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Nucleus Research Inc. 100 State Street Boston, MA 02109 NucleusResearch.com Phone: +1 617.720.2000 1
WFM TECHNOLOGY VALUE MATRIX 2016
A N A L Y S T
Brent Skinner
T H E B O T T O M L I N E
Consolidation of tier-one players in workforce management
(WFM) is intensifying, and Nucleus expects only three players
or so to survive long-term. The Value Matrix this year reflects that
reality, and entrenched legacy players in the Leader quadrant face stiff
competition. Some will inevitably exit the Leader quadrant, and soon, as
their ability to go about meeting employers’ increasingly complex needs in
managing their workforce will fall behind.
Nucleus believes the best providers of technology for managing the workforce trace
their roots to the epicenter of human capital management (HCM). This is where the
necessities of employing people reside: payroll and benefits administration, as well
as time and attendance and other elements of WFM – all the elements Nucleus
considers in developing the WFM Value Matrix. So WFM and immediately abutting
functionality constitute the backbone of HCM. They determine efficiency in
scheduling. They’re the main components determining whether an employer
complies with increasingly complex employment law such as the Affordable Care
Act (ACA), Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and the Family Medical Leave Act
(FMLA). Only when employers get their WFM in order may they entertain anything
else. Some vendors are far better positioned than others to meet these needs over
the long-term. This leaves deep implications for some vendors’ standing in this
year’s WFM Value Matrix versus next year’s. The biggest story here is Kronos.
P R O G R A M : H U M A N C A P I T A L M A N A G E M E N T R E S E A R C H N O T E D O C U M E N T Q 9 0 M A Y 2 0 1 6
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W I N D S O F C H A N G E
Kronos remains a Leader, but is trending downward. For many years now, Kronos
has survived by way of a vast installation base of existing users that deployed its
technology for time and attendance before the advent of the cloud. In parallel, the
vendor has offered technology notably capable of handling complex scheduling
requirements, such as those for union rules. But Kronos’s innovation in the cloud has
lagged its peers (Nucleus Research p92 – On-premise users' road to the Kronos Cloud
is long and winding, June 2015), as has its edge in accommodating employees’
complicated scheduling requirements. Moreover, alternatives to Kronos have
surfaced, and the time has come for employers to consider these alternatives.
In analyzing users, Nucleus has found Kronos losing deals to WorkForce Software and Ceridian. Players outside the Leader quadrant are bringing stiff competition to Kronos, too. JDA is an example.
Employers that use Kronos have at their disposal, right now, alternatives that are
just as good or better – namely in the form of WorkForce Software and Ceridian,
prominent among Leaders in the 2016 WFM Value Matrix. In analyzing users,
Nucleus has found Kronos losing deals to WorkForce Software and Ceridian. Players
outside the Leader quadrant are bringing stiff competition to Kronos, too. JDA is an
example: Users have favored JDA’s retail-targeted solution tightly integrating
supply chain management (SCM) with WFM. In most cases where users already have
Kronos and elect to stay put, the reasons are hardly technology-centric. Often, it’s a
matter of trying to avoid ripping and replacing the legacy system. Other times, it’s
because the union just doesn’t want to make a change. These are hardly the
underpinnings of staying power, and at some point, change is inevitable.
S T A T E O F W F M T E C H N O L O G Y M A R K E T
The tide will not turn in Kronos's favor, which means employers must immediately
begin justifying WFM buying decisions to be made two years from now. This
includes union-contending employers that presently have time and attendance
through their primary HCM provider via integration with Kronos. Nucleus advises
employers to refrain from signing new long-term contracts, or renewing old ones,
with any vendor of technology for WFM without first assessing its financial health
and the direction of its product roadmap. Employers are no longer safe in choosing
old standbys for their WFM needs.
May 2016 Document Q90
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Following are additional vendor highlights found in this year’s WFM Value Matrix:
Ceridian. Leading the Leaders, Ceridian continues to show exceptional
capability in WFM. Several factors innate to Ceridian's solution, Dayforce, set it
apart from others – a single data set resting atop a single application all
governed by a single rules engine. From a technological standpoint, these
factors position Ceridian more favorably than its contemporaries in helping
employers navigate the maze of employment law and consistently build
workable employee schedules.
Nucleus advises employers to refrain from signing new long-term contracts, or renewing old ones, with any vendor of technology for WFM without first assessing its financial health and the direction of its product roadmap. Employers are no longer safe in choosing old standbys for their WFM needs.
ADP, Infor. These vendors perennially place in the WFM Value Matrix's Leader
quadrant, and this year is no different. Each has sufficient heft to compete
formidably in its target markets – which are many, because of vendor size. For
organizations with large geographical footprints, for instance, ADP is probably
the best option. With highly usable suite configurations tailored to specific
industries, Infor is an excellent choice for companies in need of prepackaged,
micro-vertical solutions for WFM.
WorkForce Software. The majority of vendors in this year's WFM Value Matrix
offer payroll. One exception, in the Leader quadrant, is Workforce Software,
whose solution Nucleus believes is among the very best for manufacturing,
education, utilities, financial services, insurance, and the public sector. Plus, the
vendor’s integration to pipe viable WFM into SAP SuccessFactors is blossoming.
JDA. In the Facilitator quadrant is JDA, a new entrant to the WFM Value Matrix.
JDA doesn’t offer payroll, either; what it does offer, however, is scheduling and
time and attendance functionality exclusively and very well-tailored to the retail
industry – rendering WFM to be customer-centric by tightly integrating it with
JDA's well-established solution for SCM. This means all sorts of data from sales
history, foot traffic, shipments, and the omnichannel helps managers optimize
floor associates' schedules.
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SumTotal. Also in the Facilitator quadrant, SumTotal, as a full-suite HCM player,
is on the precipice of entering the Leader quadrant next time. Skillsoft, which
acquired SumTotal in Q4 of 2014, infuses goings on at the epicenter of HCM
with learning content to align WFM with talent management.
L E A D E R S
Leaders in the Value Matrix include ADP, Ceridian, Infor, Kronos, and WorkForce
Software.
