3. SCM World CASE STUDY SERIES 3
THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Oracle created its Worldwide Operations (WWOPS)
team when it acquired Sun Microsystems in 2010.
Sun had evolved from a progressive, energetic start-
up in Silicon Valley into a mature company, and its
logistics programmes were recognised by the industry
for delivering high-quality and cost-effective product
execution to Sun’s global customer base.
Following the acquisition, Oracle owns both hardware and
software product lines, and its Worldwide Operations team
supports the portfolio of innovative engineered solutions.
The employees that Oracle acquired from Sun were
seasoned and experienced professionals with strong
supply chain management skills. However, with many
expected to retire in a few years, the Worldwide
Operations team would be left with a big talent gap.
Additionally, the complexity of Oracle’s supply chain
contributed to the challenges it experienced in hiring and
developing replacement employees.
Worldwide Operations is particularly vulnerable because
of the locations of its major sites: Oracle has campuses
in the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Portland and
Denver. These are highly competitive areas with desirable
companies that similarly want to attract high-calibre
employees and millennials.
THIS IS THE STORY ABOUT HOW ORACLE HAS TAKEN STEPS TO REACH MILLENNIALS
AND REPLENISH ITS TALENT POOL.
There’s no shortage of documented evidence and research
that show the challenges of retaining millennials. They’re
statistically more apt to move on to another company if
they’re not provided with the skills and career opportunities
that will keep them engaged.
The key was to engage all levels of its organisation in
solving its talent issues – including senior management,
who have the underlying knowledge; new employees,
who have fresh ideas and perspectives; and mid-level
employees, who are exposed to management concepts.
Oracle had a number of objectives in mind when
it considered the best approach to this, including
leveraging both SCM World and Oracle’s in-house
employee development learning paths, maintaining
its competitive advantage, improving its supply chain
methodologies, sustaining its leadership capabilities and
supporting Oracle’s mission of diversity and employee
engagement. However, it wasn’t initially sure how to
achieve these objectives.
4. 4 Oracle Worldwide Operations: Replenishing the talent pool
INNOVATION
While it’s common practice for companies to allocate
generous budgets to train their sales and marketing
employees, supply chain and operations tend to be very
conscious about how they allocate their funds.
However, Oracle has taken an ‘all hands on deck’ approach
with support from Worldwide Operations’ Senior Vice
President, Cindy Reese. Cindy understood that continued
financial success depended on acquiring and developing
the very best supply chain talent and using the best
resources in the marketplace.
Oracle has a diversity and inclusion vision that starts with
cultivating an environment that’s inclusive of all employees.
In order to effectively compete on a global scale, it believes
it will take a unified workforce that’s fully engaged in
meaningful work.
The on-boarding initiative impacts all 1,300
global employees reporting into Worldwide Operations
and it includes:
• using SCM World’s innovative and in-depth resources
and workshops;
• tailoring Oracle’s existing role-based learning paths for
less experienced new employees;
• creating an employee resource centre;
• creating new employee and manager checklists; and
• creating buddy and mentoring programmes.
To implement this initiative, Worldwide Operations
established a ‘tiger team’ comprising seasoned employees
and people new in their career to map out a strategy to
build a solid, sustainable learning foundation. The team
distributed targeted surveys throughout the organisation
to identify gaps in knowledge, on-boarding experiences,
management awareness of talent development and
learning methodologies.
The team then analysed the current methods and
resources before presenting an innovative solution to
senior management, which focused on creating a new,
sustainable employee learning experience.
The solution targeted four main areas:
1. Establishing management’s role in the new
employee process
2. Developing a new employee checklist to guide
employees from their first day
3. Assigning a buddy mentor to employees from
the outset
4. Creating a substantive learning path for each role,
which encompasses a holistic end-to-end supply chain
understanding as it relates to their specific role
5. SCM World CASE STUDY SERIES 5
HOW THEY DID IT
In January 2015, Worldwide Operations hosted a ‘welcome
to WWOPS’ event at Oracle’s corporate headquarters in
Redwood Shores, CA. It flew in 30 recent college graduates
who had just joined the organisation, and they joined 10
other new college graduates who were also based outside
Oracle headquarters. This was a three-day event that gave
them the opportunity to experience corporate surroundings,
meet senior-level management, network with fellow
colleagues, tour local suppliers critical to Oracle’s supply
chain, and learn how their roles fit within Oracle’s product
lifecycle and supply chain management processes.
Oracle paired these graduates with individual VPs, who
challenged them to tell their fellow colleagues how each
functional area contributes to its end-to-end supply chain.
