Oracle vaunts ME as employee experience platform geared to post-crisis workforce realities
Oracle has launched an employee experience platform, dubbed ME, said to be designed for post-Covid, individualistic pandemic workforce trends
Oracle has announced an employee experience platform, dubbed ME, designed to meet the needs of workers rethinking what they want from the world of work as a consequence of the pandemic lockdowns.
Oracle ME is described, in a statement from the supplier, as “a complete employee experience platform to help organisations increase employee engagement and ensure employee success”.
It is part of Oracle’s Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM) product suite.
Yvette Cameron, senior vice-president of global product strategy for Oracle Cloud HCM, told Computer Weekly, in an interview in advance of the launch: “Employee experience [software] needs to be different because people are different. The way we work is drastically different to a few years ago, so employee experience, as a category, needs to reflect that.
“Oracle ME is the only end-to-end employee experience platform in the market that is built natively into a cloud HCM platform, and that understands how the individual relates to their organisation, can truly personalise those experiences with relevant contextual information to guide them end to end. Because it is built into the Oracle Cloud platform, it is easily configured by HR, who can proactively modify and respond to required changes, in terms of policies or regulations, on the fly as their workforce needs change. Control is back in the hands of HR to manage communications and interactions in a way that is totally private.”
Cameron said competitor platforms, such as Microsoft Viva, launched in February 2021, tend to take a one-size-fits-all approach. “Personalisation is critical,” she said. “Meaningful personalisation requires deep insight into an individual, and that can only come from a unified platform that understands all of your information – your job, your experience, your skills – to give a holistic understanding of you as an individual.”
Cameron, who was at Oracle earlier in her career and has had stints as an industry analyst at Gartner and Constellation Research, rejoined the enterprise software supplier a year and a half ago.
The Great Resignation
She attaches considerable significance to the pandemic-related concept of the Great Resignation, or the Great Reassessment.
“While employee experience has been a hot topic among vendors and organisations for many years, the pandemic accelerated the need to have a truly personalised experience [platform],” said Cameron.
“Employees have been burned out, have felt disconnected from and dissatisfied with the support from their employers. And from an employer’s perspective, their North Star has shifted. They recognise that they need to help individuals to focus on work-life balance, mental health and flexibility. And so, employee experience today requires communication, connection and trust in building the culture of the organisation like never before.”
The launch announcement states that the pandemic years have “changed the game for the global workforce”.
“People’s expectations for what they want and need from their employers have evolved,” it said. “According to the most recent Oracle AI@work study, 85% of the global workforce are not satisfied with their employer’s support for their careers, and 87% believe their organisation should be doing more to listen to the needs of its workforce.”
Read more about employee experience management software
- Microsoft launches Viva as employee experience platform born out of Teams.
- Many paths on quest to build an employee experience platform.
- What is employee experience?
In the statement, Cameron said: “Employees want to feel heard, empowered and part of a culture they believe in. To meet these expectations, organisations need to step up and design experiences that meet the unique needs of their talent – or risk losing them to competitors that do.
“It’s the only complete employee experience platform focused on understanding the ‘me’ behind every worker, providing organisations with new ways to listen to, communicate with, support and develop their hybrid workforce.”
Gareth Abreu, principal technology delivery manager for HCM at The Co-op, is quoted in Oracle’s statement concerning the platform. “One of the keys to creating a positive experience for our employees and managers is helping them take control of their information and their teams,” he said.
“With Oracle solutions like HR Help Desk, Digital Assistant and Experience Design Studio, we’ve been able to help managers complete common tasks like employee transfers in a fraction of the time it took before. Now, they get more time back to focus on adding value to the company.
“We’re very excited about Oracle’s ongoing efforts to improve employee experience with innovations like Journeys [a workflow system] and the entire Oracle ME platform, which will continue to drive the success of our workforce and, therefore, our business.”
Oracle ME is described, by the supplier, as “delivering a better way to work by providing contextual and guided experiences that strengthen workplace relationships and allow employees to provide continuous feedback with their managers”. Oracle ME is also said to “enable managers to track and act on real-time employee sentiment, while helping HR teams deliver personalised employee communications”.
Oracle ME includes
Oracle Touchpoints, an “employee listening solution that helps managers strengthen relationships with their employees and better support workforce wellbeing and success”.
Oracle HCM Communicate, an “employee outreach solution that allows HR teams to design, send, monitor and measure the impact of communications”.
Oracle Journeys, a “workflow solution that simplifies complex tasks with step-by-step processes and personalised guidance that helps employees navigate personal, professional, administrative and operational activities, including onboarding, returning to work safely, growing career opportunities, managing team compensation, or opening a new facility”.
Oracle Connections, an “interactive workforce directory and organisation chart – employees can import their LinkedIn profiles, record video introductions, highlight their unique skills and accomplishments, and share feedback on each other’s walls to better learn about one another and grow their professional network”.
Oracle Digital Assistant, an HR chatbot that “provides a conversational interface for employees to get immediate answers to questions and easily complete transactions directly through voice or text”.