ADP
ADP remains a solid Leader in this Value Matrix, and the vendor’s movement within
the Leader quadrant has been predictable. Depending on an employer’s size, ADP
runs a different set of integrated applications for HCM – ADP RUN, ADP Workforce
Now, ADP Vantage, and ADP GlobalView. A relatively small percentage of the total
ADP client base has functionality for time and labor management via an integration
that has been longstanding between ADP and Kronos. These customers, which
range from mid-sized employers to large multinationals, use ADP Workforce Now
and, typically, have particularly complex pay rules and related compliance needs.
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The vast majority of ADP’s customer base is rooted in ADP’s native technology for
time and attendance, which, available for all ADP HCM suites except for GlobalView,
is used by organizations with a handful of employees to those with thousands. As
noted last time, consultative services provided by ADP help users to understand the
many and various ADP integrations deployed (Nucleus Research 014 – ADP: A
consultative approach to HCM, January 2014).
As Nucleus observed last year, ADP has focused squarely on the design of its user
interface (UI) to make it as intuitive as possible for employers. Chief among the
directives is to create a single experience no matter what application is being
accessed in the ADP ecosystem available to the given user. In May of 2015, shortly
following the publishing of last year’s WFM and HCM Value Matrices, ADP deployed
a revamped UI, to these ends. Relevant to WFM, the new UI spans benefits, time
and attendance, payroll, core HR, and reporting. Where it makes sense, gamification
is utilized. Furthermore, employees have access to tools that enable them, for
instance, to calculate and compare the costs of different benefits available to them
and the ability to see how these and other factors affect their pay, after taxes.
Additional developments have surfaced at ADP since Nucleus published last year’s
WFM Value Matrix:
Global payroll. ADP remains among vendors with the farthest reach in providing
payroll, a backbone of the vendor’s solution, internationally. Over the past year,
ADP increased its coverage to a total of 111 countries and territories. For this
reason alone, ADP is a recommendable solution for multinational employers.
Mobile. In addition to expanding the ability of ALINE Card by ADP users to make
payments through Apple Pay–enabled mobile devices (e.g., as a payroll card),
ADP has deployed mobile-compatible functionality for SMBs using ADP Time
and Attendance. Employers and managers alike, where appropriate, can
manage related compliance and their time via mobile devices. Integration
extends to RUN Powered by ADP, an SMB-targeted solution for core HR and
payroll, upgraded in May 2015. From a smartphone or tablet, users have access
to reporting related to time and attendance.
Workforce metrics. Through the DataCloud platform introduced in May 2015,
since Q4 of 2015 United States–based employers have had the long-awaited
ability to benchmark WFM-related activities against other HCM-related
activities within their own employee population and across the entire population
of employees that happen to be on an ADP-powered solution. Goings-on native
to a single employer’s payroll and time and attendance now can be informed by,
for instance, developments in compensation planning industry-wide.
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Affordable Care Act. ADP continues to build out its services and functionality
designed to help employers deal and comply with the ACA. These capabilities
include, for instance, access to ADP experts on the ACA; assistance with
Sections 6055 and 6056 of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) and related Internal
Revenue Service (IRS) Forms 1094-B, 1095-B, 1094-C, and 1095-C; and a
dashboard that enables users to see the moving parts related to ACA
compliance, at their organizations. Functionality helps organizations report on
hours worked, giving employers visibility into their employees’ ACA status, as
well as the ability to manage it. ADP is expanding the availability of all this to
more of its user base. For example, in Q4 of 2015, these services and associated
functionalities were made available to users of TotalSource, a professional
employer organization (PEO) run by ADP.
Additional benefits administration related to the ACA. In the summer of 2015,
the vendor launched a number of private exchanges for benefits administration,
designed to integrate with the rest of ADP’s solutions for HCM. This relates to
the ACA. One includes a partnership through which ADP-using employers will
receive assistance in dealing with part-time, temporary and contract workers
who fall outside conventional rules associated with the ACA and related
eligibility for employer-subsidized health insurance coverage. Another is for
more typical employees and strives to provide them with broader ACA-
compliant options for their health insurance coverage. These private exchanges
integrate with ACA-related functionality from ADP, drawing on relevant data in
payroll and time and attendance.
The complexity of ADP’s offerings reflects the fact that it caters to a broad cross-
section of employer sizes across many industries – among the widest breadths
compared to other vendors servicing this market space. Stark improvements to the
UI continue to normalize the user experience (UX) even as a bevy of applications
operates in the background. Looking at these factors together, Nucleus expects
ADP to continue exhibiting movement within the bounds of the Leader quadrant.
For particularly complex needs in WFM, some employers will continue to seek
solutions whose capabilities outpace ADP’s abilities, which cater to broader targets.
The longstanding integration with Kronos is an example.
CERIDIAN
Delivered via software-as-as-service (SaaS), Ceridian’s Dayforce HCM is a wide-
scope technological solution for HCM in a multi-tenant, public cloud. The suite
comprises payroll, time and attendance, scheduling, benefits administration,
absence and leave management, labor budgeting and planning, task management,
reporting, document management, analytics, and an increasingly expanding array
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of functionality for talent management. All of this and the rest of the solution rests
atop a single application producing a single data set running a single rules engine – a
significant characteristic: In contrast with other vendors in this Value Matrix, this
architecture of Dayforce produces information that actually meets the definition of
real time. An Android-based tablet, Dayforce Touch, helps users to collect data.
Another version is available as a self-service kiosk. For users that want it separately,
WFM is available without the functionality for Dayforce HCM – which can be added
later, per users’ request. Another advantage, placing Ceridian in the small minority
in this Value Matrix, is that Dayforce makes it possible for users to purchase only the
modules they need (e.g., scheduling or labor planning) – i.e., without having to
purchase other components (e.g., time and attendance).
Several factors in addition to the clean data model lead employers to choose
Dayforce over competitors’ solutions. One is Ceridian’s predictable
implementations. Another is effective customer support. A third is the technology’s
ability, because of the straightforward data model, to facilitate compliance with
employment law (Nucleus Research p224 – Anatomy of a Decision – Ceridian
Dayforce HCM, December 2015). Especially in replacing legacy solutions that lack
the amenities and efficiencies found in modern technology for HCM, employers that
deploy Dayforce tend to experience a significant return on investment (Nucleus
Research p165 – Ceridian Dayforce ROI case study – ACCO Brands, September 2015).