The 40 new employees were then given the opportunity
to create independent steering teams focused on finding
solutions to supply chain learning gaps. It also focused on
finding innovative ways to fill the vacuum that Worldwide
Operations faced with the changes within its workforce.
The steering teams were able to:
• create real-life supply chain solution projects with
report outs to senior management;
• develop fresh and new ideas that attacked coming
challenges without previous preconceptions of what
would or wouldn’t work; and
• bring passion to the engineering and supply chain
optimisation projects they were involved in.
The teams came up with:
• creating a buddy assignment programme for all new
employees;
• designing a new employee on-boarding training
programme;
• creating a new employee checklist to facilitate speedy
on-boarding;
• creating a 90-minute on-boarding session to introduce
each employee to the employee resource centre; and
• assessing and updating all role-based learning paths
within Worldwide Operations.
6. 6 Oracle Worldwide Operations: Replenishing the talent pool
We foster an inclusive
environment that
leverages the diverse
backgrounds and
perspectives of all our
employees, suppliers,
customers and partners to
drive a sustainable global
competitive advantage.
COMMITMENT TO INCLUSION
From its college recruitment process to external and internal
staffing, WWOPS is aggressive in its encouragement of
hiring, training and promoting a diverse organisation.
In cultivating a diverse workforce, Oracle Human
Resources publishes a monthly newsletter called
Dimensions of Diversity. This newsletter is an exciting
opportunity for Oracle US employees to find out what the
company is doing in the areas of diversity and inclusion.
It provides information on upcoming events, community
outreach programmes, webinars and other opportunities
for development.
Along with its diversity internships and partnerships
with professional and non-profit organisations, Oracle
runs programmes to help veterans to build networks and
find civilian jobs that build on their skills. It harnesses the
combination of veterans’ talent, experience, commitment
and leadership skills and helps translate these into a
private-sector career.
Worldwide Operations has also hired women and minorities
into key roles. Oracle’s CEO, Safra Catz, is leading the way
as one of the world’s highest-paid female executives.
7. SCM World CASE STUDY SERIES 7
IMPACT
The steering teams, led by employees with more than
10 years’ experience but no managerial responsibilities,
empowered Oracle’s future leaders to develop the next
generation of talent. This also expanded peoples’ supply
chain knowledge base and provided the company’s
leaders with the ability to consider senior management
roles, which resulted in managerial promotions and/or
movements within other functional areas. Participants
have received job promotions, cross-functional job
assignments or job swaps, thereby providing career
opportunities, knowledge growth in supply chain
and new thinking and leadership.
Each year, Oracle has a new employee ‘class’ and a
new set of mid-level employee volunteers to replicate the
success it had in the previous class. For Oracle, this has
turned into a sustainable model.
Based on the success of this initiative and the
improvements to the on-boarding process, Oracle has
experienced less turnover of new college graduates and
new employees. Moreover, Oracle is using this initiative
as a selling point in its recruitment process and hosts
its own career events.
SHAPING SOCIETY
Drawing on the hiring of veterans, on Monday 21 July
2014, an Oracle employee, Staff Sergeant Ryan Pitts,
received the Congressional Medal of Honor – the highest
military decoration for combat valour – from President
Obama in a special White House ceremony.
The company’s programmes that help veterans transition
from the armed forces to civilian careers are helping to
shape society. Oracle considers that hiring veterans with
these experiences helps to steer the culture, drive revenue
and improve the bottom line. Military veterans also tend
to stick around – national statistics show attrition rates
are lower for veterans in the civilian workforce than for
their civilian counterparts, which helps stabilise Oracle’s
workforce and makes good business and societal sense.
8. London Office
2 London Bridge
London SE1 9RA
UK
Boston Office
51 Melcher Street
Boston MA 02210
USA
+44(0) 20 3747 6200
content@scmworld.com
scmworld.com
SCM World is the cross-industry learning community powered by the world’s
most influential supply chain practitioners. We help senior executives share
best practice insights in order to shape the future of supply chain.
As a member of the SCM World community, you have access to our predictive,
ground-breaking research which is focused on driving innovation in supply
chain. Our agenda is set by an advisory board of the world’s top supply chain
leaders and the world’s leading business schools. We also have our own team
of expert researchers who are committed to providing insights into important
trends affecting the profession.
We are passionate about making a difference to critical world issues
such as the distribution of food, delivery of healthcare and environmental
sustainability. Our mission is to help companies address these challenges
within their supply chain.
We provide you with a powerful external perspective on supply chain through
a combination of exclusive peer connections, practitioner-driven content and
predictive research. Members of our community include Unilever, Amazon,
Nike, Caterpillar, Cisco, Chevron, Dell, Nestlé and General Mills.
ABOUTSCMWORLD
