BambooHR Reviews

BambooHR is a game-changer

Comments: I generally like the idea of the BambooHR having a comprehensive suite of HR solutions as it goes a long way in providing efficient HR management capabilities. Its robust reporting tools are excellent as they track the data and update me on time. their swift onboarding and offboarding processes has really become one of my favourite feature as it has reduced the general onboarding costs.

Pros:

BambooHR is a game-changer when it comes to HR software. We've been using it for our growing company for over a year now, and it has truly streamlined our HR processes. The onboarding and offboarding workflows that used to be a time-consuming process have been simplified .

Cons:

Despite that it provides valuable HR solutions, BambooHR is a bit relatively expensive for smaller businesses or startups. Individuals on a tight budget might be a little overwhelmed, but luckily I think they have introduced cheaper plans.

BambooHR is a comprehensive and easy-to-use HR software

Comments: In terms of HR functions, BambooHR handles everything. Our human resources department and management can benefit much from this system. BambooHR serves many uses for many divisions. Every day, the human resources team uses BambooHR because it is quick, simple, and easy to use.

Pros:

This HR management system is both feature-rich and user-friendly. The user interface is made user- and administrator-friendly. The site is user-friendly, and my staff appreciates how straightforward the features are.

Cons:

One of BambooHR's less enticing characteristics, in my opinion, is its pricing structure. We are a very young company, thus cost-effectiveness is of paramount importance. Unfortunately, it appears that BambooHR's rates are out of reach for startups like ours.

Good to track annual leaves

Pros:

Bamboo has good features to request and approve annual leaves

Cons:

It does not correctly sync with other tools and does not contain local holidays

BambooHR makes my work life so much easier!!

Comments: Overall, very happy with BambooHR’s performance!! I recommend it to anyone who I know could benefit from it. Streamlines so many aspects of my day to day - hiring, onboarding, time clock, employee performance management, payroll, employee pulse surveys, .. the list goes on!

Pros:

Easy time-trackingPhone app makes it easy for coworkers to check time card Company-wide announcements (alert on phone if you have the app) Personnel documents all stored in one placeCan push out new procedures that require a signature after the coworker reviewsStreamlines the onboarding process Hiring platform is convenient and you can build templates for scheduling phone screenings and interviews You can process payroll right in BambooHRAttendance notes – we set it so that coworkers can see them, but you can keep them hiddenNotes – we set it so managers and admin can see those notes, but not the coworker. Good for documenting verbal warnings

Cons:

If you have a custom general ledger or another payroll report, they will build it for you, but it takes awhile to get it all sorted out We don’t pay the extra fee for benefits administration through BambooHR since we already use Employee Navigator through our benefits management group. (I have to manually select the benefits the coworkers choose to update their payroll deductions)

The only tool you need for all-things HR

Comments: BambooHR has made our HR processes a lot easier and more effectively manageable. With it, we completely transferred our HR operations to the cloud and set up automated systems for reporting on time off requests, applicant tasks, etc. I think it's a fantastic tool for expanding companies.

Pros:

I love how versatile Bamboo is. Especially compared to some of the other HR tools we evaluated, there are so many more modules and API capabilities you can run to make eveyrthing easier. The UI is pretty simplistic as well, which makes it very easy to integrate it into your current systems

Cons:

The mobile friendliness can be improved more in my opinon. It's a bit hard to navigate because of the performance issues. But other than that, nothing really sticks out.

Alternatives Considered: Personio and Sage HR

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR: Bamboo seemed more comprehensive than the others, and the team were very eager to help us set it up to get max value. So we decided to go for it in the end.

Modern and easy interface for small companies like mine

Comments: We're more effectively managing HR needs across our small yet global organization.

Pros:

I like that in addition to the time off requests, we can also get access to org charts, see details about other employees, and can find out who is out of the office at any given time.

Cons:

Maybe we're not using it to its full potential but that's not really an issue for Bamboo.

BambooHR for Web Developers

Pros:

It's perfect for everyday time check in for employees. It's most suitable for smaller companies. It has the whole employee database and as an employee you can access your contract related and pay documents directly from this software.

Cons:

Sometimes the time checked in and the working hours aren't on point because of bugs and updates of the software.

BambooHR Review.

Pros:

As a user, the first thing I notice in the software is the interface. I appreciate the straightforward UX of the program. I like that I can easily use the time tracking system for my vacation or sick days. Likewise, I always know the company structure, and at the right moment, I can find the contacts of the colleague I need.

Cons:

Outdated UI design, but it isn't scary at all. Some users may find certain aspects of the software less customizable than they'd prefer, especially in terms of report customization or specific HR workflows.

