PREPARING FOR RECOVERYHow HR directors can plan for economic growth

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Abstract

Europe on the Brink of Recovery

Addressing the impact of the downturn

The Changing Role of HR

Oracle Fusion HCM: A Cloud-Based HR System for the Modern Enterprise

Preparing for Recovery with Oracle Fusion HCM

Making a Rapid Transition to Oracle Fusion HCM with Wipro SprintHR

Abstract

As Europe stands poised for economic recovery, opportunities are emerging for

businesses that can move fast to capitalise on the early signs of growth. But first,

they must move fast to address the weaknesses caused by five or more years

of economic stagnation, and which have put many companies at a competitive

disadvantage compared to newer startups and competitors from more dynamic

economies.

HR has a key role to play in addressing those weaknesses and ensuring that the

workforce is in good shape to compete and succeed in the new, global, social

and real-time world. But first, HR must get its own house in order and ensure

that it has the right tools, capabilities and data in place to be able to support the

business in its growth initiatives.

This white paper reviews the impact of the downturn on the European

workforce and the European HR function, and explores what HR leaders across

the continent need to do now to prepare their organisation rapidly for growth.

It finds that HR will be unable to succeed in this endeavour without modern

tools for talent management, HR service delivery and workforce analytics.

It proposes Oracle Fusion HCM in the cloud as a fast and cost-effective solution

to these shortcomings, and sets out how Wipro can help European organisations

to move to Oracle Fusion HCM quickly and effectively in order to create a solid

foundation for people management in the new economic era.

03

A diminished workforce:

While many businesses have done their best to hold on to staff throughout the

downturn, layoffs – and the accompanying loss of talent – have been inevitable.

An ageing workforce:

Feelings of financial insecurity have led older workers to stay in their jobs rather

than take retirement, while low growth has meant low levels of recruitment of

younger workers.

Outdated skills:

Reduced investment in training, coupled with lower levels of recruitment –

especially of younger workers with new, digital-economy skills – has caused the

internal skill base to remain static while businesses in more vibrant economies

have advanced.

Obsolescent technologies:

Budget cuts have led to organisations hanging on to legacy systems and outdated

technologies for longer than they would have liked, with the result that many

are simply not technologically equipped to conduct business on today’s terms.

Inflexible modes of working:

Companies that have failed to invest in technology have missed the opportunity

to adopt new, more agile modes of working that increase productivity while

reducing costs, such as mobile, remote and virtual working and real-time

collaboration.

‘Old-fashioned’ culture:

Many organisations have stuck to what they know best, failing to adapt their

culture to attract younger and more ambitious workers with modern workplace

and career expectations.

Traditional business models under threat:

In industries ranging from media and entertainment to finance, retail and

manufacturing, entire business models are fast becoming unviable as new

entrants harness new technologies to turn traditional ways of doing things on

their head.

Addressing the impact of the downturn

Europe on the Brink of Recovery

For European businesses, getting ready to capitalise on those opportunities means moving fast to address internal weaknesses caused by five or more years of economic stagnation. Those include:

In August 2013 there was good news at last for the Eurozone: a 0.3% growth in

GDP during the second quarter that brought the region out of recession. The

growth was not dramatic and certainly not evenly distributed, but economists

agree that these figures signal a turning point, and that the fortunes of the

battered Euro area may finally be on the rise.

Cautious optimism is also the prevailing mood in the UK, where second-quarter

2013 figures showed a better than expected 0.7% increase in GDP. While

serious problems remain in Southern Europe, 2014 growth forecasts for the UK

(2.3%1), France (0.9%2) and Germany (1.5%3) look encouraging.

What’s becoming clear is that there are opportunities emerging for businesses

that can move fast to capitalise on the early signs of recovery, particularly as

demand picks up again in developing countries4.

1 CBI UK Economic Forecast, August 2013 2 French Finance Ministry, September 20133 Deutsche Bundesbank, monthly report, June 2013 4 World Bank, Global Economic Prospects, June 2013

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As the economy starts to recover, European companies urgently need to

modernise in order to compete in a world that has moved on, culturally,

technologically and demographically, from pre-crisis years.

That modernisation may take different forms, depending on the individual

business. Some organisations will seek to achieve it through merger or

acquisition, while others will look to restructure the business and workforce

to focus on growth areas – even to the extent of completely cannibalising the

existing business model and starting afresh with a new approach.

