Employee management encompasses a whole set of employee-centered HR processes throughout the employee lifecycle. Not every company will need every type of employee management software, and small businesses often can’t afford to purchase a full HRIS that includes all of these tools.

That’s why we’ve gathered the best employee management software for small businesses in this article. Our list includes best of breed and HRIS tools that work for any budget. First, let us find out what employee management software is and what it does.

• What is Employee Management Software?
• What are some Components of Employee Management Software?
• What is the Best Small Business Management Software?
• What is the Best Workforce Management Software?
• How do Small Businesses Treat Employees?
• What are the Disadvantages of Poor Performance Management?
• What is Employee Payroll Management System?
• Which is The Best Employee Management Software?
• Do Small Businesses Need HR Software?
• How do I Choose The Best HR Software?
• What Types of Software Are Helpful For Small Businesses?
• Free Employee Management Software
• Employee Management Software For Small Businesses
• Free HR Software For Startups
• Free HR Software For Small Business India
• HR Software For Small Businesses UK
• Employee Management Tools
• What is The Use of HR Management Software?

What is Employee Management Software?

Employee management software is defined as the comprehensive set of employee management tools that an organization needs to manage employee information, engagement and performance, and drive more value across the enterprise. These tools don’t just store and manage confidential employee data, they can seamlessly handle all employee-centric HR processes from recruitment to performance and offboarding.

Read Also: Business Performance Management Software

Depending on the needs of the small business, HR processes include some combination of

• Hiring: choose the employees who fit your needs, culture, and growth plans and build a candidate pool
• Benefits: administer benefits to hires including health insurance, death benefits, retirement, and leave benefits.
• Performance: track and improve employee performance through goal setting
• Communication: facilitate communication between employees and their managers in the form of messaging. Bonus points for tools that also include goal-based communication
• Training: train employees on job skills, career pathing, leadership, or company-specific knowledge.
• Rewards: recognize and celebrate great behavior and improvements employees with bonuses, games, or let them choose how to spend their rewards.

What are some Components of Employee Management Software?

The enterprise-level HRM software has features and components that aren’t necessary for a small business which adds to the complexity. The best way to choose the best HR software for your business is to break down your requirements and see which solution fits your requirements.

Here are the components and features you should be looking for when evaluating different HRM software options.

1. Application tracking

An applicant tracking software (ATS) assists HR staff in optimizing their recruitment process and closing job openings faster. These applications sift through resumes, find suitable candidates, schedule interviews, and store resumes securely over the cloud for easy accessibility and document management. Web-based ATS SaaS Platforms are perfect for all businesses, regardless of what their size or budget is.

An ATS software automates all manual tasks involved in the recruitment process, optimizes it end-to-end, and gives HR managers enough time to spend on critical tasks like interviewing candidates. Applications like BrightMove, Kissflow HR Cloud, Workable, Clear Company, and Zoho Recruit extend enterprise-level functionalities to SMBs in a feature-rich platform to streamline their application tracking process and hire the best candidates.

Must-have features:

• Seamless integration (e-mail, website, job board)
• Multi-channel accessibility (cloud, mobile, browser)
• Document management (cloud storage)
• Collaborative (share it with interview panel)
• Progress reports (status, feedback)

2. Employee onboarding

Organizations place all their trust on onboarding checklists. Although checklists are useful, their high propensity for errors and time-consuming nature makes them less desirable. On the other hand, robust onboarding software has a great impact on the readiness and performance of a new hire. Undergoing a solid onboarding experience reduces the time-to-productivity of employees, improves their morale, heightens engagement, and reduces the turnover rate.

As the onboarding process differs from one company to another, a platform that is easily customizable by the HR staff will be more appropriate for your organization than a packaged off-the-shelf human resources software. An efficient onboarding application like BambooHR, Kissflow HR Cloud, Zenefits, or Cake HR take the stress off the onboarding process and make onboarding hassle-free and memorable for both new hires and HR staff.

Must-have features:

• Self-service option for candidates
• Customizable onboarding workflow
• Multi-user access
• Electronic forms and e-signatures
• Compliance management

3. Performance management

Performance management systems play a vital role in aligning employee interest in the organization’s mission. Opting for a broader, continuous approach will list the process of goal setting, implementing, reviewing, evaluating, and revising under the umbrella called performance management. A structured, constructive approach can make employees happy, induce a sense of loyalty and give businesses a competitive edge in the market.

