This is a syndicated post. The original post can be found here.
During the past year, organizations turned to human resources leaders to map out some of the make-or-break COVID-19 decisions: who should work remotely, who stays in the office or factory, how do we handle layoffs, and how do we keep everyone safe while also protecting the business as best we can?
HR execs now have a “seat at the table” with other C-Suite members, and an equal say in making decisions. “No question, in most companies today, the CIO, the CHRO, and the CEO are very good friends about how to make the company successful,” Bersin says. However, while most employers and employees adjusted reasonably well during the pandemic, he says, sometimes the organization’s old technology and practices got in the way of necessary evolution. As a result, CEOs are turning to HR leaders for new ideas.
So now that the powerful “seat at the table” HR leaders have long wanted is theirs for the taking, the next big question is “what will they do with it?”
Oracle Journeys, the newest feature of Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM), answers that question by providing step-by-step guidance to help with important employee engagement activities—from returning to the office to building a new career path.
“As more and more companies focus their energies on ‘back to work’ and ‘safe workplace’ applications for their employees, Oracle’s Journeys is positioned in the right place at the right time,” Bersin writes on his website. “And Oracle’s experience in service delivery and case management will pay off.”
Oracle’s new Journeys employee engagement platform is “one of the biggest innovations we’ve delivered in a number of years,” Chris Leone, Oracle senior vice president of applications development, said during the summit.
Journeys big and small
Oracle Journeys gives employees and managers step-by-step guidance to help them complete work processes, ranging from a simple change of surname after marriage to something as complex as a safe return to work when the pandemic abates.
Oracle Journeys comes with a library of step-by-step suggestions for employees to follow for common workplace challenges. The library includes journeys to help employees pursue personal goals, such as career development, as well as professional and administrative tasks specific to their particular role in the organization.
Beyond the library of standard journeys, the application also allows HR advisors to create tailored guidance for employees working in specific organizations, fields of expertise, and geographies. The journeys go well beyond routine HR matters to help employees pursue personal goals, such as seeking promotions.
“When we think about an enterprise employee experience platform, it really is about helping guide employees, managers, and associates through a number of steps to simplify their day-to-day work activities,” Leone says. ”What we’re delivering is not focused just on HR. It’s focused on a broader set of capabilities that can cut across the enterprise.”
The new Oracle Journeys tool incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) to tailor specific journeys—and the recommended steps within each journey—to the needs of individual employees, helping them save time and improve their productivity at work. Employees can access and complete their journeys on any device including desktop, mobile, chat applications, or Oracle Digital Assistant.
There are three main components of Oracle Journeys:
Journeys LaunchPad, a self-service workspace that hosts the journeys an individual has chosen, those assigned by a manager, and those recommended by AI, such as a “New Manager Journey” for recently promoted employees.
Journeys Creator, where users can build their own journeys by adapting prebuilt journey templates. This feature helps managers quickly design journeys such as “Manage My Expenses” or “Launch a New Product” that can meet company requirements, policies, and brand guidelines without additional coding. They can then assign the journeys to workers across the organization. Available templates include onboarding, return to the workplace, parental leave, relocation, illness or injury, and return from leave.
Journeys Booster can integrate an individual employee’s journeys to other company and third-party computer systems, such as ones for financial management, facilities management, career listings, and other work systems employees need to finish their journeys.
Oracle Journeys “will make HR teams the hub of innovation,” says Leone. “They’ll drive a lot of simplicity into their business and allow their workers to be more productive in getting their jobs done.”
To watch a replay of the Oracle HCM Virtual Summit, click here.
Previously posted on Oracle’s Diversity & Inclusion Blog here
By Mark Jackley
Copywriter, Brand and Content Marketing
This week, Oracle joined organizations throughout the world to promote workplaces that actively include people with disabilities.
It’s part of a global movement launched by The Valuable 500, a nonprofit that puts disability on the business leadership agenda. Oracle CEO Safra Catz signed the group’s statement, which declares, “Disability is our business.” Oracle now belongs to a powerful coalition: 500 companies with $8 trillion in combined revenue and 20 million employees working in 36 countries.
As a member of The Valuable 500, Oracle embraces specific goals: to table disability on the board agenda, make one firm commitment to action, and share our commitment to The Valuable 500 via social media and other channels.
Two years ago, The Valuable 500 launched its campaign to get 500 national and multinational businesses to be “the tipping point for change” and tap into the business value of 1.3 billion people worldwide living with disabilities. This week, the group reached the 500 milestone, noting, “This is only the beginning, and now is the time to celebrate how far we’ve come.”