Some operations may be outsourced, while some currently-outsourced

operations may be brought back in house. Operations may be moved to

different geographies to take advantage of labour costs or access to local pools

of talent. Recruitment efforts will likely be internationalised, to tap into a global

talent pool that’s increasingly unfettered by geography and willing to work

anywhere.

HR has a critical role to play in this modernisation, by ensuring that the company

has the skills, knowledge, capacity and leadership talent it needs to shake off its

legacy constraints and move fast to capitalise on new opportunities.

The changing role of HR

But if senior management want to move fast, HR will have to move even faster, if

it is to get the right talent, organisational culture and working processes in place

to ensure the success of new initiatives.

That won’t be easy, not least because the HR function itself has been a victim

of the downturn. At many large European businesses, HR has been at the back

of the queue for IT systems upgrades, leaving it to struggle on with software

systems that date from the late 1990s or early 2000s.

Those systems are predominantly administrative and transactional in nature,

leaving the HR function spectacularly ill-equipped to play the strategic and

advisory role that CEOs now expect of it.

Without new systems capable of creating, managing and developing a modern,

agile and increasingly global workforce, and without data to provide accurate

and meaningful insight into skills, talent and risks, HR will find it hard to break

free of its traditional, administrative role.

It’s a frustration that’s already being felt by HR directors and CEOs of European

firms alike. A 2012 study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit found

that only one in 10 CEOs in Western Europe believes their head of HR is a ‘key

player’ in strategic planning, while 42% say the HR director is ‘too focused on

process’ and 36% say he or she doesn’t understand the business well enough.

Meanwhile, in AonHewitt’s 2012 HR Barometer survey5, the majority of

European HR directors who took the survey said they were failing to meet

business expectations in as many as 15 key areas. Those areas included work-life

balance programmes, mapping and management of competencies, HR metric

tools and managing inter-generational diversity.

Top Five Challenges for European HR Directors in 2015

1. Managing talent

2. Managing demographics

3. Becoming a learning organisation

4. Managing work-life balance

5. Managing change and cultural transformation

5 AonHewitt with the European Club for Human Resources, 7th Annual European HR Barometer, 2012

Source: Boston Consulting Group, The Future of HR in Europe: Key Challenges Through 2015

HR’s inability to meet business needs as the economy recovers poses a serious

risk to the organisation’s ability to take advantage of returning growth. Specifically,

problems are likely to occur in the following areas:

Brain drain:

During the downturn, many employees have stayed in their current job for fear

of not being able to find another job elsewhere. Now, with growth returning,

there is a risk that many talented workers will leave for pastures new.

(Conversely, this also opens up opportunities for firms that can identify and

recruit talented workers who are leaving their current job – but with the

increased cost of recruiting vs. retaining staff.)

Replacing retirees:

Similarly, those who chose to stay longer in work may now feel more financially

secure and able to retire, leaving HR with the challenge of recruiting replacements

from a very different generation.

Strategic insight:

The downturn has made C-level executives more risk-averse, with the result

that they are leaning on the business to provide more data about capabilities

and risks before making a decision to act. HR directors are already feeling

pressure to answer complex questions about the workforce, for example about

the availability and mobility of key people and skills, that they are unequipped

to answer – at least not without a great deal of time-consuming investigation.

Employee engagement:

Five or more years of no or low growth have seen real wages decline in relation

to the cost of living, leaving many employees demotivated and disaffected. HR

has a key role to play in re-motivating the workforce, but needs the right tools

and levers to help.

Talent management:

In an increasingly globalised and knowledge-driven economy, the ability to

identify, recruit, develop, nurture and deploy the right talent will be crucial to

success. Organisations that can’t do these things effectively risk losing out to

those that can.

Organisational culture:

The internet and social media have made it much easier for employees to see

what workplace culture is like at other companies. As growth picks up and more

organisations start to hire, there’s a risk of key talent leaving for companies that

have a more attractive culture – whether in terms of benefits, flexible working,

social and ethical commitments, access to new technologies and ideas, career

development opportunities or opportunities to innovate, travel or work overseas

HR has made great strides to address these issues. The past few years have seen

a concerted effort to transform HR into a strategic partner and advisor to the

business. In particular, many organisations have now completed the transition to

the ‘business partnering’ model pioneered by Dave Ulrich, which brings HR into

much closer alignment with the business and its goals.

