BambooHR - Your Next HR Solution?

Posted by
Natalia Tomchyshyn

Updated December 21, 2023

If you are working in the human resource industry, you probably heard about a small tool called BambooHR. Over the past couple of years, we’ve covered a ton of different solutions and some of them were good, others were designed with different things in mind entirely. BambooHR on the other hand remains an industry favorite. It has all the bells and whistles you might imagine and then adds some.

But what makes the tool so good? How does it manage to stay relevant for so long? Well, we think that we just might have the answer for you in our in-depth review. This is a long ride so we suggest that you sit tight as we are about to get started.

Scope of the Analysis

Before we begin, we’d like to point out that covering every little detail is not only unnecessary but very time-consuming. Instead, we will take a look at basic and advanced features, see the technical details, and naturally, cover the pricing options. Here’s how the entire review will look like.

What is BambooHR

To put it briefly, BambooHR is a dedicated online human resource (HR) software solution that you can use to offload mundane work from your HR employees. It offers a wide set of employee management systems and is often used to motivate and direct staff to do things faster and more effectively.

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Outside of motivation and management, the tool is equipped with an industry-grade Applicant Tracking System (ATS). HR staff can use this system to view and manage how employees enter and exit the company thanks to the holistic view of the entire staff journey. Additionally, the tool lets you track both retention and turnover rates and even suggest actions based on historical data.

The tool is equipped with a wide range of functions. Whether it is tracking, personnel data, reporting, or automation, BambooHR lets you improve various aspects of your business. This is especially relevant for smaller companies as most functions allow you to scale in both directions. Furthermore, if you are working remotely or with multiple offices, the tool allows you to decentralize directing departments in just a few clicks, making it a perfect tool for freelancers.

As for the looks, BambooHR is not only sleek but very responsive. All menus, all toggles, and all windows look and feel very fast. It doesn’t take a lot to master the solution (although some tools are a bit harder to use than others) and thanks to its intuitive toggle placements, it doesn’t take too long to get used to it, especially if
you’ve been working in a similar solution.

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Finally, the tool has a robust integration module that you can use to hook it with more than 20 different tools, including G-suite, Slack, Skype, Facebook, Indeed, and many others. BambooHR will work in both small and large-sized companies. As of the time of this writing, the tool is being used by famous companies, including Quora, Universal Group, The Core Group, among many others.

Key Features

As we already mentioned, we won’t be covering everything but rather talk about the core of the tool. This means that we will take a detailed look at the onboarding solution, the applicant tracking tool, the role-based access, and management capabilities. We’ll also cover the reporting functionally as deem it as an integral part of the system.

Onboarding System

For many companies, HR software is used primarily to properly onboard new people. Software engineers over at BambooHR understand this well and have made great strides to improve this aspect of the tool. Suffice it to say, the onboarding module in the solution is one of the best we’ve seen. It works tremendously well as you can use it to send custom emails that will have training info and access tokens to the necessary tools/accounts. Thanks to this aspect, your HR staff doesn’t need to bother IT personnel and can dedicate extra time to introduce the newcomer. Furthermore, the system also allows you to import data and establish the necessary connections long-before the person starts work.

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Applicant Tracking System

Another aspect of the tool that got special attention is the ATS module. Instead of building everything over the Applicant Tracking System, the developers opted to separate the entire thing into its own sub-system. This allows you to view different job openings in different tabs, as well as add new postings (complete with job descriptions and salaries) without worrying about unwanted changes elsewhere. Additionally, you can also use the filtered drop-down menu which will allow you to use BambooHR’s dedicated text editor to add an even longer description. Lastly, the system is connected to a wide range of job boards and websites right out of the box.

Access to Information System

Another staple of the solution is the role-based access system. What it does is it allows you to set who can view certain info portals, as well as set managers and administrators that’ll be responsible for creating profiles and accounts. Now on the surface, this might seem like a basic function but thanks to the role-based component, it becomes a robust gating tool that you can use to protect both corporate and personal information. Additionally, if one person is managing the profile section it means that chances of employee data being mixed up are smaller since you only have to follow one persons’ work.

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The Management Component

Now unlike the previous functions, the entire management component is a set of systems that fall under one umbrella. Specifically speaking, under the Employees tab you will be able to find virtually every organizational chart, every profile, every metric necessary. To make things a little easier for you, here’s an example. When a manager assigns work in the chart, all involved employees will get a notification (either mails or pop-ups) that they can start work. Similarly, both benefits and time-off time is allocated in the same fashion. This allows your employees to have a clear understanding of what’s going on and how much work they have ahead of them.

