Humane Technology - PeopleSoft

Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere

To appreciate the people-centered role of technology at PeopleSoft, don't start with the company's intranet or its Lotus Notes databases. Start instead with a blue-and-black backpack - the first "hardware" that new employees receive. It's a stylish piece of gear with room for a laptop, a pager, a cell-phone, and a personal digital assistant - tools that are part of life at the company. "It's information-to-go," says Zarate. "If you have power, you also have responsibilities. If you have responsibilities, you need tools to get things done. We provide those tools."

And they are power tools. New hires at PeopleSoft each receive the same laptop: a top-of-the-line model with a CD-ROM drive, a high-speed modem, and lots of performance enhancements. One purpose in giving everyone the same computer is to underscore the company's aversion to hierarchy. A more important purpose is to support its all-important global network. At PeopleSoft, a laptop isn't just a personal-productivity device. It's the point of entry into a massive information infrastructure that spans continents and time zones. "You can take your laptop to any of our offices anywhere in the world, plug it in, and the network recognizes you as if you were in your home office," Zarate says with obvious pride.

So in one way, every laptop at PeopleSoft is the same. But in another way, the laptops for each of a half-dozen groups - salespeople, developers, account managers - are unique, and always changing. According to each group's profile, computers get preloaded with access to the most relevant databases. Word-processing software comes with templates for the documents - memos, press releases, requisition forms - that each group is likely to create. Moreover, when updated software becomes available, it gets downloaded automatically the next time a user signs on. "It's so easy to get the information and applications you need that people just take it for granted," says Zarate. "It's embedded in how we do things."

Zarate has a nickname for this digital infrastructure. He calls it the PeopleBorg - after the alien race in "Star Trek" that shares a collective consciousness. The Borg "think as one and act as one," he says. "That's what we're trying to do here. You can be anywhere, at any time, and do what you need to do. We are one company, no matter where we are. Time and space are irrelevant."

Put People First

PeopleSoft's first commercial application, launched in 1989, automated human-resource functions for companies hungry to streamline their bureaucracies. Today PeopleSoft may be its own hungriest customer. Back in 1993, total head count was 362. The company now adds about that many people every six weeks - and expects its head count to reach nearly 7,500 by the end of 1998.

The hardest part about adding so many bodies, argues CEO Duffield, is maintaining your organizational identity. "Our true core competency is our culture," he says. "That's what attracts people and keeps them here. It also helps sell customers. Customers want to work with companies that are competent, trustworthy, and fun. Winners like winners."

Which is why so many of PeopleSoft's internal applications focus on the people factor: finding great employees, getting them up to speed quickly, providing the resources they need to do the job - all with a minimum of delay and paperwork.

For example, more and more job applicants are introduced to PeopleSoft electronically, through the company's Web site. A few mouse clicks produce job descriptions, experience requirements, and details on which offices are trying to fill which slots. Candidates apply electronically, filling out online forms and pasting their resumes into an onscreen window. The resumes then travel to an applicant database. The system automatically kicks out a postcard to confirm receipt of the application - although recruiters have often arranged an interview before the postcard arrives.

But the no-bureaucracy model really kicks in once people get hired. Successful applicants receive their job offers by overnight mail, along with an orientation package called Day One. That package includes a temporary-access password and an 800-number. That's all the information it takes to access PeopleSoft's automated enrollment system. In minutes - over the phone, with no human assistance - employees complete state and federal tax forms and the other "administrivia" associated with a new job. They also choose when they will attend an orientation class, at which they will use a Web-based application to select benefits. Their insurance data goes directly to PeopleSoft's carriers (electronically, of course). Employees use Web links to review and decide on mutual-fund options for their 401(k) accounts.