Best Payroll App Ever

Comments: My overall experience has been great and i would recommend it to anyone.

Pros:

Everything, it makes it easier to keep track of time worked.

Cons:

There was nothing i did not like about this app.

Effective Time Management

Comments: I’ve had a great experience using BambooHR.

Pros:

BambooHR offers an opportunity for real-time time tracking. It has made it easier for me to track time spent working on specific projects and provides an easy-to-understand breakdown of time spent on various organizational projects.

Cons:

I would have loved to have the option of receiving notifications a day before my timesheet is shared with my supervisor for approval. This can ensure timely completion of missing entries before supervisor approval.

This brought us into the modern world

Comments: This has been a game changing addition to our department and I don't know what I would do without it. The customer service is better than any other vendor I have EVER worked with.

Pros:

We are a small HR team and tracked everything on spreadsheets. This took an exorbitant amount of staff time to keep updated. I love the time tracking, our mother organization deducts leave one month after it is taken and so no one ever really knew how much leave they had. The electronic signature feature has been a game changing time saver. Supervisors being able to view employee documents at any time without having to come to our main location to pull the heavy paper file has been fantastic. And I always have current data at my fingertips including historical items that we used to have to go wade through old memos to reconstruct.

Cons:

There's not much to not love. I wish there were a few more features on the application part. I wish I could have files stored that employees could fill out and forward to us without having to ask us to send them a signature request.

Alternatives Considered: Paycom and Paycor

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR: Customer service, they offered a free trial, user interface, and ease of use

An HRIS that was built with HR in mind

Comments: This was hands down the easiest onboarding of a new software package that I have ever experienced. We are a Critical Access Hospital that decided to implement its first HRIS in February of 2020, right as the pandemic started. Of all the things we had to worry about, this implementation was not one of them. The team walked us through the process, meet with us whenever we needed, and assisted in personalizing the software. We went from 0 to complete within a month! And they have been supporting us every step of the way since then. I couldn't ask for a better HRIS partner.

Pros:

The software is very easy to personalize to your organizations individual needs. Response from the help desk is usually within minutes, and their out of the box thinking ensures you will get the output that you are looking for.

Cons:

BambooHR works great with other software programs that have HR in mind. If your backbone software is built for integration is industry specific and somewhat inflexible, it is more difficult to integrate the great features that BambooHR has to offer.

Alternatives Considered: MEDITECH Expanse, ADP Workforce Now and Netchex

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR: BambooHR had the right recruiting tools, the offered pretty much everything we needed in their basic program, and to upgrade was very simple and inexpensive. Having been in HR for decades, this is the first time I have used an HR system that felt like it was made by those in HR for HR.

BambooHR - 10/10 Would Recommend

Comments: Overall, it's been a really great experience as an implementer, an admin, and a user.

Pros:

I advocated for BambooHR for my company as its first HRIS, and I believed it would be a major benefit to our company, and it has been. It's a major bragging right of mine that I found BambooHR at a conference, convinced my boss to sign off on it, and executed the roll-out and got most staff on-board with it as a concept. So, I like most things about BambooHR. It's intuitive for users and administrators alike. The setup was as easy as setting up a new company-wide software could be, with hands-on customer service and a robust information center. The hiring tool is phenomenal, and I have gotten so many positive comments from managers about how much easier their hiring process was with the hiring tool. I like how y ou can submit software suggestions to customer service and they take your feedback into consideration, and new features get rolled out constantly. It's just a great place to keep everything in one place and make HR more efficient, and it's a super dynamic tool.

Cons:

Honestly, there's not a lot I don't like about the software. When we first got it, I would say its lack of payroll integration, but it's since integrated TRAX payroll with the software, which our accounting team is now switching to.

Alternatives Considered: ADP Workforce Now

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR: It had a smarter, more dynamic, and less corporate-y interface than ADP. ADP felt very old school HR, while we are not old school at all, and Bamboo just made more sense in every aspect (besides payroll, initially, until Bamboo added TRAX) for our company.

BambooHR makes our work easier!

Comments: I overall loved the whole experience, from the introduction, sales/acquisition of the software, to the onboarding and data transfer. The Salesperson and Project Manager of our account made us feel decided about Bamboo from the very first approach. We feel candidate onboarding and administration of our personnel in the Company has become much more manageable.

Pros:

What I like the most about Bamboo is that tracking PTO, benefits, and celebrations is much easier compared to other software we've used before. This unique "social network" design has made it user-friendly for our employees regardless of their age.