Additionally, Aberdeen Group recently found that 73% of the medium and large

organisations it surveyed had implemented a shared service centre for HR, to

handle low-level administrative processes via self-service and/or a dedicated HR

helpdesk . Shared service centres are enjoying a second wave of popularity as

mobile devices and social media technologies make HR self-service an increasingly

viable proposition.

While these developments have helped to elevate HR out of its traditional

administrative role, there are still significant barriers holding HR back from

fulfilling its true strategic potential. One major obstacle is the lack of modern tools

and systems. Legacy HR systems from previous decades have served HR well in

terms of automating administrative processes like payroll and benefits. But the

people management needs of the modern enterprise are far more complex and

sophisticated, and require new HR systems designed for a global, social, real-time

and knowledge-driven era.

In the next section, we’ll introduce Oracle Fusion HCM; a suite of HR applications

designed from the ground up to meet the needs and challenges of HR directors

in organisations that urgently need to move and evolve with the times.

“Workers want opportunities for continued learning; performance related bonuses; opportunities to work internationally; flexibility to work on different teams; and career planning. Yet these are all benefits that most feel their own company is negligent in providing.” C-level perspectives of the HR function in Western Europe, Economist Intelligence Unit, 2012

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6Aberdeen Group, The Next Frontier of HR Shared Services, July 2012

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Oracle Fusion HCM: A Cloud-Based HR System for the Modern Enterprise

Oracle Fusion HCM is a complete and modular suite of HR applications for the

new era of business. The result of five years of consultation and co-development

with more than 1,700 HR professionals and industry experts, it combines

administrative and strategic functionality in a single, powerful and intuitive

software system.

Oracle Fusion HCM offers the following benefits to organisations looking to

modernise the HR function quickly and cost-effectively:

Cloud-based software:

Oracle Fusion HCM is available to deploy on-premise or in the cloud, with the

latter option providing significant advantages in terms of speed of implementation

and cost-effectiveness. With no software licenses or hardware to buy, Oracle

Fusion HCM can be up and running rapidly in the cloud with no capital outlay.

Comprehensive functionality:

Oracle Fusion HCM has everything that the modern HR function needs to

manage day-to-day HR processes and provide valuable, strategic support to

employees, managers and senior management. Key functional components of

Oracle Fusion HCM include:

• Global Core Human Capital Management: A single, global system of record with

country-specific capabilities that enable regional operations and local compliance.

Oracle Global Core HCM comprises fully-integrated modules to manage

employee records, payroll, benefits and workforce lifecycle management.

• Workforce Service Delivery: An advanced set of social, collaborative

applications that enable each employee to access relevant HR information

for their role, experience, language, and operational requirements. Oracle

Workforce Service Delivery includes Oracle Network at Work; an internal

social network that enables employees to create profiles, find and collaborate

with other people within their organisation, and raise their internal profile

through public feedback.

• Talent Management: Formerly Taleo, Oracle Fusion HCM Talent Management

enables organisations to create an outstanding employer brand and to attract,

retain, and motivate a superior workforce. It includes powerful, modern

functionality for recruiting, goal management, performance management,

talent review and workforce compensation.

• HR Analytics: Oracle Human Resources Analytics Fusion Edition provides

HR professionals and line managers with all of the information and insights

they need to run their business. Embedded analytics, dashboards and reports

provide real-time visibility into key metrics and measurements from key HR

and financial systems, for fast, informed and accurate decision-making.

Continuous upgrades:

Organisations running Oracle Fusion HCM in the cloud automatically benefit

from new functionality as soon as it’s rolled out, with minimal impact on the

business in terms of budget and resource.

Advanced configurability:

Oracle Fusion HCM is highly configurable to the needs, processes, structure

and terminology of the individual customer organisation, with no need for

expensive and hard-to-upgrade customisation.

Talent management:

With the latest functionality for recruiting and internal talent management,

including social sourcing, employee referrals, talent analytics and extensive

capabilities for developing, motivating and compensating employees.

Employee engagement:

With comprehensive functionality to support managers and employees in

creating meaningful career development plans, setting goals and reviewing

performance, tailoring compensation and benefits, finding new and exciting

opportunities within the organisation, making connections, and raising employees’

profiles with peers, managers and senior management.

Strategic insight:

With unprecedented access to data about the workforce and analytics to make

that data meaningful, HR directors can contribute to strategic planning and

quickly answer questions from senior management on everything from skills

availability and succession planning to who are the organisation’s star performers

and who is at risk of leaving.

