WFM TECHNOLOGY VALUE MATRIX 2016 · 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

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.




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.




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.




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.




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




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:




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




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.




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.




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-




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




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.




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




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




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




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




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




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,




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




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




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.




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




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.

Documents

WFM TECHNOLOGY VALUE MATRIX 2016 · 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