Furthermore, Nucleus believes that, for most employers, Dayforce presents their
best technological option for complying with employment law (Nucleus Research
q17 – Ceridian gets high grades for compliance, January 2016).
Last year’s WFM Value Matrix made several observations on analytics available in
Dayforce. Specifically, managers gain real-time insight into the efficiencies of
current labor allocations as these relate to returns on labor investments. This is
especially useful to retailers and employers in other industries whose labor needs
shift considerably (Nucleus Research o116 – Ceridian Dayforce Workforce
Management ROI Case Study: Guitar Center, June 2014). The vendor continues to
build out its capabilities in analytics.
A steady refinement of the mobile UI has become central to the user experience.
Here, Ceridian has improved the overall UX considerably, giving the system a new
look and feel by starting with more commonly used pages such as the employee
card. From there, the vendor is expanding methodically. Furthermore, users now
have the ability to view and manipulate Dayforce-current information from within
Microsoft Outlook and Excel, if these are environments they prefer – and update the
system from these applications. Following are elaborations, as well as additional
highlights from the past year:
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Functionality updates. Ceridian continues to bolster Dayforce, already a strong
solution for WFM, and the infrastructure for it with a number of improvements.
Notable highlights include: Time and attendance is now viewable in the form of
organizational charts. Additionally, the report writer within Dayforce has seen a
revamping and now includes more than 300 standard reports. OData integration
built directly into Microsoft Excel immediately records changes users make in
the system. Employers can now focus on several pay groups at the same time –
a useful functionality for larger employers. In the Dayforce cloud, multi-
threading means users may run more work concurrently, improving Ceridian’s
ability to scale to demand (Nucleus Research q68 – Ceridian adds strategic
onboarding to Dayforce, April 2016).
Accessibility. From any device, users have the ability to view an employee card
that displays information such as the person’s schedule, timesheet, time away,
organization, personal and work schedules, approved time off, and work history.
From this view, wherever accessed, users may approve time-off requests.
Additionally, via Microsoft Outlook and Excel, as well as other programs, users
may modify information in Dayforce, in the moment.
Global payroll. In addition to employers in the United States and Canada, the
solution is available for global enterprises; dozens of large employers
headquartered in Europe, Africa, and Asia–Pacific use Dayforce. Moreover, this
past year Ceridian has added 17 countries to ConnectedPay, the global solution
for Dayforce. Notably, and helping with the vendor’s ability to expand globally,
in Q4 of 2015 Ceridian implemented an especially agile approach to user support
that streamlines and accelerates the vendor’s ability to process and resolve
users’ questions and issues.
The roots of Dayforce are in WFM, the most mature area of the Dayforce suite
(Nucleus Research p51 – Fortifying its Position, Ceridian Expands from the Epicenter of
HCM, March 2015). Over the past year, Ceridian has been executing reliably on an
aggressive roadmap to expand into talent management (Nucleus Research p137 –
Ceridian plots wise path to talent management, August 2015) – which means users
that want to start with WFM, but see a need for more of HCM in the near future,
position themselves well by electing to deploy Dayforce.
The solution is particularly apt for the retail, hospitality, manufacturing, and services
industries. A version of the suite, Dayforce Go, tailors the assets of Dayforce to
SMBs. Because of the straightforward data model, Dayforce brings several benefits.
Payroll, time and attendance, and benefits administration are always completely in
sync, errors are rare, and manual workarounds are unnecessary. Workforce data at
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all times reflects in-the-moment facts on the ground. This immediacy of holistic
information in Dayforce is an advantage for employers. The solution helps them
build employee schedules without having to adjust these mid-cycle, and the
information in time and attendance always and immediately informs payroll and
benefits administration with pertinent data. Compliance with complex employment
law, such as the ACA and FLSA, benefits significantly from this (Nucleus Research
p37 – WFM Vendors and Compliance with the Affordable Care Act, February 2015).
Again, Nucleus believes Dayforce is the best WFM technology for organizations
looking for ways to deal with today’s regulatory environment as it relates to the
employment of people. This and the additional benefits that come with a single data
set produced by a single application resting atop a single rules engine place Ceridian
well ahead of other vendors found in this year’s Leader quadrant.
INFOR
WFM functionality from Infor includes time and attendance, scheduling, care
workloads, care assignments, and analytics. By facilitating workforce effectiveness
and efficiencies, WFM from Infor is adept at bringing about gains in productivity and
improving performance. For benefits administration, there is Infor Human Resource
Management (HRM) Benefits Administration. Additionally, a Lawson-originating,
COBOL-based system, delivered via SaaS, is available for payroll.
All of this integrates with Infor HCM, and most of the system is Java-based.
Furthermore, Infor WFM integrates with Infor Financials, as noted in the last WFM
Value Matrix. That connection suggests that Infor is in this way a viable alternative
to available vendor-to-vendor, cloud-to-cloud integrations (Nucleus Research p54 –
New partnerships add new hues to competitive landscape in HCM, March 2015), as
well as others that offer these capabilities, as Infor does, as one vendor. In Q4 of
2015, Infor released a new suite for human capital management (HCM), Infor
CloudSuite HCM. Notable new capabilities and integrations here fall outside of
WFM, instead addressing key components of talent management.
Last year’s WFM Value Matrix made several observations. Updates occurring over
the past 12 months are shared here, where appropriate:
Modernization of the Infor UI. This continues apace to unify the UX across WFM,
HCM, and the rest of the Infor suite, spanning the desktop and mobile devices.
Data stores. Mentioned in last year’s WFM Value Matrix, Infor’s runs on Amazon
Web Services, which helps with flexibility.
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Globalization. WFM from Infor has been localized for use outside of North
America. The vendor sees a trend toward consolidated time and schedule
management for multinational organizations. This is in addition to the product’s
being used for in-country–specific deployments.
Micro-verticals. Cloud suites from Infor, including those for WFM and, by
extension, HCM, come in a variety of configurations prefabricated for potential
out-of-the-box use by an array of industries. Infor calls each of these tailored
solutions a micro-vertical, and since last year, Infor has added several.
Affordable Care Act. Through the latest upgrades to Infor HRM Benefits
Administration, Infor addresses this law’s continually evolving regulations.