Of the hundreds of organisations that have implemented Oracle Fusion HCM

in the cloud, those that have been able to make the best use of its benefits are

those that have worked with an expert partner to identify and implement the

best configuration for the organisation’s needs.

In the next section we’ll look at how Wipro’s SprintHR methodology is ideally

placed to help European organisations get the full benefit of Oracle Fusion

HCM in the cloud in a very rapid timeframe.

Preparing for Recovery with Oracle Fusion HCM

With Oracle Fusion HCM, HR directors in European organisations can very quickly gain the capabilities they need to prepare for economic recovery. Specifically, Oracle Fusion HCM enables huge advances in the areas of:

“The social generations are reshaping companies from the inside, helping them to build broader, more agile networks to create and deliver value to customers. Mobility and connectedness will be at the heart of the future business environment: communications and marketing are moving from a focus on one-to-one relationships, to many-to-many.”Thomas Malnight and Tracey Keys, The Global Trends Report 2012

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Making a Rapid Transition to Oracle Fusion HCM with Wipro SprintHR

Combined with our widespread expertise in implementing cloud-based software

systems, and our track record of working on 30+ major HR modernisation

projects, that insight has enabled us to create a complete methodology for a

rapid and effective implementation of Oracle Fusion HCM in the cloud.

Wipro SprintHR enables HR directors to very quickly identify what the

organisation needs from a new HR system, and to reflect those needs accurately

in a fast-track configuration and rollout of the Oracle software.

With its focused approach and use of pre-configured best-practice processes learned

from many previous projects, Wipro SprintHR enables HR directors to get the right

functionality to take the business forward, without any of the delays and distractions

commonly associated with large-scale enterprise application implementations.

Wipro SprintHR for Oracle Fusion HCM can help HR directors to get the right

configuration of Oracle Fusion HCM in the following ways:

The right processes:

One of the great advantages of Oracle Fusion HCM is the opportunity

it provides to update HR processes for the modern age. Our experts

work alongside you to review and challenge current business processes, to

identify how they can be improved, streamlined and augmented. The agreed

processes can then be rapidly configured in Oracle Fusion HCM, using our

accelerators and pre-configured best-practice templates where it makes sense

to do so.

The right data:

Any HR system is only as good as the data that’s in it, especially when it comes

to conducting meaningful workforce analytics. Our technical experts will ensure

that all legacy data is clean, accurate and up to date before it’s carried over into

the Oracle Fusion HCM system.

The right implementation approach:

Using a highly efficient, Agile approach, our SprintHR team will work with you

to implement, test and refine the Oracle Fusion HCM implementation on an

iterative basis, making rapid changes to ensure business needs are met. Once the

software is up and running, we will conduct post-go-live tests, training and any

stabilisation initiatives before handing over a fully working system.

The right rollout schedule:

With Oracle Fusion HCM in the cloud, you can either move to the new system

in one ‘big-bang’ switchover, or incrementally to suit your business needs and

priorities.

We will work with you to understand your requirements and to identify

the combination of Oracle Fusion HCM modules and functionality that best

addresses them. We’ll then develop a rollout schedule that enables you to

achieve your goals in the desired timescales, and to ensure that the right project

plan and stage gates are in place to ensure everything happens on time.

The right approach to change management:

Although Oracle Fusion HCM is a highly intuitive and user-friendly system,

it is still a powerful and comprehensive enterprise application with many

options and functions. Given that it is rolled out in a fraction of the time of a

typical ERP application, the accompanying change management programme

needs to be rapid and effective. As part of the SprintHR engagement, we

ensure the changeover is completed swiftly and smoothly, with regular update

communications to all stakeholders, rapid feedback gathering and iterative

changes to the Fusion HCM Cloud configuration, and rapid user acceptance

testing. We will then analyse user uptake and take any action necessary to

ensure full user adoption of the new system.

As a result of the SprintHR engagement, the organisation can very quickly take

immediate advantage of a powerful, modern HR and talent management system

that is fully configured to support HR professionals, employees, managers and

senior management alike in achieving the organisation’s goals.

The ability to gain rapid access to modern HR functionality puts the organisation

at a major competitive advantage in terms of being able to attract, retain, manage,

deploy and develop the talent needed to address the opportunities presented

by a recovering economy.

As a co-development partner with Oracle, Wipro has been instrumental in specifying and optimising much of the functionality that exists within Oracle Fusion HCM.

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