A proper performance management system facilitates growth for individuals and the organization. Performance management system options like Workboard, Kissflow HR Cloud, Cezanne, and Small Improvements help all businesses from SMBs to enterprises define expectations and shared responsibilities clearly, provide continuous coaching and feedback, and assess employee performance accurately.

They come with pre-built customizable performance evaluation templates that simplify launching and administering performance cycles.

Must-have features:

• Customizable performance review templates
• Comprehensive assessment criteria
• Define review cycle (Time, goals-individual/team/department)
• 360-degree feedback (self, supervisor, peers)
• Review results (collect, organize, display, and analyze)

4. Employee training and development

Training and development software offers HR admins and supervisors a feature-rich interface to create and manage employee training programs quickly. Using training and development software, businesses can easily identify the training needs, implement a program, retrieve feedback, and analyze the effectiveness of the employee training process. In addition to reducing the workload of trainers, they also offer the management a 360-degree view of the training process.

HR Management software platforms like Mentis, Kissflow HR Cloud, and Bizimply extend end-to-end automation with an easily accessible database, seamlessly integrated with other modules like forms, folders, calendars, etc. while offering the option to pre-define the workflow that needs to be followed. These applications allow organizations to deploy centralized employee training programs to their staff and measure the outcome effortlessly.

Must-have features:

• Manage it all (trainers, programs, trainees)
• Schedule sync (with Google/Outlook calendar)
• Real-time feedback (trainer, trainees)
• Review results (assessment, productivity)
• Revise strategy

5. Employee management

Employee management software helps businesses overcome inevitable challenges in employee management. These human resources software options allow HR managers to handle everyday tasks like forecasting workload, scheduling shifts, allotting schedules to employees, and managing workload to keep employees engaged and productive.

Maintaining an archive of all labor-related data in a centralized database lets organizations make a comprehensive analysis and make informed decisions.

Having a seamless employee management process can keep business activities moving forward without hiring a dedicated resource to handle them. Employee management softwares like Deputy, Kissflow HR Cloud, Ultipro, Orange HRM, and Natural HR provide businesses a powerful employee management system with customizable workflows, centralized database, rule-based engine, and in-built reporting module.

Must-have features:

• Employee directory
• Monitor, track, and record tasks
• Access on the go
• Resource planning
• Reporting module

6. Timesheet management

Timesheet management software records, tracks, and monitors employee performance. A good timesheet software synchronizes the number of employees in an organization with their working hours to measure productivity and determine the labor hours involved in completing a specific task. It can be used to establish a process for timesheet tracking and approval, record working hours, retrieve leave details, and calculate their salaries accurately.

Platforms like PeopleBookHR, Zenegy Owner, and Kissflow HR Cloud offer the option to integrate with third-party applications to capture and analyze the performance of an employee, a project or even a task and export the report in any format. Organizations can use these applications to determine their scheduling and hiring needs, streamline their payroll, and make insightful decisions to optimize workload and workforce.

Must-have features:

• Time clock
• Seamless approvals
• Interactive dashboard
• Real-time reports
• Easy integration with payroll and human resource software

7. Leave management

Leave management is connected to the organization’s bottom line. However, prioritizing leave requests and ensuring proper availability of the workforce cannot be done with partial visibility. Leave Management software automates the process and provides transparency.

These software tools offer employees a self-service option to apply, track and manage their days off. Managers and HR staff have the option to view, approve/reject, and keep track of these requests.

Leave Management Applications like Cake HR, Zenefits, and Kissflow HR Cloud help businesses customize their leave types, holiday list, workflow (route requests directly to managers) for approval/rejection. HR teams can analyze leave patterns and retrieve insights on employee performance and diligence.

These applications help organizations track all type of leave requests (sick, vacation, paid), ensure adherence to leave policy without dissatisfying employees.