Functionality helps users not only with benefits-eligible employees and
collecting benefit offers, but also with Sections 6055 and 6056 of the Internal
Revenue Code and related Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Forms 1094-B, 1095-B,
1094-C, and 1095-C. Additionally, the WFM system has the ability to track and
report on the total hours worked by an employee, as well as the average hours
worked during a measurement period. Without managing the benefits
enrollment process itself, WFM from Infor is able to manage eligible hours and
provide real-time insight into where employees’ eligibility falls.
Implementation. An announced partnership last July with Bails & Associates,
LLC, adds a new implementation consultant. Among the implementations
pertinent to WFM that this partnership affects will be those involving Lawson-
originating applications.
Analytics. In the previous WFM Value Matrix, Nucleus expected Infor to continue
investing in capabilities related to analytics. Up to that point, improvements had
surfaced in labor forecasting, schedule optimization, leave management, and in
the time-off planner. Since, in early 2016, the vendor announced a partnership
with, as well as an associated, multimillion-dollar investment in, Predictix. The
development will have more of an impact in Infor’s applications for supply chain
management (SCM) and financials, but nevertheless may have a residual effect
in WFM where it intersects with the former – and further bolster the vendor’s
competitiveness against others focusing in WFM for the retail industry.
Nucleus expects WFM at Infor to merge more inextricably and indistinguishably with
HCM through the rest of 2016, continuing well into 2017. To wit, compared to WFM,
HCM is where Infor appears to have focused most of its efforts over the past year.
This is in keeping with the efforts of most other vendors in the space.
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KRONOS
For WFM, Kronos offers Workforce Central for enterprise customers and Workforce
Ready for SMBs. Users of Workforce Central have access to WFM-related
functionality including time and attendance, absence management, scheduling,
analytics, core HR, and payroll. In Workforce Ready, they have time and attendance,
absence management, core HR, and payroll. As noted elsewhere in this Value
Matrix, a well-established integration provides a small subset of ADP users with
functionality for time and attendance from Kronos. Additionally, via Employee
Central, users of SAP SuccessFactors have access to fully integrated functionality
from Workforce Ready (Nucleus Research p97 – Parsing SAP's apparent partnering
strategy for SuccessFactors, June 2015).
Nucleus has noted that much of the Kronos Cloud is a managed hosting
environment, not a multi-tenant cloud (Nucleus Research p208 – Kronos cloud versus
modern HCM tech, November 2015). In May of 2015, the vendor implemented a
Cloud Readiness program, a Kronos-facilitated investigation to help existing and
net-new customers figure out how best to migrate to the Kronos Cloud quickly. As
Nucleus noted, at the time, users of Kronos who remain on on-premise software
face obstacles in getting to any kind of cloud-like environment with the vendor
(Nucleus Research p92 – On-premise users’ road to the Kronos Cloud is long and
winding, June 2015). The vendor has since launched the Kronos Paragon program,
which is specifically designed to help users of Workforce Central achieve value in the
Kronos Cloud.
In January of this year, Kronos announced the acquisition of Empower Software
Solutions, notable for the latter’s redundant targeting of SMBs and WFM-related
capabilities (Nucleus Research q13 – Kronos grasps to empower itself, January 2016).
Additionally in January, Kronos jointly announced a partnership with Google
(Nucleus Research q22 – Google settles for Kronos in SMB market, February 2016).
Kronos remains a Leader in the Value Matrix. Based on the aforementioned factors,
the arrow associated with Kronos’ placement indicates downward movement. Even
so, innovation within the existing Kronos ecosystem for WFM continues. Following
is a rundown of related developments at Kronos since Nucleus published last year’s
WFM Value Matrix:
Workforce Central 8. In May 2015, Kronos launched a major upgrade to
Workforce Central, its solution for enterprise-size users. An HTML5-
underpinned UI is chief among the improvements. Several tools aspiring to
provide usability in keeping with that of other vendors in the Leader quadrant
are part of Workforce Central 8. These include functionality such as mobile-
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compatible time punching and management of time-off requests, as well as
improved shift management to increase the immediacy of related, system-
assisted communication between supervisors and staff. Additionally, the
schedule planner has been revamped.
Workforce Ready. In May of last year, the vendor added an enterprise-style
scheduling module to Workforce Ready. Along with the associated upgrade
came additional WFM-pertinent features for managing benefits administration
and HR-related compliance with, for instance, the ACA. In November 2015,
Kronos further improved the UI of Workforce Ready. Furthermore, the vendor
has continued to improve upon the new scheduling module. As well, in the
summer of 2015, Workforce Ready users gained improved access to data
pertinent to processing international payroll. Capabilities continue to evolve
related to users’ ability to manage Sections 6055 and 6056 of the Internal
Revenue Code and related Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Forms 1094-B, 1095-B,
1094-C, and 1095-C. Automation related to the processing of I-9 forms and
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) auditing continues to increase.
Functionality specifically designed to help organizations comply with labor law
in California is making its way into the solution, too.
AutoTime. Last summer, the vendor announced that it had acquired AutoTime,
a scheduling solution tightly tailored for the aerospace and defense industries.
The acquisition affords users of AutoTime access to additional functionality
across the broad spectrum of HCM handled by Kronos.
Analytics. Through the Workforce Auditor tool, users have the ability to unearth
unusual patterns, within their own organization, in timekeeping and scheduling,
enabling them to see how they relate to activity in the workforce and make
course corrections.
Mobile. In April 2016, the vendor announced a significant expansion of mobile-
related functionality. This includes shift swapping capabilities, as well as the
ability for an employee to request coverage, from his or her peers, for a to-be-
missed shift. Additionally, from their mobile devices, employees now have the
ability to opt into the possibility of working additional hours as these become
available and, as well, communicate immediately evolving changes in their
availability.
WORKFORCE SOFTWARE
The WorkForce Software solution, EmpCenter, comprises time and attendance,
staff scheduling, absence and leave management, labor analytics, and fatigue
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management. The vendor has no plans to add payroll to its suite, instead favoring
tight integrations with whatever payroll solution its users elect to deploy.
WorkForce Software tends to focus on organizations employing 5,000 or more in
staff. Key target markets include manufacturing, education, utilities, financial
services and insurance, and the public sector.