Cons:

What I didn't love is that we couldn't find integration with LinkedIn for job postings. We had to use LinkedIn externally for recruiting.

Alternatives Considered: Lattice

Reasons for Choosing BambooHR: We needed a more accurate / visible PTO tracking.

Switched From: TriNet Zenefits

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR: Price, features

Great HRIS

Comments: Very positive

Pros:

Easy to integrate and use, very user friendly, very useful reporting tools.

Cons:

To be able to make reports on a chosen date and not only on the current date. Be able to identify managers more easily.

Alternatives Considered: Bob

Reasons for Choosing BambooHR: PeopleHR is the worst HRIS on the market. Difficult to use, very unreliable and not user friendly at all. I implemented BambooHR in 3 different companies and I love this tool.

Switched From: Access PeopleHR

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR: The main reason is the price. The functionalities are a bit more advanced than BambooHR, but the implementation is longer and the tool is less user friendly

Great HR System!

Comments: Overall, I love BambooHR. I have implemented it in several companies I have worked for over the years. It is such a great system, I tried to bring it in whenever I had the chance!

Pros:

BambooHR has everything in one place. Easy to set up and implement and employees can start using it immediately with very little training. Very easy to customize it to suit your company's unique needs. Customer service is second to none!!

Cons:

Having an integrated payroll system would be the cherry on top but for a Canadian company, this option is not available. A huge market untapped!! The ability to choose a "close" date for the Performance Management Reviews would be very helpful as sometimes a longer or shorter window is required.

Alternatives Considered: Deluxe Payroll and HR

Reasons for Choosing BambooHR: ADP was too "big" for us and the customer service was horrendous! Collage HR was much better but in the end customer service won out again.

Switched From: ADP Workforce Now and Collage HR

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR: BambooHR was by far easier to use.

Great HR Information System for medium size business

Comments: Moved all employment contract management online, leave management, onboarding, offboarding, personal details maintenance through self serve functionality, process workflows and performance management.

Pros:

Modern HR information system with great broad feature set for medium size businesses. Excellent for leave management, request, approval and tracking.

Cons:

Is based out of the US and orientation is by default to US customers. Works for Australia customers but is a bit short on handling contractors, more permanent focused, and support hours do not cover Australia timezone which has caused some issues.

Alternatives Considered: Employment Hero

Reasons for Choosing BambooHR: BambooHR offered us so much more in terms of features and functionality than we would ever invest to build internally. The user experience was modern and easy to use from signing up a new staff member, to onboarding them and maintaining their HR and Leave records. Removed significant risk from process errors, failed notification of employment changes and record keeping for signed contracts. Moved from paper to fully online!

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR: Great user interface, custimisable, simple to use and configure, right featureset and complexity for our size of organisation.

Our First HRIS

Comments: The organization had never had an HR department prior to my hire in September 2019; they were also 100% paper. Since using BHR we have been able to post simultaneously to our website and the partner website which increases our candidate pipeline and exposure. In addition, our onboarding functions have been transitioned to BHR which eliminates the emails and possible security breaches.

Pros:

The ease of use; including the set-up and implementation. Also the Headcount report, invoice tracking, SparkHire and Employee Cycle Dashboards integrations and cost-efficiency were huge wins for my organization.

Cons:

I would like to have a report which provides data on all of our open and on-hold vacancies. To accompany that I would also like to see a form or feature which is a position request for new or replacement roles. I'm currently using a form but to have everything housed in BHR would be much easier for HR and the hiring managers. This would also incentivize them to use the system more frequently.

Alternatives Considered: Paycor

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR: Cost effective, ease of use and API with other software planned to implement and use.

Great scalable HRIS solution

Comments: It has made self service HRIS a breeze!

Pros:

It was super easy to set up and is quite customisable for what it is. For our size of business and our needs it does everything that we need.

Cons:

Integration with Seek would be good in the hiring app, and more non-US features. We're an Australian company and there are features that just dont work for us in benefits and some demographic functions.

Alternatives Considered: ELMO Software and Employment Hero

Reasons for Choosing BambooHR: We needed a proper HRIS system

Switched From: Zoho Recruit

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR: It seemed to do more of what we wanted, price, and be a simpler system to administrate and use

We love BambooHR and the customization possibilities it provides!

