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Employee management software helps to take the burden of managing HR-related tasks off your shoulders and boosts employee satisfaction in one. With the right tool, your workforce stays productive and happy, and you get to free up time to focus on your core business needs.
As a small business owner, you already know how much a fantastic team means to your goals and growth. However, you’ve got a lot on your plate managing your day-to-day business needs and how some things can fall off your radar. From keeping their paperwork in order to tracking time off, it can be challenging to manage everything.
Luckily, you don’t have to do it alone. We’re here to break down how employee management software can help your workplace become more efficient and effective. Let’s get started.
Top 5 employee management software.
- People by Wagepoint
- Humi
- HiBob
- Bamboo HR
- Zoho People
Curious to know why they are the top five employee management software offerings for small businesses? Keep reading to find out.
Why use employee management software?
Let’s be brutally honest — you’re propped up by time-consuming spreadsheets right now, but which company isn’t?
Everyone in your small business probably knows what’s going on with leave and paperwork. You’ve found the time to juggle leave requests, calendars and project management. Don’t forget about onboarding new employees, storing important information — the list goes on. It’s not perfect, but it’s what you’ve got to work with.
Who needs sleep, anyway?
So why do you need employee management software? Isn’t it another pricey, complicated thing to have to figure out? Are you big enough to need help to handle time off requests and employee performance?
A full HR department, HR processes, HRIS tools — these are scary terms for companies that are still establishing roots and adding team members. Even the idea of HR software is scary as a small business (although it shouldn’t be).
Taking on an employee management software solution means you have a new tool to manage the needs of team members and track time off. It also helps free up time and makes employee management systems simpler and more transparent, all right at your fingertips. It positions your small business as a professional company that cares about its staff.
The good news is it doesn’t have to come at a high cost or with a tough learning curve.
Essential features of employee management software.
What makes the best employee management systems stand out? Let’s take a look!
Employee time-off tracking
For most small businesses, this is the #1 feature. Benefits matter to your staff. You’ve grown your company. Now you have multiple skilled employees relying on you to deliver a pleasant, cohesive work environment.
The more employees you have, the harder it gets to accurately track and manage important information manually. Where mistakes happen, sour feelings follow. People want to be treated fairly in the workplace and know their employee experience matters to you.
A strong employee time-off system will help you:
- Empower confidence about benefits and resource management.
- Allow self-service updates to details.
- Free up manager’s time.
- Boost ease of use and efficient time-off tracking with employee engagement
- (Potentially) add integrated calendars so everyone can see leave days.
Now imagine you can also easily create, assign and manage different start dates, leave types and other employee information at the click of a button. Want to offer work-from-home or volunteer time tracking? Simply add them to the employee management system to track in real-time.
Document and information management
You’re now big enough that terms like ‘compliance’ and ‘centralization’ are rearing their heads alongside basic project management. Streamlined business processes and safe information storage are critical. No one wants personal information and other employee data shared inappropriately.
If changes are made on your account, you want to know:
- Who made them?
- Why?
- Were the changes legitimate?
Keeping on top of this kind of activity becomes even tougher when you’re managing multiple leave policy types for different employees and onboarding new employees.
Now imagine being able to securely e-sign all documents related to onboarding new hires or even day-to-day business, with centralized storage and access as employees need it. All without risking employee information and security issues brought on by email or paper trails. Basic GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and privacy regulations should be built in for data privacy.
Reviews and objective management tools
For performance management, benchmarks and goal setting improve employee performance and boost productivity. When managers and staff actively engage each other with clear objectives, good things happen. You want to provide performance reviews and monitor growth and progress within your organization.
The best employee management tools will help you centralize and share these performance management aspects. Better yet, it should be easy to use and comprehensive for everyone.
Top employee management software.
Now that we’ve nailed down the key features, let’s take a look at some of the best employee management software for the small business market.
People by Wagepoint
Best for: Leave management, especially for sub-50 employee small businesses and companies new to the workforce management software space.
People by Wagepoint offers an appealing entry-level employee management tool that makes tracking time off easier than ever. It has scalable add-ons when you need them and eliminates your administrative and HR burden without compromising quality.