WorkForce Software supports robust mobile functionality and accessibility. This
includes mobile, geolocational-enabled clock-in for employees’ shifts. Furthermore,
the vendor continues to enhance analytics, core to the solution. This helps in a
number of ways. The availability of real-time data enables users to monitor their
scheduling activities, in the moment, thus aligning these with demand and
compliance with employment law. For instance, supporting the latter, WorkForce
Software has a template for ACA-related info that builds into scheduling. A number
of standard reports for the ACA are included, and through EmpCenter employers are
able to monitor employees’ hours and receive preemptive alerts as scheduling issues
relevant to ACA compliance arise. Robust, analogous functionality related to the
FMLA is available, as well.
Among the additional capabilities found in EmpCenter, variations in sick leave
regulations across regions are built in and updated as they change, and any given
employee’s attendance trends can inform performance management with, for
instance, system-sent written warnings. Furthermore, scheduling managers can
track employees’ productivity against the norm, and when an employee works for
more than one scheduling manager, each can see what others have scheduled for.
Useful for scenarios involving unions, employers can specify which employees are
associated via union rules with any given bid for jobs, shifts, or vacation time. As
well, the system aptly handles overtime regulations, enabling users to anticipate
where and when they run the risk of falling out of compliance – and make the
necessary adjustments, ahead of time.
Following are notable developments at WorkForce Software since the publishing of
last year’s WFM Value Matrix:
Implementations. Further strengthening its ability to expand, the vendor has
forged new partnerships with notable implementation consultants in the Asia
Pacific region, Europe, and the Latin America–Caribbean region. Additionally, in
late Q3 of 2015, WorkForce Software launched a tiered certification program
designed to bolster implementation partners’ expertise in EmpCenter and, thus,
their ability to carry out implementations consistently. This is not unlike
competitors’ similar, recently launched programs.
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SAP SuccessFactors. Developers from WorkForce Software and SAP continue to
work closely to perfect and evolve the integration between SAP Time and
Attendance Management (i.e., the WorkForce Software solution being resold by
SAP) and functionality available within SAP SuccessFactors. Deep cross-vendor
functionality here is either available already or in the works (Nucleus Research
p144 – SAP SuccessFactors intelligent services, August 2015).
WorkForce Software is the only vendor in the Leader quadrant that does not provide
native payroll functionality or a broader cross-section of HCM, beyond WFM. This is
a notable exception and underscores EmpCenter’s usability and functionality;
Nucleus expects to see WorkForce Software move farther rightward and upward,
next year. For any HCM technology vendor whose functionality in time and
attendance and abutting areas lags the industry’s, Nucleus believes WorkForce
Software ought to be at the top of a shortlist of options, for alliances. That
WorkForce Software is working so closely with SAP SuccessFactors is an apt case in
point (Nucleus Research p223 – Looking outside SAP for the epicenter of HCM,
December 2015). So are WorkForce Software’s relationships with ADP,
NorthgateArinso (NGA), and other key regional HCM providers – additional
evidence of WorkForce Software's prowess in WFM.
E X P E R T S
Experts in the Value Matrix include Epicor HCM and Paycom.
EPICOR HCM
Epicor HCM is available in hosted or cloud-based iterations, as well as on-premise.
Because Epicor HCM integrates directly with other areas of the enterprise handled
by Epicor, users receive the additional benefit of connecting their HCM operations to
ERP financials, for instance, or to inform WFM with data from the supply chain. As
with other vendors in this Value Matrix, some of these abilities make Epicor HCM
competitive with tight partnerships involving cloud-to-cloud integrations between
HCM and ERP providers (Nucleus Research p54 – New Partnerships Add New Hues to
Competitive Landscape in HCM, March 2015). These native cross-capabilities also
position Epicor HCM well in providing WFM for the retail industry.
Epicor HCM’s functionality in WFM spans global employee records, timesheets, job
history, salary administration and planning, absence management, competency
administration, routing and approvals, and regulatory compliance. Using Epicor
HCM, users can also draw on budgetary trends to manage and track employees in
multiple roles, as well as headcount for full-time equivalents. HR analytics provide
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insight into all of this. As Nucleus noted in last year’s WFM Value Matrix, Epicor HCM
offers analytics via Microsoft Report Builder and OLAP cubes.
Additionally, the solution has an ability, as do most, to feed necessary information
into an employer’s payroll application, whatever that solution may be among the
wide array available. Very recently, the vendor established a partnership with
probably the largest of these payroll providers, ADP. For North America–based
users, the integration connects Epicor HCM and ERP with ADP Workforce Now.
Every time Nucleus publishes the WFM Value Matrix, the center point for the two
axes moves upward and to the right. Because that point is always moving, Epicor
HCM remains in the Expert quadrant this year – but again showing solid movement.
PAYCOM
Paycom remains an excellent option for SMBs that need a straightforward solution
for time and attendance and payroll. Most users have 50 to 2,000 employees, but
employers of as many as 7,000 are, increasingly, turning to the vendor. Last year’s
WFM Value Matrix noted that Paycom runs in the cloud atop the architecture of a
single database. This is helpful to employers, as the set-up cuts down on the
inefficiencies, errors, and discrepancies that duplicate data entry otherwise
introduces. The vendor continues to fortify its offerings in WFM, whose core at
Paycom comprises time and attendance, payroll processing and benefits-related
compliance:
Affordable Care Act. Last summer, the vendor strengthened its solution to help
employers navigate challenging employment regulations related to the ACA. A
dashboard predating the deployment of this improved solution, Enhanced ACA,
was already providing users of Paycom with a view into their employees’
eligibility for ACA-mandated employer-subsidized healthcare insurance and
help in properly processing Forms 1094-B, 1095-B, 1094-C, and 1095-C. Through
the new solution, employers gain additional, system-provided access into the
goings-on affecting their compliance with this law.
Tax services. Because employee taxes intersect with payroll, several vendors
evaluated in this Value Matrix offer some level of services in this area. Paycom is
one of these and has expanded its related offering to help employers handle
their compliance with Work Opportunity Tax Credits (WTOC), which must occur
prior to a new hire’s first day on the job. Through the service Paycom handles
the filing and submission of related forms to appropriate tax-collecting
agencies. Additionally, employers using the vendor’s technology can pre-screen
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qualified new hires in the moment, ahead of their first day of employment, thus
knowing in real time whether any given employee may be eligible for WTOC.
