Oracle’s new HCM “Journey” will help HR implement vaccine mandates | ZDNet

Oracle on Wednesday announced the rollout of a new HCM tool to help organizations verify and track the vaccine status of their workforce. The new “Vaccination at Work” Journey comes as employers around the globe adapt to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and related regulatory requirements.

Oracle launched its initial “journeys” — personalized digital HR experiences for employees — just about six months ago, including a pre-built “Return to the Workplace” journey. This new journey builds on that, underscoring how quickly HR duties and employee experiences are changing.  

In the US, businesses are preparing for the Biden administration ‘s impending rule requiring all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated or require unvaccinated workers to test negative on a weekly basis before coming to work. 

“We know time is of the essence here,” Nancy Estell Zoder, VP of global product strategy for Oracle Cloud HCM, said to ZDNet. “What was required two months ago has definitely evolved, and we’ve been able to adjust to that evolution by providing the most current and updated journey for workforces to effectively manage the needs of today.”

The new Vaccination at Work journey helps HR teams securely track and verify the vaccine status of employees in adherence with local regulations. It also lets HR leaders provide guidance for managers about how to handle employees with no plans to vaccinate. HR leaders can update a journey without IT support to account for new business requirements or policies, such as incentives for vaccinated employees. Additionally, HR can leverage Oracle Cloud HCM Analytics to analyze their workforce data about their workforce, such as the percentage of the workforce that is vaccinated. 

Customers can access journeys directly via Oracle Cloud HCM or through a library of templates on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect, giving them immediate access to journeys. “We’re not waiting for the next quarterly update in order to deploy these journeys to our customers,” Zoder said. 

Oracle is one of many SaaS vendors aiming to help HR teams adjust to the new realities of work. Last year, for instance, Workday introduced Workday Help, Workday Journeys and Workday People Analytics. Salesforce, meanwhile, launched Work.com products for post-coronavirus planning. Oracle itself has already updated its SaaS tools with improvements geared towards post-pandemic work. 

“To be perfectly transparent, in six months from now, it’s hard for me to say what is going to happen with the disruptions that we’re seeing in the marketplace as a result of this pandemic,” Zoder said. “But our journey solution will enable the support to provide that guidance to the workforce, no matter what that disruption is.”