Memphis strengthens city services with Oracle Cloud
“Our ability to attract and retain top talent makes a huge difference in our ability to deliver emergency services. Essentially, our HR team is taking care of the employees who take care of our citizens.”
Business challenges
When Jim Strickland became mayor of Memphis in 2016, he promised to revitalize the city’s workforce and improve the delivery of city services to more than 652,000 residents. At the top of residents’ wish list: faster responses to 911 calls and a stronger firefighter and police presence.
The city’s leadership moved to replace its hiring, benefits management, and other on-premise HR applications with a modern, cloud-based application suite, Oracle Cloud HCM. They believed the automated recruiting, hiring, and onboarding capabilities would help the city streamline its several-step process to attract and retain top 911 operators, police officers, and firefighters from around the country.
Why City of Memphis chose Oracle
Results
The City of Memphis reduced attrition among police personnel by 25% through a combination of improved compensation and benefits, management training opportunities, retention bonuses, and employee appreciation events. It increased employee engagement by 14 percentage points, as measured by an independent survey of employee opinions about city leadership, culture, and resources.
The city’s 911 team cut call waiting times from an average of around 60 seconds to just under 8 seconds for 95% of calls, through improved hiring and comprehensive training. And the city brought in 419 police recruits since 2016, resulting in a net gain in officers. The city also has recruited 363 new firefighters.
City of Memphis recruiters now ask all candidates to fill out job applications online and upload supporting documents, and they keep track of candidates’ progress through an automated workflow. Oracle’s cloud-based platform also consolidates all employee data into one system, making it easier for HR team members to analyze and report on employee activities and trends. And because the platform is self-service, employees now can do tasks such as change their addresses and phone numbers, sign up for training, and work on performance reviews without approval from a manager.