Additional employment law compliance. As Nucleus has noted, employment
law is growing in complexity (Nucleus Research p223 – Looking outside SAP for
the epicenter of HCM, December 2015). Regulations for overtime, found in the
FLSA, have seen some of the most changes. In March 2016, the vendor released
a free calculator. It helps an employer determine how recently proposed
changes to overtime regulations for employees earning less than $50,400
annually may affect matters and where the organization may adjust salaries
accordingly.
Unrelated to this Value Matrix, last year Nucleus also noted Paycom’s expansion
into a greater breadth of HCM, outside WFM. As last year’s WFM Value Matrix
observed, future enhancements and expansions into a greater cross-section of HCM
will improve Paycom’s efforts to retain customers whose needs extend beyond
WFM. HCM functionality from Paycom includes areas of talent acquisition such as
candidate tracking, applicant tracking, background checks, and onboarding, as well
as performance management, compensation planning, and learning. The last of
these enables employees in the Paycom ecosystem to share their expertise with
colleagues and otherwise train in the moment, as their needs dictate. It also
provides managers with analytics to gauge learning-related effectiveness and adjust
for optimal effectiveness. This learning component is another manifestation of
Nucleus’s predictions related to trigger-based learning and performance
management (Nucleus Research p199 – The coming mass extinction in HCM,
November 2015).
C O R E P R O V I D E R S
Core Providers in the Value Matrix include Paychex, Paycor, and Paylocity.
PAYCHEX
Paychex remains a straightforward, streamlined option for SMBs that have matured
into needing their first solution covering payroll and other elements of WFM. In
Paychex, users find functionality and services for payroll and taxes, core HR and
benefits administration, as well as accounting and financial resources. As noted in
last year’s WFM Value Matrix, Paychex provides an applicant tracking system (ATS)
through myStaffingPro, acquired several years ago. Last summer, the vendor
deployed additional functionality for talent acquisition through the Paychex Flex
platform for HCM. This includes an improved managerial view into recruiting,
onboarding, and employee screening. The expansion here reflects Nucleus’s
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observations in the previous WFM Value Matrix. Additional new developments span
the following:
Time clocks. In Q4 of 2015, Paychex-owned Icon Time Systems launched a new
series of proximity time clocks. Compatible with Apple iOS, Microsoft Windows,
and Linux, the clocks are tailored to the needs of SMBs – especially smaller
SMBs, Paychex’s primary user base.
Benefits administration, time and attendance. Also launched in Q4 of 2015,
updates to the vendor’s suite include an expansion of functionality in these two
areas. For time and attendance, among the improvements are those for time-
punching, as well as the process to approve time off requests. Additionally, the
integration between time and attendance and payroll has grown tighter,
allowing for greater real-time communication between the two applications. In
benefits administration, new functionality is broad and includes, for example, an
increase in oversight capabilities for staff responsible for this. Their ability to
control related data and recordkeeping has increased, as well. Employees
benefit from the addition of mobile access to information about their eligibility
for plans and the details of those plans.
Affordable Care Act. The vendor added tools, including a portal enabling
administrative staff to assist employees looking for ACA-compliant healthcare
insurance through the Personal Marketplace, a private exchange available
through Paychex.
Additionally, in late 2015 Paychex acquired Advance Partners, a provider of services
useful to staffing firms. Though these services relate to payroll outsourcing, and not
necessarily to technology, the acquisition strongly suggests that current and future
clients of Advance Partners will eventually have access by proxy to related
functionality found in the Paychex solution.
PAYCOR
Cloud-based, the Paycor solution as it pertains to WFM spans payroll processing,
core HR, time and attendance, reporting, benefits administration, and compliance
reporting. The latter includes ACA reporting. Compensation management is also a
part of the solution, and the vendor continues to broaden its reach into more of
HCM, building on new onboarding functionality noted in last year’s WFM Value
Matrix. As well, users now have capabilities in performance management and can
track the progress of performance reviews. Additionally, through its acquisition of
Newton Software, in Q4 of 2015, Paycor has expanded into recruiting with Newton’s
ATS. Mobile enablement has benefited from the acquisition, with the release of a
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suite of mobile capabilities for candidates interested in applying for jobs. Unrelated
to the acquisition, Paycor has also deployed additional mobile enablement, for
payroll.
Related to WFM, following are several more developments at Paycor since the
publishing of last year’s WFM Value Matrix:
Affordable Care Act. Usability here has improved with the introduction of
additional functionality. For instance, real-time feedback from the IRS on the
status of filings is now available to users. Additionally, functionality is now
available to help with Sections 6055 and 6056 of the Internal Revenue Code and
the generation of related Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Forms 1094-B, 1095-B,
1094-C, and 1095-C.
Other employment law compliance. In addition to growing capabilities related
to the ACA, Paycor has deployed improved capabilities for reporting compliance
with overtime-related regulations found in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
New capabilities include a report that informs the employer of which employees
may be affected by regulations. Another report helps employers to control costs
related to overtime rules as they intersect with salaried workers’ time on the job.
Benefits administration. In Q4 of 2015, the vendor deployed benefits
administration functionality, powered by a third party. Mobile-compatible, the
solution can help guide employees through the decision making process.
Automation assists with key administrative tasks. Within the same system for
ESS, employees may self-administer aspects of their plans. Additionally,
administrators have an improved ability to manage online selections and carrier
connections; duplicate data entry, therefore, has been virtually eliminated.
Paycor has also deployed automation and integration for 401K-related tasks. The
vendor continues to build out its WFM functionality, as well as its capabilities
outside of HCM. Nucleus expects the vendor to continue m0ving in the direction of
the Expert quadrant, next year.
PAYLOCITY
Paylocity provides a SaaS-delivered solution in the cloud for WFM. Functionality
includes that for payroll, core HR, time and labor, and benefits administration. Along
with all this comes a robust tax filing service, as well as a capable module for
expense-tracking. In keeping with its peers in the Core quadrant of this Value Matrix,
the vendor continues to venture beyond WFM, into more of HCM. When last year’s
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WFM Value Matrix published, Paylocity had an ATS and other functionality for
recruiting; this remains the case.