Must-have features:

• Configurable fields (leave type, policy, holiday list)
• Leave balance auto-update
• Customizable leave request approval workflow
• Carryovers and overtime
• Transparency

8. Payroll

Payroll software minimizes human intervention and associated errors by automating the process and empowering your HR staff. What previously took 3-14-day for the HR department to compute will barely remain to be a few hours of work. Automated systems improve the accuracy of critical details, store confidential payroll information securely, perform complex calculations using pre-defined and customizable rules.

Payroll Management Software extends improved control over the payroll process, letting you configure changes without needing IT support. Businesses can keep up with statutory requirements and adapt to rising business needs quickly using these flexible applications. Solutions like Zenegy Owner, Patriot Software, Orange Payroll, and PeopleBookHR make accessing, retrieving, modifying and analyzing payroll data completely hassle-free.

Must-have features:

• Robust and secure
• Functionally rich interface
• Omni-channel compatibility (mobile, web, cloud)
• Integrated accounting (tax, salary, PF)
• Customizable rule-engine

What is the Best Small Business Management Software?

Let’s take a look at 10 best business management software that you should start using as early as possible:

1. ProofHub

ProofHub is a powerful business management software and platform that combines all the features you might need to take care of your business. You can streamline your processes, store and share files, share feedback under one roof with ProofHub. Its mobile app can be used by both Android and iOS users on the go.

Top features:

• Effective project and task management
• Gantt charts to keep your projects on track
• Dynamic reports to get clear insights
• Time tracking to track time spent on tasks

2. Todo.vu

Whether you are a consultant, freelancer, or small agency needing to track work across multiple projects, Todo.vu could be the right fit for your needs. It is a simple company management software that focuses on getting things done. It brings all your customer management and project management in one place with a beautiful and neat interface.

Top features:

• Intuitive user interface
• Focused communication and real-time updates
• Built-in time tracking and billing
• Sync tasks with any calendar

3. StudioCloud

StudioCloud has made a name for itself as a reliable business management platform and company management system in much less time. It is a one-stop solution for your business needs that contains all the features you need to manage your business anytime, anywhere. Go check this business tool to organize and simplify your life.

Top features:

• Manage clients, partners, and vendors at one place
• Create and send professional invoices
• Send automated, personalized, text and email reminders
• Have clients review and sign contracts online
• Easily customize the look and feel of your software

4. Zoho One

Zoho One is a wholesome business management software and company management system that has everything you need to run your business on the operating system for your business with impressive 40 business apps. You just need to connect multiple apps so that different teams can work together productively.

Top features:

• Manage almost every aspect of your business in one system
• Fosters collaboration with online document storage and sharing
• Automate personalized business workflows

5. Scoro

Scoro is an all-in-one business management software designed to bring your teams, projects, sales, and reports together at a centralized place. With Scoro you can manage work more efficiently and be organized in every aspect of your business.

Top features:

• Plan and track work with unlimited projects
• Manage quotes, contacts, and invoices seamlessly
• Track time and bill for completed work accurately
• Manage your entire business within a single solution

6. iBE.net

As a business management software/ company management system, iBE.net is an appropriate choice for mid-sized companies as it offers expense tracking, invoice reports, CRM support along with an easy integration of project details. It is extensively used in consulting, marketing, management, and other technical industries. It is like your entire business within your palm of hands.

Top features:

• Customize your own dashboards
• Use pre-delivered reports
• Generate invoices in seconds
• Visualize, analyze, and organize your data with valuable insights

7. Odoo

Odoo is an all-in-one business management software that offers a range of business applications which forms a complete suite of enterprise management applications. It covers CRM, eCommerce, accounting, inventory, sales, and project management. Odoo apps are perfectly integrated with each other, allowing you to fully automate your business processes.

Top features:

• Unique framework with strong technical foundations
• Take a quick look at your business with dashboards
• Real-time communication makes way for better collaboration

8. Netsuite

Netsuite is a unified business management suite being used by more than 40,000 large, mid-sized, and small fast-growing businesses. It provides various tools for ERP, Financials, CRM, HR, eCommerce. It offers comprehensive functionality with industry-specific support for a broad range of industries means NetSuite works the way your business works.