Pros:

I did a lot of research on HRIS before choosing BambooHR. For those thinking about using BambooHR, really look at how your structure is set up and how you want it to work when the product goes live. For example, we have two divisions in two different locations. Both divisions are very unique and what one division needed the other did not. Getting this figured out before implementation will help alleviate the need for a lot of change once the system goes live. For our company, BambooHR was by far the best fit for us. The best thing about this product is the customization and the ease in which we were able to implement the system. From the time we decided to go with BambooHR to the time it was implemented and functional was a little over a month! My dedicated implementation specialist, Carol Brogdon was great to work with during the implementation of the system. I am not IT expert or tech person, and this was easy! The customization of the system allows (from the beginning) you to create a system in which each user can see as mush or as little of the information as needed. Since implementation, I have even been able to customize more information on the site that is specific to our needs with two different locations and divisions. The time off feature allows our employees to request time off from their smart phones or pc quickly and for our admin and foremen the calendar of "Who's Out" is extremely useful, especially for looking ahead and seeing who will be out on vacations or sick/holiday time. Anniversary dates and birthdays are visible and there is no longer a need to keep a spreadsheet with this information. The reports that can be generated on training, time off balances, licensing, etc has been a time saver. The ability to transform these reports into PDF, excel and even share custom reports as needed has been very beneficial to us. On-boarding, off-boarding, completing forms as needed has been extremely efficient utilizing the uploading of files and then setting up the signature templates (no more paper pushing or waiting for people to sign and return documents). Uploading files to share with all employees or just a few employees is also a great tool. We utilize the company announcements to send important information to some or all of our employees. The notes section has been invaluable for our managers to document information and if an employee moves to a new location, the new manager now has that information at their fingertips. Our employees can update their address, marital status, with-holdings, etc all from their dashboard. No longer do they have to wonder if the HR department has their most current information because they see what is on file for them with the company when they log in. We have yet to utilize the Job Openings component yet. This was a big draw, as we had experienced a large growth last year. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending) our hiring has tapered off, so we have not had the opportunity to try this out. As far as BambooHR responsiveness to any issues I have encountered, they have been very quick to resolve. I like that they are constantly trying to improve the product and take ideas and suggestions on areas of concern. This type of progressive thinking and action will make them and keep them a front runner in the HRIS world.

Cons:

Like any product, the more you use it, the easier it seems. There were kinks to work out when we first went live. Permissions, setting up employee fields and email alerts all needed some tweeking, but again, the system and BambooHR support was great getting through the learning curve. I did opt to go with Maxwell health for the online health care enrollment piece and I have been live with BambooHR since January 2016 and I am still not live with Maxwell Health and do not know when I will be, so if you are thinking of that option, I would really look into other options as it does not seem to be as responsive or as dynamic as BambooHR despite what the sales pitch shows.

Great HRIS for medium-size businesses, easy to implement, configure, maintain (and it's cute)

Comments: I love the look and feel, the easiness of use, the availability of the support team, the easiness to create and delete custom fields, the support documentation which is easy to navigate and includes a lot of how-to videos. They really allow their customers to become autonomous and even proficient with their tool.

Pros:

Very structured and helpful implementation, and very responsive support. Love the ability to request custom fields to be created, including calculations. Great standard, out-of-the-box reports, like Additions & terminations over a period of time, Headcount as of a certain date, Employee Turnover (that one was a lifesaver when it was realeased, much better than what we were doing internally so far!), Change History over a period of time for job-related changes. I also love the fact that they are intentional in their product development: even though they request and collect product feedback, they want their product to remain coherent, i.e. they know what makes sense for them to propose as features vs. not (and recommend one of their specialized integrated partners if not), so that their tool always remains simple, legible, etc. And I like their Panda mascot and in-navigation messages, down to humanizing error messages.

Cons:

It will be pretty minor details, part of which will simply have to do with their client size positioning. As we were growing, I encountered director-level newcomers in our HR department who were used to the more prominent HRIS players, and to the ability to set up more complex workflows than BambooHR allows (example: self-service on employment letters, sending change notifications to other people than change approvers, allowing back-up assignees for tasks, etc). One feature that I feel might need adjusting (but again, that's detail) is their "Who's Out" calendar, which is synced with their time-off feature: regardless of whether the person has booked 1 hour off or the full day off, it will look like the person is away for the whole day, which looks confusing. Then two things come to mind on the analytics side, but again, they are minor and for more advanced users: I would love the ability to report on changes for personal details (beyond the audit trail report) and on custom fields. Then, custom calculation fields (which are already a great thing to have!!) are limited to the employment profile itself, i.e. you cannot return data fields from other employees' profiles, for example, who the manager of their manager is, etc.

Practical and effective HR tool!