In keeping with another trend evidenced among its peers in the Core quadrant,
Paylocity continues to fortify its ability to help users comply with the ACA. In
Paylocity’s case, these improvements comprise the bulk of developments over the
past year. At the onset of Q3 2015, Paylocity deployed ACA Enhanced, which
comprises functionality intended to automate key employment-related aspects of
compliance with this complex law – e.g., completion and filing of IRS forms 1094-C
and 1095-C, which are associated with Sections 6055 and 6056 of the Internal
Revenue Code. The solution additionally includes dashboards and reporting.
Notifications and alerts further help keep employers abreast of ACA-pertinent
goings-on in their workforce.
Nucleus expects Paylocity to continue in strengthening its core offerings for WFM.
The vendor likely will resume in leading its peers in the Core quadrant, in terms of
visibly continuing to build on functionality across more of HCM. Nucleus believes
Paylocity will move noticeably upward and to the right over the coming year.
F A C I L I T A T O R S
Facilitators in the Value Matrix include JDA, SumTotal, and Workplace Systems.
JDA
New this year to the WFM Value Matrix, the JDA Software Group Inc. provides a
WFM solution focused squarely on the retail industry. The technology is uniquely
suited to help managers in retail optimize schedules for floor associates and others.
It does so by informing these decisions with real-time data from origins such as sales
history, foot traffic, and shipments, as well as the omnichannel – e.g., stock
availability, activity in ecommerce, customer behavior, and more. All this data is
found in JDA’s robust solution for SCM. Many large retail brands use the combined
solution from JDA linking WFM to their SCM. The technology is well-suited to SMBs,
too. Because of tight integration between SCM and WFM, JDA is able to focus WFM
on the customer, not only the employee – differentiating the vendor from others in
this Value Matrix.
The creation of schedules versus managing and carrying them out are technically
discrete activities. Scheduling and advance scheduling are the primary capabilities
found in JDA’s solution for WFM, with time and attendance being a close second.
The solution does not provide functionality for payroll, with JDA instead electing to
integrate with whatever the user already has in place for this. Other vendors, as well,
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in this Value Matrix elect not to provide payroll. In implementing the solution, to
jumpstart the technology’s ability to coordinate WFM and the supply chain right
away, JDA is able to bring 62 weeks of backlog data into the fray from the onset,
from the omnichannel and elsewhere. Moreover, the forecast engine, the
foundation in JDA’s solution enabling advanced scheduling, utilizes multiple
algorithms for uncommon accuracy in the WFM market space.
In JDA’s solution, ease of use for managers and employees alike is central to ESS,
which is robust, giving employees the ability to swap shifts and managers the ability
to broadcast available shifts to appropriate members of the workforce – even on
short notice. This is helpful when an employee calls in sick, for instance. The system
presents stakeholders here with pertinent information always informed in the
moment by facts on the ground, in the supply chain. Through dashboards, users can
see side-by-side comparisons of locations that have seen recent overstaffing – and,
thus, adjust schedules. The solution accommodates schedule auditing, too. Limiting
factors pertinent to regulations found in the ACA, FLSA, and elsewhere are set in the
background and automatically steer activity to be compliant with employment law.
Store managers benefit from highly configurable options. Availability constraints –
the biggest, most important piece of the solution – are dynamically viewable,
displaying employees’ general availability and preferred availability, as well as fixed
shifts. These views are also available in cross-site varieties for retailers whose
employees work at more than one location. Managers can see when employees are
approaching overtime. PTO requests make their way to managers in an intuitive
way, and users have the ability, within the system, to include relevant comments.
Additionally, the system limits requested time off at the get-go according to several
factors, sparing managers from receiving requests that fall outside parameters.
Green checkmarks signify to users whether they’ve successfully completed given
tasks. Labor forecasts automatically figure into what the system displays to
managers, who can see demand and other data that informed creation of the
schedule in question, side-by-side with hours. Filtering is available, which is in
keeping with the Nucleus’s concept of the Dark Cockpit (Nucleus Research n167 –
Enterprise software must adopt the principles of Dark Cockpit, December 2013).
Following are a number of recent developments from JDA relevant to WFM:
JDA Stratus. Launched in May 2016, JDA Stratus is a streamlined version of the
vendor’s single-tenant cloud offerings for WFM and other areas of the enterprise
covered by JDA. JDA Stratus for WFM contains only what employers absolutely
need, sparing them the cost and labor involved in implementing functionality
they’ll rarely or never use. It’s a way to get up and running more quickly, and at a
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reduced cost – thus building on the generally superior ROI that Nucleus has
found in the cloud versus on-premise solutions (Nucleus Research q76 – The
cloud multiplies analytics ROI by 2.3, May 2016)
IBM Partnership. Late last year, JDA partnered with IBM to integrate processing
and fulfillment for orders that customers make online, but choose to retrieve at
a store location (Nucleus Research 0254 – IBM and JDA team up for omnichannel
initiative, November 2014). Data from customers’ online activity assists retailers
in allocating staff optimally for these scenarios. Against historical data related to
this information, the solution helps schedulers forecast demand over the short-
term, better aligning staff levels to store traffic.
Long-range staff planning (LRSP). This can help with the holiday shopping
season. The need for more staff is a given, but the extent of need is difficult for
retailers to forecast. Historical data from the omnichannel, found in JDA’s
solution for SCM, helps them here to forecast better, hiring for accurate staff
increases or training existing staff accordingly for likely needs.
Mobile. JDA has completely reworked its mobile application for WFM, including
an overhaul of the UI to increase, among other things, utilization by Millennials
(who comprise a substantial percentage of the retail workforce). Through MSS,
managers have up-to-date information and exceptional functionality via the
mobile application. Geo-fencing is available to limit the location where
employees can clock in to a shift, from the mobile application.
Platform-as-a-service (PaaS). Additionally, through now-available access to
JDA’s APIs, third parties can develop applications to run on the mobile platform.
This is an iteration of PaaS. One example is WorkJam, which has created a
Facebook-style employee engagement–focused solution for the JDA mobile
application. Here, JDA’s move toward a PaaS is in line with the actions of other
vendors that have also opened their APIs to third-parties (Nucleus Research p62
– HCM Value Matrix 2015, April 2015). Additionally, the WorkJam solution is
another example reflecting Nucleus’s observations on how UIs in WFM and HCM
are evolving to emulate common consumer-grade social media feeds (Nucleus
Research p199 – The coming mass extinction in HCM, November 2015).
