SuccessFactors Variable Pay Integration With SAP ERP HCM

The SuccessFactors Variable Pay integration with SAP ERP HCM is planned for release in November 2014. I had a look at the current design and updated the Talent Hybrid deployment model white paper with my visual interpretation of the proposed design. Please note that sometimes we make minor changes to the design and release dates. Consider this an informal update. Don't make any critical purchasing or project decisions based on this post. This is the update I made to the white paper.

SuccessFactors Variable Pay Integration with SAP ERP HCM

Variable pay is a significant element of the direct compensation package of a growing number of organizations. The trend is towards more organizations using variable pay and for these organizations to expand eligibility and to increase the prominence of variable pay in the total direct compensation package.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) defines variable pay  as “direct compensation that does not become a permanent part of base pay and which may vary in amount from period to period.” Other names for variable pay include: incentive compensation, incentives, bonuses, commissions, cash awards and lump sums.

Why “SuccessFactors Variable Pay Integration with SAP ERP HCM”?
The criteria and standard for variable pay are defined in the Core HR system and the pay is calculated in the compensation system. So, a near real time integration between the Core HR system and compensation system is essential to ensure timely and accurate execution of the variable pay strategy of an organization.

Integration Data Flow from SAP ERP HCM to SuccessFactors
The criteria and standard for variable pay are defined in the SAP ERP HCM system and send to SuccessFactors Variable Pay module.

Integration Data Flow from SuccessFactors to SAP ERP HCM
The variable pay amount, calculated in SuccessFactors is sent to SAP ERP HCM for payroll purposes.

SuccessFactors Variable Pay Integration with SAP ERP HCM

Data Science Course Series by Johns Hopkins University

By now, it is clear to everyone in the enterprise software industry that big data is the next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity. I was wondering for a while about what this means to regular employees and managers in organizations. After several months of researching this topic it is clear to me that big data is not a topic for specialists alone. It is going to add to the value of every regular enterprise software person who embraces it and diminish the value of a person who ignores it.

I decided to embrace it wholeheartedly and signed up for a 9 month course series to understand the tools and the technical fundamentals. The course series is offered by Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg school of Public Health via Coursera. While the course is free, the certification is not. I paid for the certification to motivate myself. It is a nine month series with every course lasting a few weeks. I am done with two weeks of the first course and just completed part of the course project, which involved setting up the tools, such as R and R Studio, required to perform data analysis.

I must mention that the course is well designed to suit the needs to working professionals and is available for consumption as video, even from mobile devices. The content is all video so far and is designed for consumption in short spurts, like YouTube videos. There are even features to speed up the video or slow down depending upon your preference.

As a final note I want to add that corporate learning management systems can learn a thing or two from Coursera about using video in a course. Coursera is generations ahead of corporate learning management systems, which are still stuck in the 90s. I know because I designed some of them.

The first course on the Data Science Series.

What is Variable Pay and Why Does It Need Integration with Core HR Systems

According to SHRM, Variable pay is a significant element of the direct compensation package of a growing number of organizations. The trend is towards more organizations using variable pay
and for these organizations to expand eligibility and to increase the prominence of variable pay in the total direct compensation package.

SHRM defines variable pay  as “direct compensation that does not become a permanent part
of base pay/salary and which may vary in amount from period to period.” Other names for variable pay include: incentive compensation, incentives, bonuses, commissions, cash awards and lump sums.

Variable pay can be in the form of short-term (one year or less) or long-term (two years
or more) incentives/bonuses and employee ownership programs. “Incentives” are plans that have predetermined criteria and standards, as well as understood policies for determining and allocating rewards. “Bonuses” are awards delivered at the end of the period, based on a subjective judgment as to the quality of performance and the rewards that are warranted.

The criteria and standard for variable pay are defined in the Core HR system and the pay is calculated in the compensation system. So, a near real time integration between the Core HR system and compensation system is essential to ensure timely and accurate execution of the variable pay strategy of an organization.

Four Member Team To Administer Employee Central for over 10,000

At SuccessConnect 2014, our customers Densply and Timken talked about the SuccessFactors applications they use the teams that manage them. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that their entire Employee Central team was less than 4 people.

I was pleased to find out that this is one area where the cloud has truly simplified operations for customers compared to an on-premise ERP administration which requires a much larger team. Both customers repeatedly pointed out the fact that their teams were very lean. In fact the lack of resources forced them to look for innovative solutions and ideas.

They also repeatedly advised organizations to keep things simple.

HR Audit And Compliance as a Service on HANA Cloud Platform by Accenture

One of the sessions in the HR technology track at SuccessConnect 2014 was about the HR Audit And Compliance as a Service application built by Accenture. Ari Levin from Accenture, the partner who built the product, talked about the product and the value it brings for customers.

Ari Levin talking about HR Audit And Compliance as a Service on HANA Cloud Platform

Mary Kosita, Chief Learning Officer at Timken, an Employee Central customer told the audience why Timken chose the application, which is built on the HANA Cloud Platform. After the session I came away thinking that this session should have been in the Core HR and Payroll track rather than the technology track. There was so much focus on the application and less talk about technology. I think this shows the maturity of the HANA Cloud Platform technology and the coming of age of the service. Technology is becoming the enabler and the discussion is about the application and the value it brings for customers.