Top features:

• Cloud-based, mobile-enabled, and social
• Easily accessible reports and key performance indicators
• Highly flexible and customizable
• Effective resource management, project accounting, timesheet and expense management

9. Timecamp

Timecamp is a one-solution-fits-all business management solution that comes with a time tracker with computer activities, productivity monitoring, attendance tracking, integrations and more. The software tracks time automatically so you don’t have to worry about spending hours on figuring out how to do it. TimeCamp offers you an intuitive interface to get your team on board effortlessly.

Top features:

• Create and send invoices based on time tracked per project and customer
• Seamless integrations with project management, accounting, help desk software and more
• Simple and intuitive interface
• assign the time entries to the right project, monitor employees’ internet usage and generate detailed reports
• Desktop and mobile app available for many platforms and devices

10. Bitrix24

If you are looking for software that offers a complete suite of management, collaboration, and communication tools, then Bitrix24 could be the ideal choice for your business. It is a complete business management software that takes care of your tasks and projects to document management along with real-time communication tools from video conferencing to group chat.

Top features:

• An internal social network lets you collaborate easier, faster, and more efficiently
• Get instant feedback, share ideas, create workgroups, and engage your employees
• online multi-user editing and custom document approval workflows
• Sell more with Bitrix24’s CRM and sales team management
• It works on your iPhone, iPad or Android too

What is the Best Workforce Management Software?

1. Bitrix24

Bitrix24 is free workforce management software with a social twist. Sure it has company directory, intranet, leave requests, absence calendar, employee profiles, company wide announcements, self service portal and other traditional HRMS tools. But it also comes with a enterprise social network, group chats and internal videoconferencing system that lets your employees collaborate and work more efficiently.

2. Ingentis org.manager

The org chart software Ingentis org.manager visualizes HR data based on your data source. These visualizations include org charts displaying organizational structures as well as graphics to point out KPIs & to provide an overview of Big Data. Typical use cases where this comes in handy are e.g. the management of open positions, or to check on your diversity & inclusion efforts. In addition, it allows you to simulate various reorg scenarios to see how a newly modeled org structure could work out.

3. Jibble

Jibble is a free workforce management app. Track when your staff are at work for payroll, attendance and compliance. Easy-to-use. Free forever. Unlimited users. Staff clock in and out using mobile, tablet, web, MS Teams or Slack, and can use biometric recognition and GPS-location.

For construction, manufacturing, retail, F&B, remote work, startups, field services, healthcare, agencies, education, office-based companies, and others. Generate automated timesheets and powerful reports.

4. Sapience Vue

Sapience Vue is our automated Knowledge Workforce Activity Monitoring & Analytics solution that accurately captures effort data in a contactless manner and provides actionable insights for fact-based decision making by keeping employee privacy at its core. Vue is a SaaS-based solution-built ground up with latest technology stack and top of the line security.

5. NeeyamoWorks

NeeyamoWorks, a global HR technology suite created to support your global workforce no matter its size, diversity, geographic presence or complexity. NeeyamoWorks is a future-ready, HR technology solution with an intuitive design providing a superior experience for your employees.

How do Small Businesses Treat Employees?

When you are running a small business, the time, budget and resources can sometimes be hard to find to effectively manage your employees.

Here are some ideas to consider to help your business, and the team you have working for you, reach full potential. 

1. Hire the right people

Choosing the right people to join your business can create a good team culture and boost staff performance. Consider the following when making your next hire:

• Is this person passionate and do they share your vision for the business?
• Does this person have the right skills for the job?
• Have you completed thorough reference checks, even reviewing social media? 

2. Prioritise training

Training your staff can be one way to invest in their personal development and may contribute to increased performance in your business. If external courses and workshops are too expensive, training can be done on a budget by:

• Arranging monthly lunch sessions where you share your knowledge on a particular topic
• Asking employees to train others – an employee who has strong skills in a certain area can share their hints and tips with new employees

3. Be clear and open with communication

Clearly communicating your expectations of employees’ responsibilities can help your team make decisions and collectively work towards business goals. Your team can focus on their tasks, knowing exactly what’s needed. 

Ask for open communication between yourself and your team. You could receive valuable ideas on how to improve your business. Think about how you might involve your staff in the decision making processes where possible and give them ownership of tasks.

