Joining the growing ranks of software companies that are rolling out tools to buoy employee spirits during the Great Resignation, Oracle Corp. today introduced Oracle ME, a platform aimed at helping organizations increase employee engagement.

Oracle ME is mostly composed of functions that are already available in the Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management suite, although some new components have been added. The platform is aimed at streamlining communications, guiding employees through complex tasks and building a more supportive work environment, Oracle said.

“ME is the experience layer that surrounds our core HCM capabilities and it sits on top of the HCM suite, said Yvette Cameron, senior vice president of global HCM product strategy at Oracle. “It is not intended to be a standalone experience platform.”

Oracle cited internal research that found that 85% of workers globally aren’t satisfied with their employer’s support for their careers and 87% believe their organization should do more to listen to their needs. Oracle ME is intended to strengthen workplace relationships and give employees a channel to provide continuous feedback to their managers while managers can track and act on real-time employee sentiment. It also borrows from marketing automation technology to help human resources professionals deliver personalized employee communications.

What’s new

The two new modules in the suite are Touchpoints and HCM Communicate. The Touchpoints application allows managers to capture, track and act on employee sentiment regularly while getting continuous feedback through polls and surveys. This information can be automatically translated into recommended actions such as scheduling check-ins, providing feedback and celebrating successes.

HCM Communicate lets HR departments create and target personalized communications to groups with specific characteristics, such as location, length of employment and training needs. Marketing-like tools such as open rates and automatic follow-ups can be used to measure the success of communication campaigns.

“Every piece of information in the HR application and across the HCM suite is available for customizing communications,” Cameron said. “There is no other HCM vendor that has delivered marketing campaign tools specific for HR needs. We have gained from our experience in consumer marketing.”

What’s improved

The suite also includes the existing Oracle Journeys workflow manager with enhancements that help employees make better decisions by providing instructions, training and analytics that are tailored to their needs.

“We’ve added contextual guidance and support so that as you complete steps along your journey you receive information about your progress and learning materials,” Cameron said. “If I’m in a salary planning process, for example, I can see benchmarks across the organization so I know where I stand relative to other groups. The same transactions can also look different for different people so the same process might be three steps in one place but 10 in another because of policies and regulations.”

Oracle Connections is a workforce directory and organization chart with social network-like features that are intended to make it easy for employees to search for and connect with others in the organization. They can import their LinkedIn profiles, record video introductions, highlight skills and accomplishments and share feedback on each other’s walls.

“Connections began as an engaging organizational chart and workforce directory and has advanced become a place where people can search and find mentors and others with similar skills,” Cameron said.

Other existing modules that are part of the ME suite are the Oracle HR Help Desk for service management and the Oracle Digital Assistant chatbot, which has been enhanced with more than 90 prebuilt HR-oriented transactions and tools to customize and extend topics and content.

Available immediately, Oracle ME won’t be sold as a standalone package but will be available as an add-on to HCM. “While we’re delivering this as part of our core cloud HCM capability, it is open and extensible so we can connect with any enterprise and productivity applications,” Cameron said.

Photo: mohamed_hassan/Pixabay