There are many factors that go into selecting the right human resources software for a business, from what industry you’re in to the size of your organization. Finding the right HRIS platform for your company simplifies the management of employee data, improves employee experience, and maximizes managerial efficiency.
Human resources software platforms are all somewhat similar, but there can be key differences between them.
Human resources information systems include core HR functions such as recruiting, attendance tracking, training and development, benefits administration, and payroll administration. They also usually include a self-service portal where employees can submit paperwork such as W-4s, request time off, make benefits elections, and view pay stubs.
Human resources management systems include many of the same core HR functions as HRIS platforms, plus additional ones, like time tracking, onboarding processes, and employee performance management. Mid-size and larger companies often rely on performance management software to conduct performance reviews and measure employee productivity and work quality over time.
Human capital management platforms often include the same features offered by HRIS and HRMS platforms and go further in trying to address the needs of the entire employee lifecycle as well as daily operations. Additional HCM functions include labor analytics, salary and succession planning, employee scheduling, demand forecasting, and workforce modeling. Workforce modeling allows companies to plan out their future hiring based on demand, productivity, and attrition.
Workforce.com
Best for mobile onboarding and managing shift worker information.
Workday
Best for enterprise performance management and quality of support.
Gusto
Best for small businesses with salaried staff prioritizing ease of use.
Oracle HCM Cloud
Best for those looking to link their HRIS with finance and IT.
UKG Pro (UltiPro)
Best for enterprise HR analytics and payroll automation.
Paycom
Best for conducting and tracking payroll over mobile devices.
Ceridian Dayforce
Best for performance management, like company goals and OKRs, and employee feedback.
BambooHR
Best for employee well-being and applicant tracking.
ADP Workforce Now
Best for medium-sized business talent management and payroll.
Zenefits
Best for extensive benefits administration.
Paycor
Best for small and medium-sized business employee engagement and succession planning.
Rippling
Best for policy management and IT cloud features.
Best for mobile onboarding and managing shift worker information.
Workforce.com is a cloud-based software designed for shift workers. Along with its extensive HRIS suite, it also comes complete with payroll and workforce management. Using a single employee database, you can manage onboarding, scheduling, time tracking, and payroll – all in one place.
Where Workforce.com really shines is in its specialized design for shift workers. If your workforce primarily consists of hourly employees, Workforce.com is probably the best HRIS option for you. Its mobile-first features maximize employee self-service and reduce the administrative burden on your HR team, speeding up onboarding and making edits to personal details easy.
Because of its streamlined, shift-worker approach, Workforce.com finds most of its success with small to mid-market hospitality and healthcare businesses.
Workforce.com provides a single source of truth for all your employee data, accessible via browser and app. Alongside typical HRIS functions like onboarding, employee self-service, performance management, and HR analytics, you'll also get scheduling, time tracking, payroll, and labor forecasting.
Visit Workforce.com's pricing page to request a quote today.
Best for enterprise performance management and quality of support.
Based in the cloud, Workday is one of the most well-known platforms on the market. In its entirety, Workday is almost overqualified if used purely as an HRIS system. Its vast product range makes it a good fit for enterprise organizations looking for a multitude of solutions – but practically speaking, simply using it for HRIS might be overkill for smaller businesses.
Large enterprise-level companies in the IT, software tech, finance, education, and healthcare typically use Workday.
Workday HCM is a powerful platform that provides human resources management, organization management, reporting and analytics, benefits administration, talent optimization, employee and manager self-service, and more. It was created to work with additional Workday products such as Workday Payroll and Workday Recruiting.
Workday is quote based, meaning you’ll need to contact them directly to figure out pricing.
Best for small businesses with salaried staff prioritizing ease of use.
Gusto is a cloud-based platform that offers payroll services, manages employee information and HR data, and helps companies with talent management, benefits management, and more. The platform is modern and offers affordable options for new businesses.
Gusto is used by many small and medium-sized SaaS, marketing and advertising agencies, accounting firms, and non-profit organizations.
Gusto‘s Core package includes full-service payroll, employee profiles and self-service, health insurance administration, employee benefits, and integrations for accounting and time tracking. The Complete package includes all services in Core as well as hiring and onboarding tools, project tracking, workforce cost reports, team management tools, performance reviews, and more.
Gusto’s Complete package starts at $39/month plus $12/month per user. The lower-tier Core package with basic HR functions is $39/month and $6/month per user, and the higher-tier Concierge package is $149/month plus $12/month per user. For businesses in need of premium tools and support, contact Gusto’s sales team for details about a customized Select package.
Best for those looking to link their HRIS with finance and IT.
Oracle’s HCM Cloud products aim to provide everything a company needs to complete its HR tasks from applicant tracking to offboarding and everything in between. It gives users a single source of truth for their HR data and can help businesses with other needs such as payroll and learning management.
Large companies in IT, accounting, financial services, and healthcare.
Services available on Oracle’s HCM Cloud platform include core HR modules, learning, talent management, analytics, workforce management, recruiting, and payroll. It also includes the Oracle ME platform that streamlines communications between employees and management and provides ways for them to connect.
Oracle is quote based, meaning you’ll need to contact them directly to figure out pricing.
Best for enterprise HR analytics and payroll automation.
UKG Pro Suite is a cloud-based platform that combines core HR tools with a robust payroll system and workforce management capabilities. Truly more of an HCM, HRIS features only make up a small portion of its whole arsenal.
UKG Pro is popular with large healthcare, non-profit, finance, hospitality, and insurance organizations.
By selecting UKG Pro Suite, you’re provided access to tools for human resources, payroll, talent management, workforce management, HR service delivery, compliance, and reporting and analytics.
UKG is quote based, meaning you’ll need to contact them directly to figure out pricing.