4. Support your staff

Aim to create a culture in the workplace that motivates staff. Recognise that different people are energised in different ways. Building a good relationship between you and your employees can help to foster a good team spirit.

5. Offer rewards where possible

Rewarding staff doesn’t always have to be about increased remuneration. You could also consider:

• Flexible working hours
• Public acknowledgement 
• Casual dress days

6. Take care of your employees’ financial contributions 

As an employer, you need to ensure you are meeting your employee’s tax and superannuation obligations. You can find the latest details of what’s required at the Australian Taxation Office website.

What are the Disadvantages of Poor Performance Management?

Poorly-implemented performance management will cost your company. Dr. Herman Aguinis, the author of Performance Management, identified some of these critical consequences.

1. Employees could quit based on unfair results 

If an employee performs well and then feels that they were assessed unfairly, there’s little motivation left for him/her to stay with the company. Even if an employee doesn’t leave the company, they may become withdrawn and disengaged.
 

2. Fabricated or misleading information can affect the review

Without performance data to back up the appraisal, there’s no way to determine what’s true—a manager or peer could provide information about performance that’s either false or misleading, thereby skewing the assessment unfairly. 

3. Employee morale may drop

Employees who feel that they were evaluated unfairly will likely lose self-esteem, which can create resentment towards management as the organization as a whole—ultimately damaging employee morale across the company.  

4. Resources—including time and money—are wasted

Preparing for an annual review takes up a great deal of time—Deloitte found that the average manager spends 210 hours on performance review activities. Can you spare an extra month of time to prepare for an annual review? Ongoing performance management is much more time and cost-efficient, and it produces better results. 

5. Employees become demotivated

When employees feel unappreciated or unrecognized, their motivation drops, which ultimately leads to lower engagement and lower performance rates. 

6. Job satisfaction drops and employees become burnt out

If the performance management system you’re using is unfair and invalid, employees are more likely to become dissatisfied and burnt out in their roles.  

7. Legal risks increase 

Giving negative appraisals with no data or proof to back up claims of poor performance can be risky. Employees who feel like they haven’t been evaluated fairly could take legal action against your company. 

8. Managers are forced to give up resources

In addition to the time costs described above, managers may also have to allow their employees to work on peer reviews to prepare for annual appraisals. Basically, an entire department—or even the whole organization—is forced to go into shut-down mode and to put priority work on the backburner until yearly reviews are completed. 

9. Failure to set standards makes the process unfair

If there are no standards for performance in employees’ roles, they won’t know what’s expected of them, and may simply not understand what justifies poor vs excellent performance. 

10. Biases become more prevalent

Without data and metrics to rely on to gauge performance, managers are more likely to give biased reviews.

What is Employee Payroll Management System?

A payroll management system is a tool – predominantly a software program – that enables your business to handle all your employee’s financial records in a hassle-free, automated fashion. This includes employee’s salaries, bonuses, deductions, net pay, and generation of pay-slips for a specific period. 

As you would have already realised, your business activities are primarily divided into two broad categories: the macro and the micro.  The macro here refers to the broader and big picture stuff. These are the activities that aid the long-term vision of your organisation.

Your business development strategy, sales, revenue, cash flow, etc., fall under this category. The micro refers to the everyday administrative chores that fuel the day-to-day operations of your business. Although these tasks seem mundane and repetitive, they are just as important to keep your business running like a well-oiled machine. 

You don’t have to worry about manually handling things like generating pay-slips, calculating tax deductions and so on. All of this can be automated by using a payroll management system.

Key benefits of a payroll management system

There are several benefits of implementing a service like this for your business. Some of them have been briefly highlighted below:

1. Employee morale

By making sure your employees are paid in a systematic and timely manner, you are reinforcing their faith in your business’ financial integrity. This will boost employee morale and motivate them to perform better. 

2. Statutory compliance

This refers to the legal framework your business must adhere to. As an employer, you are required to maintain various payroll and payment records of your employees. Every organization that hires employees and pays salaries must comply with the labour laws. By having a payroll process in place, you are automatically complying with the employment and labour laws in India.

3. Manage employee information efficiently

You will be able to accurately store and manage all your employee information in one place. There will be no need to use any additional tool for this purpose.

