Parks Victoria Generates Consolidated Work Process Reports in 10 Minutes, Saves US$60,000 on Temporary Labor Costs
 
 

Parks Victoria Generates Consolidated Work Process Reports in 10 Minutes, Saves US$60,000 on Temporary Labor Costs

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Parks Victoria was created as a statutory authority by the Parks Victoria Act 1998. The authority reports to the Victorian Government’s Minister for Environment and Climate Change and is responsible for managing more than 4 million hectares—about 18%—of Victoria. This area includes 45 national parks, 25 state parks, 13 marine national parks, and around 90 metropolitan, regional, and reservoir parks. The authority also manages more than 11,000 formally registered aboriginal cultural heritage sites and more than 2,500 nonindigenous historic places. Assets on this land include 47 visitor center buildings, 14,000 kilometers of roads, 3,700 kilometers of walking tracks, and 89 sporting facilities. The parks and waterways attract more than 85 million visits each year.
 
Parks Victoria’s primary responsibility is to manage the parks in the context of their surrounding landscapes and in partnership with traditional owners to ensure they remain healthy and resilient. The authority also assists with emergency management, such as responding to bush fires on public land.

Headquartered in Melbourne, Parks Victoria operates 120 offices across the state and has 1,100 employees. The authority’s predecessor, Melbourne Parks and Waterways, first implemented Oracle products in 1994. In 2000, Parks Victoria became one of the first organizations in Australia to deploy Oracle Human Resources Management System. The authority also implemented Oracle Payroll in 2002.

In 2007, Parks Victoria decided to upgrade to Oracle Human Resources Management System Release 12 and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition to take advantage of advanced online employee and management self-service capabilities, improve leave and overtime management, streamline human resources (HR) processes, and reduce costs.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Parks Victoria

  • “Oracle Partner Presence of IT’s knowledge of Oracle products and basic understanding of our organization helped us evaluate exactly how Oracle Human Resources Management System Release 12 would best meet our needs. We now follow Oracle best practices and have a series of online employee and manager self-service options that have streamlined our HR processes.” – Michael Boulton, Manager – Payroll and HR Systems, Human Resources, Parks Victoria

  • Replace an outdated HR system that had not been upgraded for approximately seven years
  • Improve employee leave management
  • Replace manual HR processes, such as filling in overtime and pay variation forms for work carried out in parks
  • Reduce back-end office administration costs, such as temporary labor costs

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Engaged Oracle Partner Presence of IT to upgrade from Oracle Human Resources Management Release 11.5.10 to Oracle Human Resource Management Release 12, and implement Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, to streamline HR processes and take advantage of advanced online self-service capabilities
  • Reduced the time taken to create a complete record of employee information, such as an employee’s position, park responsibilities, pay, and leave, from four hours to 10 minutes, by creating a new workforce establishment report
  • Enabled HR and senior managers to make timely and better informed decisions regarding employee’s pay rates or assignments in different parks by configuring the information extract function in the workforce establishment report so it can be viewed with different parameters according to a manager’s responsibilities
  • Viewed employee excess leave information instantly online, rather than taking a day to generate an excess leave report
  • Saved US$60,000 on temporary labor costs by replacing manual payroll procedures, which required extra staff, with quick and efficient online, self-service HR forms
  • Eliminated the risk of overtime requests being mislaid or submitted incorrectly by replacing paper overtime request forms with online self-service forms
  • Improved leave approval and other HR processes by adopting Oracle best practice position and supervisor hierarchies

Why Oracle

Parks Victoria has developed a strong partnership with Oracle since its predecessor, Melbourne Parks and Waterways, implemented its first Oracle product in 1994. Parks Victoria was one of the first entities in Australia to implement Oracle Human Resources Management System and Oracle Payroll, and it is extremely confident that Oracle applications are the most suitable to meet its business requirements.

“As a long-term Oracle E-Business Suite user, changing providers was not an economical alternative,” said Michael Boulton, manager – payroll and HR systems, human resources, Parks Victoria. “It was a logical move to upgrade our Oracle Human Resources Management System to Release 12 at the same time as upgrading our Oracle Financial modules, to take advantage of the advanced self-service capabilities the application provides.”

Implementation Process

Parks Victoria first decided to upgrade its HR system in late 2007. After completing a tender process, in January 2009 the authority engaged Oracle Partner Presence of IT to design and build the new HR system from scratch, based on Oracle Human Resources Management System Release 12. Presence of IT developed a range of configuration changes and personalization features to meet Parks Victoria’s specific requirements and helped the authority migrate its existing HR information to the new system.

After several rounds of system and user acceptance testing, the new HR system went live on November 22, 2009. Since going live, Presence of IT has helped Parks Victoria further improve business processes and workflow efficiencies, and it also provides ongoing support.

Partner

Parks Victoria has worked with some members of Presence of IT’s staff since its original Oracle Payroll implementation in 2002.

“We have worked with Presence of IT for more than nine years, and are extremely comfortable and secure in the team’s ability,” said Boulton. “The staff knows our IT systems and HR requirements and is conversant and knowledgeable about Oracle products. They were able to evaluate what we needed and advise us on how Oracle could best meet those needs.”

After designing and developing Parks Victoria’s new HR system, Presence of IT developed comprehensive step-by-step user guides to provide Parks Victoria’s staff with easy-to-use information about each of the system’s modules.

“Presence of IT has consistently acted as a genuine partner during the implementation project,” said Boulton. “The team was always adaptable and accommodating with our requests, and assessed our change requirements with minimal impact on the project’s budget. We agreed to a fixed-price contract and the team’s input was invaluable in getting the project completed on time.

“The company makes us feel we are its number one priority, and we have confidence in its work and its ability to support its clients,” he added. “The team has met all the key features of exceptional service. I really have nothing negative to say!”

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