“At Oracle, we believe innovation starts with inclusion and the need for people with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and abilities,” said Traci Wade, senior director, diversity and inclusion, Oracle. “We are proud to join the companies and leaders in The Valuable 500 to help break down barriers and increase opportunities.”
This is a syndicated post. Please find the original post here.
By Alex Chan, Writer, Brand and Content Marketing
June 19 is Juneteenth—the day in 1865 when approximately 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas to declare more than 250,000 formerly enslaved people emancipated by executive order. More than 150 years later, Juneteenth’s historical significance has culminated in the establishment of a new national holiday: Juneteenth National Independence Day.
Next year, Oracle colleagues will mark the day together as an official paid holiday for United States employees. But today, Black colleagues and allies throughout Oracle see an opportunity for a reckoning and reflection on this crucial moment in American history.
“I would like everyone to understand the historic opportunity Juneteenth represents to bring all Americans together to promote greater understanding of freedom, racial reconciliation, and healing from the legacy of slavery,” said Desiree Terrell, senior principal technical support engineer at Oracle.
Jared Williams, a UX researcher at Oracle, explains that regardless of the holiday’s federal status, colleagues should understand how systemic inequity in the US has direct ties to enslavement. Having the consciousness to interrogate one’s actions, values, and perceptions could shift systems that are inherently inequitable, he states.
“I’d want us to collectively see the celebration of Juneteenth as some deeper call to action toward an aspirational, more equitable future,” Williams said.
Reckoning with history
That call to action rings through 16 decades of American history. In 1863, as the US entered its third year of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which states that “persons held as slaves” would be free in the successionist states.
But after the end of the Civil War, news of the Emancipation Proclamation needed to travel through the former Confederacy. It took more than two years for that news to spread and to be enforced, causing enslaved people in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas to remain in bondage until well after the end of the war. On June 19, 1865, approximately 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas to declare that more than 250,000 Black citizens were now free by executive decree. This day is known as Juneteenth.
“I would like my colleagues to know that June 19th is the day that African-Americans celebrate freedom,” says Terrell.
For years, Oracle’s employee resource group Alliance of Black Leaders for Excellence (ABLE) has commemorated the day with various activities. This year, ABLE Austin issued a Juneteenth Challenge, beginning on Thursday with a two-mile walk/run and continuing through to Saturday with the promotion of Black-owned business and support of Black nonprofit organizations through Oracle MyGiving. Additionally, ABLE national and the ABLE Colorado chapter invited guests to join an interactive online session to discuss the historical significance of Juneteenth.
For allies, Juneteenth represents an opportunity to learn about a history that had not necessarily been freely told. Tyler Mangum, a principal user researcher at Oracle, explains the limits of his own awareness to the challenges that his peers face as people of color. For example, Mangum, who grew up in Oregon where Black home ownership was prohibited until 1926, had been for too long unaware of his state’s Black exclusion laws.
“When I think of Juneteenth today, for me it’s a reminder that I need to be an active ally,” says Mangum. “It’s a constant reminder that listening and understanding are the most powerful tools we have.”
This is a syndicated post. Please find the original here.
Groundbreakers talks to developers about Hackmakers World Innovation Day
By Jim Grisanzio | June 2021
Jason Lowe, Jim Grisanzio, and Franco Ucci. May 2021.
For 72 hours in mid-April, four thousand developers, mentors, and support staff from more than 100 countries virtually gathered for Hackmakers World Innovation Day to build solutions to help people. The event was sponsored by Oracle in collaboration with UNESCO and UNEP in support of some of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
As Franco Ucci, senior director for Oracle Cloud Platform Strategy for Australia and New Zealand explains, the projects focus on health, education, and economic growth. All of these areas have experienced serious challenges since 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Franco also outlined some of the important activities that led up to the event, such as meetings with UNESCO and United Nations officials about human rights, displaced refugees, and bioethics.
“It went from being inspiring to realizing we’ve got a sense of responsibility with what we’ve got,” Franco said.
In another conversation, Jason Lowe, master cloud specialist engineer at Oracle (and a longtime hackathon participant), talks about his own experiences at this event and other previous hackathons. He’s excited about the diversity of people involved in Hackmakers World Innovation Day and the skills they brought to the event. He believes hackathons represent an educational continuum for people in development communities—which turn a short, high-pressure development project into long-term relationships and learning.
Some of the technologies developers were able to leverage to enable their projects include Oracle Database, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and Oracle Application Express (APEX). And dozens of Oracle employees were involved as well as mentors, developers, and facilitators from multiple countries.
Enjoy these first two conversations—more are coming soon!
