Oracle’s suite of products not only saves time and money on the timekeeping, absence management and payroll process for the University of Wyoming’s 8,000 employees, but has also transformed how staffers recruit, hire, train and review workers.
“Hiring was based on the minimum job requirements and on knowledge, skills and abilities,” says Mark Bercheni, interim associate vice president of human resources. “Training was free-form with your supervisor. Performance was based on goals and job duties.”
Today, job profiles include required competencies, which are the basis for recruiting, training and performance reviews. “These competencies flow through most of the employee’s life cycle,” Bercheni says. “We didn’t have anything like that before Oracle.”
Phase-in, buy-in are key
The different modules, starting with financial tracking and reporting, were phased in over two years. “The project took longer to complete that way, but we were able to introduce changes in small, manageable doses. Communication was also key to getting campus buy-in,” Bercheni adds. “Without it, implementation would have been much harder.”
Feedback before and during implementation played an important role as well.
‘Different perspectives’
“We brought in campus users to help with configuration and testing,” Bercheni says. “We, of course, saw things from an HR, payroll and finance perspective, but we got entirely different perspectives on how things should work, and we developed business processes based on that input.
“We have competencies that flow through most of the employee’s life cycle. We didn’t have anything like that before Oracle.”
“Communication across campus has changed as a result,” Bercheni says, “and that’s better for us.”
‘More streamlined and efficient’
To appreciate Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM)’s impact on the University of Wyoming staff, one need only look at the process of submitting a student employee’s time sheet before and after implementation of the cloud-based system.
Before, an employee would print a time sheet, complete the document by hand, and sign it so his boss Laura Shevling, senior director of financial systems and business optimization at the university, could sign it. Shevling would bring the document across campus to the university timekeeper, who would key the student’s hours into his computer, print a new time sheet, sign it, and have the waiting Shevling sign it to validate that the hours were entered correctly. “That was for one student worker, twice a month. We have some units, like residence life and dining, with hundreds of student employees,” Shevling says.
After implementing HCM Cloud, “My student worker now logs in, enters his time, and routes his time sheet to me for approval,” says Shevling. “It’s way more streamlined and efficient.”
For more information, please visit education.oracle.com
