I've worked with HR, payroll, benefits, time and labor, health and safety, and every module. I've also worked on different modules for the education, health, and financial sectors. My 25 years of experience cover different industries and implementations. I've also worked in the public sector, which is a bit different. I implemented PeopleSoft for the state of Massachusetts, covering 168 schools, colleges, and universities.
I think PeopleSoft HR is pretty good and very mature. The people who built PeopleSoft now work on Workday. Workday has asked me to join them as an employee a few times, but I don't take anyone's employment because Workday isn't very user-friendly. With PeopleSoft, you can do a lot. Oracle now bundles PeopleSoft and calls it Oracle Cloud, but the programs are the same. Recruiters often don't know this and say you're not qualified if you don't have Oracle Cloud experience. However, Oracle has just put PeopleSoft in the cloud and packaged it as Oracle Cloud. Overall, if the solution is implemented correctly, it runs very smoothly. I think people shouldn't customize it. They should use it as is and try to adapt to it. Many people didn't understand PeopleSoft at first. For example, during COVID, some companies hired offshore people who didn't know what they were doing and messed everything up. You need to know the rules and regulations of the country where you're implementing the tool because every country has different rules for HR, benefits, and payroll. Canadian payroll differs from US payroll, but they're on the same platform in the solution. It's a very mature system, but people prefer newer options like Oracle Cloud. I was also involved with SAP S/4HANA. I don't think it's good for the government sector because government workers are a bit lazy about technical things. I understand S/4HANA because I have a technical background. It has a different structure, while PeopleSoft has more of a file and table structure, which is easier. If the tables are set up wrong, things go wrong. But if you know how to set it up correctly, it runs smoothly, and you can adjust it if needed. The problem is that companies are hiring big consulting firms that want money. They hire offshore people who don't know the country's rules and do programming. If you buy a package and still have to do custom programming, why buy the package at all? These days, I'm doing a lot of business process reengineering for people because they don't know how to implement it correctly. If you implement it right, you can reduce manual work. However, it depends on change management and how senior management handles it. It works fine if you implement the tool on-site or hybrid, not cloud and do it correctly. But in a cloud situation, there are problems. Many countries change their payroll and benefits rules often. With the cloud, you can't easily change things. You have to ask the company to make changes, which costs much money. People who don't want an IT department go for the cloud. But I've seen many companies fail with the cloud. The cloud is just everything packaged together. Your data sits in someone else's cloud, and you must accept whatever they do. Payroll is very sensitive. If payroll is wrong, the whole company suffers. I've worked on the financial and school sides, too. I'm comfortable with the tool if it's implemented correctly. But many companies don't implement it right, which is why they might say it is too much. I did a big project for an oil and gas company. I was a program control manager with 51 people under me. We used Oracle, but Oracle isn't as good as PeopleSoft for payroll. If the solution is implemented correctly, it's fine. But you need the right implementer. Big consulting firms often give wrong information and use inexperienced people. For maintenance, PeopleSoft sends updated rules to new tables at year-end. You compile the new tables and start the new year. But you need to know which changes apply to your country. I talk to many senior PeopleSoft people and always get LinkedIn messages about business opportunities. I now help about 50 clients when they have problems, but I'm not traveling. If you know the HR and payroll business well, you can implement anything - PeopleSoft, Oracle, or S/4HANA. I've done all of these. S/4HANA is more complicated and technical. It's similar to an old software called IDMS. You have to be very technical, and if you don't do it right, it won't work. I rate the overall solution a seven out of ten.