Best for conducting and tracking payroll over mobile devices.
Paycom offers a single platform for HR tools, employee management, and payroll services. The cloud-based software lets employees manage their own data on the app and allows HR teams to focus more on strategic decision-making and spend less time entering information on behalf of employees.
Businesses of all sizes use Paycom, though it‘s more popular with mid-size businesses and large companies than with small businesses. It‘s used extensively by non-profits, IT companies, and financial service organizations.
Paycom offers HR and payroll solutions, including time management, time-off requests, expense reimbursement, employee documents, and benefits. The platform provides users with a seamless experience where they can move from one module to the next and only have to input information one time.
Paycom is quote based, meaning you’ll need to contact them directly to figure out pricing.
Ceridian Dayforce | User Reviews
Best for performance management, like company goals and OKRs, and employee feedback.
Ceridian Dayforce product is a cloud-based HCM platform that offers an all-in-one solution for HR, payroll services, benefits, workforce management, and more. The platform aims to make life simpler for HR departments by ensuring compliance and regulations are followed globally to minimize the risk of non-compliance. It also uses analytics to help teams plan for the future and stay ahead of hiring decisions.
Dayforce is popular with large companies with over 1,000 staff in highly-regulated industries such as hospitals, healthcare, and financial services, as well as non-profit organizations.
The Dayforce platform includes payroll services, workforce management, employee benefits, HR tools and analytics, talent intelligence to recruit, engage, and keep top employees, and more. Additionally, Dayforce offers services like tax filing, education, implementation, configuration, and consulting.
Dayforce is quote based, meaning you’ll need to contact Ceridian directly to figure out pricing.
Best for employee well-being and applicant tracking.
BambooHR markets itself as an HRIS platform for small and mid-size businesses that have outgrown using spreadsheets for their HR functions. It aims to help make tasks easier for HR teams so they have more time for work that matters and can spend less time on tedious manual tasks.
Many of BambooHR’s customers are small to mid-size businesses in tech, IT, financial services, and marketing.
BambooHR‘s Essentials package includes employee records, benefits tracking, standard reporting, document storage, standard workflows and approvals, time-off management, an employee directory and org chart, a company calendar, a mobile app, and more. The Advantage package includes additional features such as hiring and onboarding features, advanced reporting, tailored workflows and approvals, and data integrations. Add-on features are available for payroll services, time tracking, and performance management.
BambooHR offers two plan levels, Essentials and Advantage, as well as add-on services. Contact BambooHR’s sales team for a price quote.
Best for medium-sized business talent management and payroll.
ADP Workforce Now is an all-in-one cloud-based platform that offers HRIS functions, payroll, benefits administration, talent management, and time and attendance. As one of the oldest companies on the market, it’s a sure bet in terms of payroll reliability and comprehensive talent management for mid-sized organizations with many salaried employees. However, because of its expensive add-ons, lack of clarity on feature access, and clunky reporting, ADP might not be the best choice for smaller businesses with tight budgets and more practical needs.
ADP Workforce Now is popular with mid-sized companies with between 200 - 1,000 staff. Many of its clients are in the IT, healthcare, and retail industries.
The ADP Workforce Now platform includes a complete suite of HR tools with payroll, time and attendance, talent, recruiting, workforce management, and benefits features. It also offers reporting insights and analytics, as well as machine learning and AI features that can help make HR decision-making easier.
ADP Workforce Now offers a variety of packages, including options for businesses with fewer than 49 employees and options for businesses with 50 to 999 employees. Contact ADP directly for specific pricing.
Best for managing small-business employee benefits.
Zenefits is a cloud-based HRIS platform that specializes in payroll and healthcare benefits. It also offers tools for tracking attendance, scheduling staff, managing performance, and much more.
Zenefits is popular with small and medium-sized enterprises in tech, IT, and advertising.
Zenefits includes HR administration, benefits administration, onboarding, compensation, performance management, time and scheduling, and people enablement. The platform’s payroll offerings include payroll administration, reporting, and tax management.
The Zenefits Essentials plan starts at $8/month per employee, the Growth plan starts at $14/month per employee, and the Zen plan starts at $21/month per employee. Optional add-ons include benefits administration, payroll, and advisory services.
Best for small and medium-sized business employee engagement and succession planning.
Paycor‘s cloud-based HRIS provides companies with the HR tools they need to operate their business and manage their workforce, from recruiting to payroll to professional development. The company’s focus is on making sure staff stay engaged in their work.
Paycor is a popular option for companies looking to improve employee engagement. It is mostly used by computer software companies, the hospital and healthcare industry, non-profit organizations, and retail companies.
Paycor’s available features include HR and payroll services, HR analytics, and talent management tools for recruiting, onboarding, and talent development. Its employee experience module features things like pulse surveys, learning management, and succession planning.
Paycor is quote based, meaning you’ll need to contact them directly to figure out pricing.
Best for policy management and IT cloud features.
Rippling’s cloud-based platform offers both HR tools and services as well as IT products. Its HR tools include payroll, time and attendance, talent management, and more, while its IT offerings include app management and device management. Ripping’s IT services make it easy for companies to onboard employees and provide them with all the tools they need to do their jobs, as well as to secure and manage employee computers and devices.
Rippling is most popular among small to mid-size businesses in tech, finance, marketing, and advertising.
Rippling‘s products start with Rippling Unity, which offers onboarding and offboarding automation, a workforce directory, document and e-signature management, and the Rippling mobile app. Its HR cloud services include payroll, time and attendance, benefits administration, applicant tracking, and more, while its IT cloud services include app management, device management, and inventory management.
Rippling pricing starts at $8/month per user for the basic Unity platform. Add-on products like payroll and benefits administration incur an additional cost.