As for the performance system, BambooHR employs a traditional mix of numerical values. In other words, the tool automatically keeps track of how many tasks were completed, how much time it took to work things out, and what is the complexity of the aforementioned tasks. But that is only half of the story, the tool also keeps track of individual work and compares it to historical data (if no historical data is present, it will use the highest average across the organization). Typically, HR uses this system to reward talent and grow professionals as it can easily separate the top performers.

And finally, we have the administration system that will allow you to manage benefits such as health insurance, maternal leave, marriage, among other things. What’s so cool about this system is that it is pretty much self-sustained. How? Well, every time an employee changes their status (marriage, divorce, single mother, etc.) the tool will automatically pick a benefit route out of the pool of twelve. Another impressive feat this function can achieve is it will offer a modifiable rate health plan that is based on age. In other words, if you reach a certain age, the tool will automatically adjust the benefits you’ve pre-configured before.

Reporting features

And the last part of the feature set we’d like to talk about is the reporting mechanism. Just like BambooHRs competition, it too offers the industry-standard Equal Employment Opportunity report. However, that is just the beginning as you can also use this tool to dish-out benefits reports. All reports are also available on the mobile version of the tool and just like the desktop version, they are based on an internal database.

Technical Details

And now for a brief look at the technical side of things. However, before you observe, keep in mind that things are subject to change. Vendors update their tools all the time to not only keep up with the competition but to increase availability and accessibility.

Figure 1: Tech Specs

Pricing

Now unlike other tools on the market, BambooHR does not provide an overview of their plans and offerings. Yet, it doesn’t mean that we can’t find a semi-accurate source of the pricing figures.

As a matter of fact, we did just that, we dug a little and managed to find out that the vendor asks a $4.95 per employee per month for the starting plan, according to PC Mag, at least. Now, this is definitely not cheap but you do get the benefit of having a highly scalable, highly polished system. We will let you be the judge whether you want to buy it or not.

Testimonials

Now we don’t want to narrow down this review to just our opinion. So what we did is we looked at popular review aggregators such as G2, GetApp, and Capterra to see what other people think about the tool. We managed to find lots of reviews yet, we won’t be copying them here but rather outline the core gripes and benefits the system delivers.

Figure 2: Pros & Cons

As you can see, both pros and cons are valid remarks and if anything, the number of pros is significantly higher than the cons.

Export & Import Capabilities

Each tool has to have a good import and export system and in the case of BambooHR, this is kind of a mixed bag as you have to play with CSV files or develop a custom API script that will move your things for you. However, if you are not in the market for such shenanigans, you can always use a migration wizard.

It will automatically move all your stuff to the proper fields without the need to import or export files. It doesn’t require you to be there either but again, we’ll leave it to you to decide as it is a paid solution. If you want to learn more about the tool, we suggest that you take a look at the migration services page.

Alternatives

The last thing we’d like to cover is potential alternatives to the system. After all, it is one of the leading platforms and it is bound to have imitators. So, to save you some time, we found three platforms that are very similar to BambooHR but have either a lower price or something substantial to add. The tools are Zoho People, SuccessFactors, and Workday, let’s take a look at each in detail.

Zoho People

Zoho is no stranger to performance-boosting tools and their HR tool is no different. It has all the standard functionality you might need and adds a wide range of integrations (including with other Zoho products). The key similarity of the tool stems from the fact that you can use the tool right out of the box, with no need to configure anything. It also has a self-service portal that updates statuses automatically. And lastly, it is also constantly being worked on and new functionality is being added all the time.

Use it when: You use other Zoho products
Don’t use it when: You want something cheaper

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SuccessFactors

SuccessFactors is, just like BambooHR, not new to the industry. It has been on the market for quite some time and has gained a cult following among smaller companies. The core similarity of this system is the fact that it comes with a quote-based pricing system, meaning that you don’t have to pay for stuff you don’t use. Another similarity stems from the report tool that is kinda ubiquitous in all menus.

Use it when: You need cloud HR marketing
Don’t use it when: You want more control over job postings

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Workday

Designed with big companies in mind, Workday is a powerful HR system that is heavily focused on delivering an effortless payroll. Just like BambooHR, the tool is very easy to use and requires little knowledge to effectively take advantage of all the functions. Another similarity is that it can be used to track employee effectiveness and automatically update the benefits route.

Use it when: You need more scalability
Don’t use it when: You want to hook up third-party apps

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Bottom Line

And there you have it, our look at BambooHR. This HR solution is one of the best on the market in our opinion. It can be used effectively both as a rewards system and as an onboarding tool. If you are planning on using it and want to move your stuff from it, we got you covered. Just drop us a message and we’ll get you running in no time but for now, thanks for joining.