The Oracle Cloud Workforce Management system lies at the forefront of revolutionizing how businesses connect enterprise employee data from multiple sources and manage their most valuable asset—their people.
As an integral component of the Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud suite, Oracle Workforce Management offers a comprehensive set of tools to address the intricacies of workforce planning, time and labor management, and absence tracking.
In this article, we’ll discuss the critical features and functionalities of Oracle Workforce Management, how it empowers organizations to navigate the complexities of workforce management, and where our team of Oracle consultants can fit in your organization.
What is Workforce Management?
A workforce management (WFM) solution is designed to help organizations automate, streamline, and optimize business processes that track and manage worker time, enable employee and manager self-service functionality, and ensure enterprise employee data is collected accurately and efficiently.
Here are a few critical components of modern workforce management systems:
- Absence management: Enables customers to monitor and manage employee absenteeism, reduce risks and costs associated with absenteeism, and maintain compliance with global leave regulations and requirements.
- Time and labor: Provides improved visibility and control over the employee experience and ensures compliance with labor laws and labor union agreements.
- Health and safety: Simplifies the entire process of managing environmental health and safety incidents, including capturing critical data, reporting, determining the root cause of incidents, and monitoring health and safety trends over time.
Common Challenges Associated with Traditional Workforce Management Solutions
Here’s a closer look at a few of the most common workforce management challenges:
Accurate worker representation
Represented workers typically benefit from higher wages and better employee benefits packages, but maintaining compliance with represented worker regulations can be challenging without a comprehensive workforce management solution.
To adequately understand and monitor the complexity of the requirements for seniority, benefits, eligibility, absence, and pay entitlements and manage contract rules, organizations need an end-to-end workforce management system like Oracle.
Efficient time tracking
A common challenge organizations face with traditional time and labor systems involves the lack of integrity of the data from the master human resources (HR) system, typically resulting in unnecessary payroll costs and a greater burden on administrative staff.
As time tracking and payroll affect nearly every employee in an organization, customers must ensure their time management tools have the right functionality to manage and transfer time and attendance data between systems and ensure employees are paid correctly.
Reliable absence management system
Organizations often face increased costs, reduced productivity, and inefficient workforce processes without an accurate and reliable absence management system. They’re forced to address diverse and complex requirements that arise from managing global absence policies and are challenged by the unique requirements in regions and countries across the globe.
Oracle provides intuitive tools that enable users to improve reporting for critical absence data and minimize obstacles so that employees can quickly and easily report health and safety issues.
Key Components of the Oracle Workforce Management System
The Oracle WFM solution is designed to integrate seamlessly with other modules within the Oracle HCM Cloud suite, creating a unified platform for managing various aspects of the employee lifecycle, improving decision-making, and optimizing workforce resources for organizational success.
Here are the main components of Oracle’s Workforce Management application:
Absence Management
- Configure absence rules, policies, and accrual definitions without modifying core application code
- Track absence trends to identify areas of lower productivity and reduce total costs
- Manage absences across a global landscape and align with industry best practices
- Enable real-time visibility into core HR, payroll, absence, and time and labor metrics
Workforce Scheduling
- Maintain compliance with complex scheduling requirements and predictability metrics
- Gain visibility into labor demand data and variances to create optimal, aligned schedules
- Allow users to determine shift schedules and swaps through intuitive self-scheduling functionality
- Leverage a unified interface to manage employee schedules and improve productivity and engagement across teams
Time and Labor Management
- Utilize drag-and-drop tools to enter data through daily, weekly, or monthly calendars
- Enable flexible scheduling to plan shifts around holiday calendars and different shift types
- Support all worker classifications, including full-time, exempt, nonexempt, and project-based
- Ensure data integrity and unification across the primary HR system and critical HR processes
Labor Optimization
- Leverage AI functionality to automate shift creation and assign the right people to each task
- Integrate HCM, ERP, SCM, and other industry-specific data to generate employee schedules
- Prioritize business needs, like FTE hours and best skill fit, by level of demand
Workforce Health and Safety
- Prevent costly incidents by managing data captured in unsafe conditions or acts
- Improve incident reporting through pre-built templates, autocompleted fields, and mobile access
- Leverage safety dashboards and KPIs to gain visibility into incident trends and patterns
- Immediately alert HR teams and other key stakeholders to prevent incidents and reduce exposure
Top 5 Advantages of Oracle’s Workforce Management Solution
Here’s a closer look at a few of the main advantages of Oracle Workforce Management:
Efficient Workforce Planning
Oracle WFM enables organizations to align workforce resources with business needs and ensures the right personnel with the right skills are available to meet organizational goals and enhance overall operational efficiency.
Comprehensive Absence Management
The Oracle Workforce Management platform offers robust absence management features, allowing organizations to track employee leaves, absences, and time-off policies effectively and maintain compliance with workforce health and safety regulations.
Accurate Time and Labor Management
Oracle WFM automates time tracking and labor data collection, reducing the likelihood of errors and facilitating precise payroll processing, compliance with labor regulations, and efficient resource utilization.
Enhanced Compliance and Reporting
The Oracle WFM solution helps organizations adhere to labor regulations and industry compliance standards by providing reporting and analytics tools that offer insights into workforce performance, trends, and compliance metrics.
Integrated Mobile Access
Oracle Workforce Management offers mobile access, allowing employees and managers to access workforce management features on the go. With Oracle Mobile Workforce Management functionality, users can enhance flexibility, gain real-time visibility into workforce data, and support timely decision-making.
How Can We Help?
Whether you need help finding the best workforce management solution for your unique organizational needs, additional support implementing Oracle’s fully integrated HR solution, or just an extra hand getting started on your journey with Oracle, Surety Systems is here to help.
Our senior-level Oracle consultant team has the skills, experience, and proven track record to handle all your critical project needs and maximize the potential of your core HR systems in the long run.
Partnering with the Best
Interested in learning more about the Oracle Workforce Scheduling or Absence Management application to track personnel data and ensure workforce health? Ready to get started on a project with our team of expert Oracle consultants?
Contact us today for more information!
