Need to do more with less – Do a PeopleSoft Upgrade?
Your organization may be freezing hiring or even laying people off, all designed to shrink the size of your workforce. Will the amount of work shrink as well? You probably already know the answer so I will not depress you further by writing it here. Sure, you may be able to squeeze some marginal improvement out of working people harder but is that where the quantum improvements lie? No, major advancements come from where they almost always have come from during the last several decades: Automation.
Justifying your upgrade may not be so easy this year. All one needs do is sit for a bit and read any national newspaper to see why. Nevertheless, I was reminded recently that PeopleSoft applications were originally created not just to attract money from customers but also to provide real productivity improvements.
Brian McIntyre,of Work Strategy talked passionately recently at Quest SE about the productive value of upgrading your PeopleSoft applications and gave some well seasoned advice, too. You can request a copy of the presentation by visiting the website.
How could an upgrade make your organization more productive?
• Know your workforce better through profiling (Profile Management)
• Cut administration through making employees more self-reliant (ePay, eTime, eProfile, more)
• Tie your workforce to specific and measureable performance goals (ePerformance)
• Empower first line managers (Manager Self Service)
• Enable quick and efficient approvals when needed (AWE – Approval Workflow Engine)
Acknowledging the IT Leadership Gap
Earlier this week I caught a TV interview given by Philip Bond, President & CEO of the Information Technology Association of America.
…talked about the expectations of the information technology sector over the technology proposals of incoming President-Elect Barack Obama. Issues included cyber security, broadband deployment, web technology, and creation of a chief technology officer for the country. Topics included the new make-up of the 111th Congress and legislation and issues important to the information technology (IT) world.
One of those issues Phil mentioned is the impending departure of much of the government’s IT workforce. About one-third of federal career employees on board at the end of fiscal year 2007 are eligible to retire between now and 2012. About 42% of the Federal workforce is now over 50 years of age.
These may not just be people who do work even though that is important. These may just be people who provide critical leadership on key projects. Is not some serious effort at retention justified?
PeopleSoft ePerf drives productivity at Honda
Workforce productivity is more important now that at any point in recent memory. Just read the financial pages or the front pages for that matter and you will see that now is no time to be behind the productivity curve. Maybe it is time to make your current workforce the best it can be. Honda of American acted on that realization a while back and achieved results like this,
…Honda Marysville plant tops in…productivity.., in part by developing and deploying PeopleSoft’s ePerformance system.
Matt Myers and Lori Freshwater from Honda told us all about it last week at Quest Southeast in Atlanta. Hopefully, their presentation entitled PeopleSoft ePerformance: Driving Performance Management at Honda will be posted at the Quest International Users site before too long.
Why did Honda of America choose to automate Performance Management using ePerf?
• Supports best practice elements of HAM’s PPR process (Goal Setting, Mid-year review, Year- end review, Two-way communication)
• Integrates competencies into goal setting process
• Allows associates to tie development goals to performance goals, and performance goals to company initiatives
• Provides “real-time”metrics on the status of completions
• Allows associates to document their perspective and acknowledge that meetings were held with supervisors
Can organizations really afford any more to run a manual performance management process? Is it time to invest in automation? Look for more on this topic in future posts.
PeopleSoft lives on at Quest Southeast
Last week I attended the Quest Southeast Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Before attending the conference I asked a question.
Will the PeopleSoft Enterprise suite continue to receive plenty of support?
The resounding answer is Yes!
Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus. And Yes, there will be vibrant PeopleSoft products available forever! Well, maybe forever is an overstatement but it does look like our favorite applications suite will be around for a number of years.
Marc Weintraub, Director of PeopleSoft Product Strategy, gave an excellent presentation entitled PeopleSoft Applications & Investment Strategy. Marc covered much ground both functionally and technically. On the technical side one can definitely see Oracle’s strong commitment to web 2.0 including collaboration, tags, threaded discussions, wikis, and imbedded analytics. All these and more will be featured in the upcoming PeopleTools 8.5 release. These new technologies will not be just fancy add-ons but will be put to good use enhancing the functional side. Marc’s slides did show some bona fide improvements in the user experience that many current customers will find attractive. Hint! Hint! Much of it is already well into the testing phases so look for something from Oracle before 2009 gets too long in the tooth.
Stay tuned for more insights from the Quest Southeast conference.
Making a Quest to Atlanta
For some very strange reason I always think of Monty Python whenever I see or hear the word Quest. No, I do not believe the Holy Grail can be found in Atlanta this week but I do think quite a bit of Oracle PeopleSoft knowledge will be available for the strong of heart at the Quest Southeast Conference.
I will be making my way way down south to find out first-hand Oracle’s plans for the future. Will the PeopleSoft Enterprise suite continue to receive plenty of support? What new and interesting enhancements are forthcoming in 2009? I expect some guidance to be given and I will be sharing that guidance and my insights in upcoming postings.
Lastly, I have a speaking slot this week. My presentation, entitled Should blogging be in your HR Future: Hard lessons from a blog creator, can be found [here]. If you cannot attend please take a look and let me know what you think. Your wise opinions are always respected.
All you need (now) is PeopleTools 8.49
The release of PeopleTools 8.5 is now scheduled for 2009>>. Is this delay until 2009 a tragedy? Most likely not. In future postings I will be taking a closer look at PeopleTools 8.5; a release that promises to deliver many new web 2.0 features. PeopleTools is not withering on the vine. On the contrary, PeopleTools will be a vital technical environment for many years to come.
In my opinion there are a lot of customers who are still in the process of digesting the current release. All they need now is PeopleTools 8.49.
The present state of Oracle PeopleSoft technology is nothing of which to be embarrassed. The cumulative improvements since 8.40>> have really been quite impressive. Many of the old problems have been fixed and many new capabilities have been added. SOA, BI (XML) Publisher, and a modernized Integration Broker are just a few of the many improvements that have been made to the product.
Why wait for 8.5 when most of what you really need is in the current release?