Roundup: Oracle Beats Expectations; Home Depot Builds Its Own Platform

HR Technology News Screens

Spring is coming, but our weekly roundup of deals, product announcements and other news from the HCM technology community is here.

Oracle’s revenue slipped 1 percent, to $9.6 billion, during its fiscal 2019 third-quarter but still outperformed analyst expectations. Partly because of a strong U.S. dollar, revenue from cloud services and licenses support—which makes up more than two-thirds of Oracle’s business—rose 1 percent from the year-ago period. Sales from its cloud license, on-premise license, hardware and services divisions all dropped. Net income was $2.8 billion, up from a loss of roughly $4 billion last year. Co-CEO Safra Catz said the company’s overall operating margin rose to 44 percent as Oracle’s hardware business continued to shrink while higher-margin cloud businesses grew.

Home Depot developed its own platform to support the hiring of 80,000 associates at locations across the U.S. The company expects the new technology to help talent acquisitions teams move candidates through the hiring process more quickly. Last spring, Home Depot launched Candidate Self Service, another internally built technology, which allows store and supply chain candidates to schedule their own interviews. Since launch, it’s been used by nearly 1 million job seekers, the company said. “We continue to invest in technology so we can help candidates control their own journey and welcome new hires into our family faster than ever,” said Executive Vice President of HR Tim Hourigan.

LinkedIn unit Glint launched three features designed to empower managers as they work to motivate and engage their teams. The features will eliminate manual analysis, automatically find patterns and uncover the most likely ways a manager can increase engagement. Taken together, they emphasize personalized actions and results for each manager and their teams.

SAS will invest $1 billion in artificial intelligence over the next three years. The money will go toward research and development, education initiatives designed to customer needs to better understand and benefit from AI, and expert services that will help customers optimize their return on AI projects.

Digital learning companies Valamis and OpenSesame announced a strategic content partnership. Under the agreement, OpenSesame’s e-learning catalog of courses on industry-specific business skills, certifications, workplace safety, technology and compliance will become available to Valamis users. The companies said by combining Valamis LXP with OpenSesame’s ability to address different learning needs using a variety of formats and sources, customers will be able to localize and scale personalized learning initiatives.

Riveted Labs WorkMode, an app that allows employers to measure workers’ personal smartphone use while they’re physically at work. The company said WorkMode can eliminate employee phone distraction and ensure compliance with cell-phone policies in industries such as construction, warehousing, food services and manufacturing. At the same time, it protects employee privacy. “WorkMode strikes the right balance between respecting employee privacy and ensuring a safe workplace for everyone,” said Katharine Brandes, the company’s co-founder and CMO.

Green Circle Health received a patent for its proprietary method of exchanging data between its platform’s users and other services. The system helps employees and family members collect and manage their personal health data from multiple sources, and share such results with GCH’s live health coaches, who provide guidance on managing chronic diseases.

UK-based Nodal Labs, a blockchain-based freelance marketplace, secured a “large” Series A round from ABH Management. The funds will be used in part to continue development of its platform, which is scheduled to launch this spring. Nodal describes itself as “a fully-automated talent platform that aims to dramatically reduce the amount of time and money spent on recruitment, onboarding, payroll and management for both freelancers and employers.”

SNH Capital Partners acquired  Universal Background Screening  and merged it with portfolio company PeopleFacts. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. The combined businesses will operate under Universal’s brand.

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