts taking note of numerous apps designed to accelerate organizational processes and reinforce desired behaviors. Apps are being developed to help organizations tap the collective wisdom of employees to encourage collaboration, enhance managerial performance, and help HR better understand what employees are thinking about. An ADP Research Institute survey found that employees in industries such as construction, manufacturing, transportation, and utilities have a 25 percent higher concentration of workers using mobile for HR functions than any other industry, most likely because many employees in those industries lack regular access to a PC during the workday, says ADP's Roberto Masiero. "Mobile will become the main channel for workforce management and engagement," he predicts. "It's right there, it's personal, it's the perfect place for a company to communicate with employees, and for employees to collaborate among themselves." Still, companies' use of mobile HR apps for recruiting purposes is relatively low, according to LinkedIn's 2013 Global Recruiting Trends Survey. Consultant Jody Ordioni warns that organizations with no mobile recruiting strategy will lose opportunities for attracting and retaining the younger, mobile-savvy generation. Meanwhile, Appirio's Jason Averbook envisions mobile apps' future use as tools for employment testing and workforce measurement through location services on smartphones.
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