Again, this is JDA’s first appearance in the WFM Value Matrix. A well-established
vendor of technology for SCM, JDA acquired RedPrairie in late 2012 to expand its
footprint considerably (Nucleus Research m162 – RedPrairie and JDA merge,
November 2012). Its wherewithal in SCM positions JDA well to provide this retail
industry–specific functionality for WFM. Because the solution is applicable solely for
retailers, JDA places in the Facilitator quadrant. However, Nucleus believes the
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solution, within the scope of this applicability, is among the most usable compared
to other solutions in the Value Matrix.
SUMTOTAL
In last year’s WFM Value Matrix, Nucleus noted that developments at SumTotal
Systems reflect the company’s larger strategy to marshal its capabilities in both
WFM and HCM, including learning and the rest of talent management. The pace of
that integration has only quickened as the melding of SumTotal with Skillsoft has
solidified following the latter’s acquisition of the former in Q4 of 2014.
In SumTotal Work, a multi-tenant, SaaS-delivered solution, employers find
functionality across a useful breadth of WFM: time and attendance, scheduling,
absence and leave management, and payroll data processing. As noted last year,
managers’ view of WFM data within the system is robust. This includes real-time
predictive analyses and related workforce models. Alerts, notifications and call-outs
help them manage absence and leave policies, scheduling, and work time. Mobile
technology supports time punching, which time clocks from SumTotal can handle,
as well. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) integrates tightly.
Unifying these areas of WFM, as well as the rest of the SumTotal TalentExpansion
Suite, is a virtual data record called elixiHR that combines data native to SumTotal
and from other systems with which the solution may integrate (Nucleus Research
p123 – Guidebook – SumTotal Systems, July 2015). The result is in-the-moment
visibility into a broad cross-section of goings-on in the workforce. Examples
pertinent to WFM include activities such as time-off requests; avoidance of
noncompliance with employment law in, for instance, scheduling; and the ability to
finely align staff schedules to business demand. Additionally, learning-related
content can be surfaced as it becomes relevant to WFM data. For instance, should
an employee need to adjust his or her withholdings on a W-2, the system might
catch this and deliver a video to explain best-practices in filling this common form.
Most announced developments from SumTotal this year have been outside WFM,
centering instead on the vendor’s push toward integrating learning with talent
management and the rest of HCM. This activity occurs in the TalentExpansion Suite
(Nucleus Research q57 – Trigger-based learning takes hold, March 2016). Even so, the
aforementioned, tight integration across the suite is a recipe for ever more accurate
predictive analytics that will help users view their workforce in a truly holistic way
and make changes across HCM, informed by real-time developments in WFM. This
is notable and nudges SumTotal closer to the Leader quadrant.
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WORKPLACE SYSTEMS
Retailers, among them some of the largest internationally, constitute some of the
most notable users of Workplace Systems. The vendor offers a multi-tenant cloud-
based, SaaS-delivered solution that comprises schedule management, attendance
management, forecasting, advanced scheduling, business intelligence, and
dashboards. Along with retail, the vendor targets the leisure, hospitality, and
transportation industries. Additionally, Workplace Systems has recently moved into
the healthcare market. The vendor has solutions that work well, as well, for SMBs.
Last year’s WFM Value Matrix noted that Workplace Systems had deployed a
number of ongoing improvements to its solutions since Q4 of 2014. The vendor
continues to perfect its offerings:
Mobile. Key to the solution’s usability is its mobile functionality, which
Workplace Systems updates routinely since launching the capability, Mobile
Collaborative Scheduling, in early 2015. Among the vendor’s latest updates,
since the onset of 2016, have been compatibility with several additional
languages and the ability for employees to see a history of their time off
requests. Additionally, if the employer runs multiple locations, employees now
receive only relevant notifications specific to which store they were scheduled
for, and enterprise users may use the same username for mobile sign-in.
Additionally, presently in beta testing is employees’ ability to clock in to work via
mobile device. Via the mobile application, employees also have a way to rate
their schedule – enabling employers to connect the dots between scheduling,
metrics such as sales performance or absence rates, and employee sentiment.
Enterprise solution. Workplace Systems has deployed additional functionality to
its enterprise solution, as well. Building on what the vendor calls Key Skill
functionality, among the new capabilities is one that enables employers to
better ensure that the right employees with the right skills are scheduled for the
most optimal times. The capability is especially useful for identifying staff who
exhibit the best ability to sell, and to schedule them when employers most need
this skill on the store floor. A user now also now has improved ability to schedule
employees according to demand for them at the employer’s various locations.
Also, the system now has an improved ability for scheduling managers to time
breaks as efficiently and compliantly as possible. For breaks that are unpaid, the
system accounts for this. Improvements to the UI have been part-and-parcel of
all these changes. Additionally, optimizer technology helps store managers to
automate the pairing of new employees with veteran staff. This helps facilitate
on-the-job training from more experienced staff and aligns scheduling with the
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capabilities of the team – with an eye toward optimizing labor spending and
customer experience.
Partnerships and alliances. In early 2016, the vendor entered into a partnership
with ThinkTime, a provider of technology for task management. Nucleus’s
analysis shows that ThinkTime can improve the monthly productivity of a
manager by more than 2 percent (Nucleus Research p33 – A closer look at
ThinkTime, February 2015). The integration is especially advantageous for
retailers, whose activities in task management overlap their scheduling needs.
Also in early 2016, the vendor made available Workplace Professional on the
ADP Marketplace, an environment similar to platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and
where vendors interested in developing applications complementary to ADP’s
offerings can do so. A cloud-based platform, ADP Marketplace provides
developers with the necessary APIs (Nucleus Research p73 – WFM Value Matrix
2015, April 2015). Workplace Professional provides users of ADP’s solutions with
retailer-friendly elements of Workplace Systems’ scheduling software.
These improvements underpin Workplace Systems’ continually strong placement
within the Facilitator quadrant, and Nucleus strongly recommends Workplace
Systems for the markets this vendor targets. Given Workplace Systems’ continued
dedication to its product, Nucleus believes that the vendor stands a good chance of
moving into the Leader quadrant next time.