Comments: We've had a great experience with BambooHR. Going into it we knew very little about the software and had just heard great things. Now that we've been on it for a few years I can say that the software has grown along with our business. It seems like BambooHR really takes the customers needs and requests to heart and tries to make the software fit each customers needs. We look forward to the new feature releases and just being able to use the software as it is for years to come!

Pros:

My favorite thing about BambooHR, in general, is that they are always trying new things and releasing new features. They just released a sync feature that syncs with TRAX Payroll software and cuts out the time needed to reconcile the 2 systems. The software is very user-friendly and you are able to find a help article about nearly anything you could ever want to know. One of my favorite features is the e-signing you can set up for HR documents. Our on-boarding goes a lot smoother not having to print out each form and fill out by hand. The Hiring module also works great. In that module, I love the ability to rate each individual candidate and keep internal notes about them. I really appreciate the ability to track conversations had with that candidate within the module so I don't have to hunt down the communication in my inbox each time.

Cons:

I've only been able to find one single thing that I would change about the software and that is that I would make it possible for one person to be a manager for operations purposes and another person manager for compensation purposes. I've ran into the problem where the operations person doesn't need to see the compensation of their co-worker, but another person at a VP level should be able to request and approve compensation, essentially skipping over the Operations Manager for compensation purposes. I haven't yet found a way around it, so we just eliminated the Operations Manager from the profile and have the VP listed as manager, but this doesn't change my opinion that I would recommend this to anyone!

Loving BambooHR

Comments: With the use of BambooHR, we're reducing paper-based documents and uploading it only. This is good because it can be accessed at any time and it is easier to keep track of documents rather than filing them. I am also able to run reports and customize it based on the information that I am looking for.

Pros:

BambooHR is very user-friendly. It has a clean layout and can be customized based on the needs of the organization. The overall site is easy to navigate and has the tabs that I need to manage employee data. I like that the HRIS acts as an internal intranet site for employees.

Cons:

Training tab - employees are not able to upload their own certificates. For example, if there are 6 mandatory training modules and I have 6 new hires, I would need to upload 36 files into their training tab. It's tedious and time consuming for the admin.Templates - while this is a smart feature, I think it should be broken down into two. One is for an actual template that applies to all staff (primarily forms). For contracts that require signature, it is not necessary to upload the contract as a template (since it's only used once) and request for the signature. With this, we usually use an external party to get the signatures from both parties and upload it into documents. It would be nice if this can be integrated in BambooHR so everything is in one place. Also, if the "contract" specified to an individual becomes a template, there is a risk of uploading/ sharing it by error to another employee.Cost - I wish there was an option for non-profit to save money on the software especially we're a smaller company. The cost increased a lot from July and it is also in USD which impacts the overall fee since we're a Canadian organization.

Do What you do best and Outsource the rest ... to BambooHR.

Comments: We simple don't have employee related issues falling through the cracks anymore. Now our managers have time to actually visit with and get to know our people rather than fumbling through bureaucratic gunk to make sure we're "legal".

Pros:

BambooHR is super simple and easy to use. The software and the people behind it truly live up to the mission of allowing me to do what I do best (which is not HR management.)

Cons:

Nothing to report in this section. BambooHR does exactly what I want it to.

Alternatives Considered: Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate and QuickBooks Time

Reasons for Choosing BambooHR: BambooHR allowed us to have our employee information at our fingertips rather than in another party's hands. If I need information I simply pull the report or look it up instead of asking for the information from someone else. The last thing we looked into was cost and it turned out that BambooHR is about 25% of what we were paying the accounting firm. That made it a "no-brainer"...better access to data, easier to use, additional resources for managing benefits, onboarding, training, compensation...for less money.

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR: Ease of use.

Bamboo HR keeps me sane and in compliance.

Pros:

I am not an HR professional, I am a nonprofit executive Director and an organization that grew from one staff to 20 in about a year and a half. I don’t really know what I’m doing often. Human resources is one of those things that i could not justify hiring for. We have a board member who is an HR professional, and two lawyers on our board, so if things did get crazy, I knew I had people to keep me in compliance legally with the situation, but I needed some help with the day today. We have three physical locations and bamboo helps ensure that we don’t have important, confidential documents getting lost. Managers can update things in real time and it is amazing. We use the integrated payroll, pay traX, because honestly I’m lazy and why would I do more work when my time is valuable. I love being able to do the performance reviews and satisfaction surveys. I love the asset management feature so I can keep copies of peoples drivers licenses, even shirt sizes, and of course the training that they do.

Cons:

Bamboo is a little spendy, but honestly you can’t afford not to invest in it.

Alternatives Considered: Bambee

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR: Bambee was expensive and seemed inferior