For more than a decade, healthcare IT and HR leaders have understood that migrating from PeopleSoft HCM to Oracle Cloud HCM is the right move. Most of us have sat in the room where someone walked through the slide deck, nodded along, and then went back to managing the system we already knew. The reasons to move were compelling in theory. The urgency, somehow, always felt like it could wait.
That is no longer true. The case for staying put has quietly collapsed, and the cost of waiting is now very real.
The PeopleSoft support picture is more complicated than it looks
Oracle has committed to Premier Support for PeopleSoft through at least 2036, and that commitment is genuine. But read the fine print on Oracle's Lifetime Support Policy and a more nuanced picture emerges. Some Global Payroll localizations may already be in, or approaching, Sustaining Support, where Oracle continues to provide access to existing fixes but does not introduce new regulatory updates or new functionality. For healthcare organizations running complex, multi-state payroll environments, that is not a footnote. It is a risk.
Beyond the support tiers, the pace of innovation tells the real story. PeopleSoft HCM enhancements come slowly. Oracle Cloud HCM ships meaningful updates on a quarterly basis, with investments in AI and systems of outcomes, mobile experience, and new HR capabilities that PeopleSoft simply cannot match. Every quarter that passes, the gap widens.
Finding PeopleSoft expertise is getting harder
Over the past decade, a steady stream of PeopleSoft customers have moved to the cloud, and the consultants, developers, and support professionals who knew the platform moved with them. The talent pool for experienced PeopleSoft HCM practitioners is noticeably smaller than it was five years ago, and it will be smaller still in five more. If your organization depends on external expertise to maintain, configure, or extend your HCM environment, that expertise is becoming harder to find and more expensive to retain.
Your HCM platform impacts the employee experience
Healthcare workers show up to their shifts having used Uber, their bank's mobile app, and a handful of consumer apps before they even clock in. The contrast with a PeopleSoft interface is not subtle. Oracle Cloud HCM was designed mobile-first, with the kind of clean, intuitive experience that modern employees expect from any software they use.
This matters more than it might seem. The healthcare industry is facing a workforce challenge that will only deepen. The HRSA National workforce projections show registered nurse shortages continuing through 2038, with an estimated shortfall of 108,960 full-time equivalent nurses by the end of the forecast period. Even in 2028, the projected RN shortage is expected to reach 8% nationwide. At the same time, nearly half of the current nursing workforce is already over the age of 50. In that environment, competition for talent is fierce, and the tools you give people are part of the story you tell about what it is like to work there. A clunky HR experience is a small but real signal to every employee, every day. There are capabilities in the cloud that simply cannot be replicated on premises.
Oracle Cloud HCM improves employee satisfaction and retention
Oracle Cloud HCM includes a set of features that were built for the cloud and cannot be retrofitted into PeopleSoft.
- HR Help Desk gives employees a single place to get answers and resolution on HR questions.
- Journeys guides people through complex life events and transitions with personalized, step-by-step workflows.
- Talent Marketplace uses AI to surface internal opportunities that match an employee's skills and interests before a manager even thinks to post a job externally.
These are not incremental improvements on existing functionality. They represent a fundamentally different way of delivering HR services.
The urgency of these tools in healthcare cannot be overstated. Hospital turnover rates continue to run between 18 and 22 percent annually. The average cost of replacing a single bedside registered nurse is between $46,000 and $56,000 once you factor in recruiting, onboarding, and the productivity gap while a new hire gets up to speed. Better tools for internal mobility, career development, and employee experience are not nice-to-haves. They directly affect the bottom line.
The Oracle HCM roadmap is built with real customer input
One of the less-discussed advantages of Oracle Cloud HCM is how the product roadmap gets built. Oracle works directly with thousands of customer organizations, including healthcare systems, to shape what gets developed and when. The processes and workflows in the platform reflect actual industry practices, not just product manager assumptions. That collaborative model continues with every release cycle, which means the product keeps getting better in ways that are grounded in real operational experience.
Oracle's sustained position as a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader for Cloud HCM for ten consecutive years, and furthest right for Completeness of Vision for eight of those years, reflects exactly that kind of compounding investment. This is a platform that continues to pull away from the field.
The growing cost of staying on PeopleSoft
For years, the conversation around PeopleSoft to Cloud HCM was about whether to move. That question has largely been answered. The conversation now is about timing, and specifically about what the delay is costing your organization. In our next post, we will get into the reason that timing has become genuinely urgent: artificial intelligence.
Start planning your cloud HCM journey
The move from PeopleSoft HCM to Oracle Cloud HCM is no longer a question of if, but when. Whether you're building a business case, assessing migration readiness, or planning your transition strategy, Alithya has helped many organizations transition to Oracle Cloud from PeopleSoft. Our healthcare and Oracle experts work with organizations to reduce risk, streamline implementation, and create a clear path to a modern, AI-ready HCM platform. Contact us to discuss where your organization is today and what the next step should look like.
Sources
- Oracle Lifetime Support Policy, Effective October 2025
- HRSA Nurse Workforce Projections, 2023-2038 (2025)
- NSI National Healthcare Retention and RN Staffing Report, via Rellevate (2025)
- Oracle Named Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud HCM Suites, 10th Consecutive Year (September 2025)