This product is low-cost, low-bloat, simple to use and reliable. It focuses specifically on small businesses instead of treating them as an afterthought to larger businesses.
With fast and friendly customer service and an easily scalable system, you can build on as you grow. Leverage handy out-of-the-box workflow templates and integrated company calendars to limit time-off conflicts and increase transparency among teams. Plus, there is a free trial option.
Takeaways:
- Free trial
- Easy-to-use employee management with low learning curve
- Entry-level employee management tool with scalability
- Focus on small businesses
Humi
Best for: Evolving medium-sized businesses in Canada.
Humi is a Canadian-focused software with plenty of settings and add-ons. But they come at a cost that can become steep to unlock full functionality. This is fantastic if you need all the bells and whistles in one place. However, it could become overwhelming for smaller companies looking for a basic, easy-to-use product. Time management only unlocks on the middle tier.
Is your company already pretty large and starting to outgrow basic functionality, but you aren’t yet ready for a full-suite product? Then you will be able to make the most of Humi’s diverse features and their payroll integration could be appealing.
Takeaways:
- Great middle ground product for evolving SMBs
- Full functionality locked behind gateways
- Canadian focus
HiBob
Best for: SMBs and organizations with a global footprint and different locations looking for a broad range of HR-type integrations.
HiBob benefits from a massive global footprint, with customer service in locations across the world in a single platform. It also offers the widest range of languages of any software on our list, primarily EU-focused.
It offers easy integration with their other products, including payroll, time-tracking and benefits management tools. They have a custom API available, although they have no dedicated app. Despite the wealth of features, their reporting aspects are a touch clunky. There’s not much room to personalize or adjust employee profiles and time-off options, which could be an issue. Their pricing models are also not the most transparent, which many smaller businesses could find off-putting.
Takeaways:
- Global focus
- Integration with HiBob products
- Custom API
- Little personalization and non-transparent pricing
Bamboo HR
Best for: SMBs of over 50 employees needing integrative employee-focused software as they move out of the small business space.
Bamboo does a lot. And we mean a lot. It’s probably the most comprehensive software on our list. For that, it has a surprisingly intuitive interface you can quickly adapt to. But for smaller companies, its functionality will be overwhelming and probably does (and charges for) more than you need.
If you’re starting to outgrow the SMB title, however, this could be the product for you. They also offer a mobile app. It integrates with many other products, but not with QuickBooks or the most common Canadian payroll providers. They offer a free 7-day trial. Support and additional features are paid.
Takeaways:
- Full-suite product, but intuitive interface
- Extreme (paid) functionality beyond SMB needs, better for moving out of SMB space
- No QuickBooks/Canadian payroll provider integration
- Free trial but paid support
Zoho People
Best for: Larger SMBs in need of a full-suite product with enhanced scalability and added integrations.
Zoho is another full-suite product with significant integration to other Zoho products, Adobe/DocuSign, Google Apps and Microsoft Office products. Available in several key European and Asian languages, it also allows use of the Zoho AI bot.
While it has a mobile app, it’s a little buggy. Customizations are limited, the learning curve is a little steep or overwhelming and there’s a five user minimum.
There’s no free trial for Zoho People, either, although the stepped pricing plans could be appealing for scalability and joint US/Canadian Dollar pricing could be useful to the right company. Support is limited and some report a poor user experience.
Takeaways:
- Full-suite product
- Multiple product integration
- Limited customization and higher learning curve
- No free trial and high minimum users
- Email support only
Employee management made easy.
There are plenty of good reasons for small businesses to start looking at more efficient ways of managing their employees. Dedicated people tools help take your small business to the next level. From ensuring they feel valued through effectively managing their benefits to maintaining transparency, data security and document control.
If you’re a small business owner looking to power up your employee-focused management, consider People by Wagepoint. There’s no steep learning curve or excessive features you don’t yet need. All while delivering a workforce management software that brings you simple, seamless basics that improve everyone’s workday. But don’t just take our word for it!
Start your free trial of People by Wagepoint today and experience the difference for yourself!