4. Generate reports related to employee attendance, salary structure, etc.

A good payroll system will facilitate this process seamlessly. This can be extremely valuable when you are looking to retrieve information for any queries related to these matters. 

5. Startup friendly

As a new business, you may not have enough budget to allocate to every aspect of your business. Most of the payroll services are free for the initial few employees or charge a minimal fee; making it easy for you to afford setting up a service like this.

6. Time-saving

Since everything in a payroll management system is automated, you will be saving a lot of time. You don’t have to manually enter the information for every cycle. You set it up once and let the software handle the rest. The only thing you will probably do is new employee registration for every new hire. 

7. Plan for the future

Most of the payroll management services provide a forecast feature. You can use this to plan staff costs and other relevant expenses. This will help you get a good picture of how much your business should be making in order to accommodate all the expenses and still operate profitably.

Payroll software

1. Microsoft Excel

There are a handful of free payroll software options in India. In fact, one of them is already handy on your computer. That is the good old Microsoft Excel. As a business owner, you will already be familiar with Excel and all of its incredible capabilities. Did you know that you can use Excel as a payroll processing tool as well? Yes, that right.

Excel lets you set up a payroll sheet, for free.  Most businesses typically get started with Excel while handling their first few hires. All you have to do is open Excel, click on the “File” tab in Excel, select “New”. Search for a payroll template by typing “payroll” in the search box (at the top right corner of the new window). Browse through the available templates and pick one that best suits your needs.

However, one of the major drawbacks of using Excel is that it can get tedious pretty quickly. For one, you will have to manually enter all the details such as employee name, allowances, deductions, etc. And then input the right formula for each of these calculations.  As we have learned earlier, payroll calculations are fairly complicated.

You can still manage with this tool if you just have an employee or two, but it may not be the best system for accurate and error-free calculations.  If you want to continue exploring free options, there are a host of those available as well. 

2. Sumopayroll.com

Sumopayroll is a cloud-based platform that comes with inbuilt features such as compliance, expense tracking, automation, and others as discussed earlier.  The best part is that you get free access to all these features for up to ten employees. After you cross ten employees, you will have to pay a fee of Rs 49 per employee per month. 

If ease of setup combined with ease of calculations is a key deciding factor for you, your safe bet would be to get started with one of these services. 

3. Zoho Payroll

Zoho Payroll is one of the most popular payroll management systems in India today. It is a web-based application that entirely runs on the cloud.  The reason it is so popular is because of its ease of setup, simple and intuitive user interface and its ability to seamlessly perform and automate complex payroll calculations. Zoho Payroll offers a 30-day free trial.

The basic plan (billed annually) costs Rs 50 per employee per month. Zoho has in-depth explanations of each step in the setup process.  Once you go to the sign-in page and create a Zoho account, you will be prompted to set up your business information.

Similarly, you will be able to proceed further and add all other relevant information required to successfully set up Zoho Payroll. This includes tax information, pay schedule, salary components, and others. 

You will have the ability to add all these complex salary component variables directly into this platform and enjoy the benefits of automated calculations that Zoho Payroll provides.  Zoho Payroll also offers an Employee Portal, which provides a clean and sophisticated user experience to your employees.

It also has a payroll app for both iOS and Android users. Employees can download the Employee Portal – Zoho Payroll app from the App Store or Google Play and access all of their salary information on the go. 

Zoho Payroll also supports integration with other software such as Zoho Books (Accounting), Zoho People, and GreytHR (Human Resource) to name a few. This kind of integration with other tools that you might use to manage different verticals of your business is important. 

The only disadvantage of this platform at the moment is that it lacks time and attendance module but that might be included soon. 

4. Paybooks 

If you have a team of 20 employees or more, Paybooks is another popular software in this segment. It is a cloud-based, all-in-one HR and payroll software.  Paybooks also offers a free 30-day trial. The price is Rs 1,800 per month for up to 20 employees and Rs 50 per month for every additional employee thereafter.  You can also outsource your entire payroll process to Paybooks. You can get a quote by reaching out to them. 

5. GreytHR Payroll Software

Just like Zoho Payroll, GreytHR is one of India’s most popular payroll software. It streamlines every aspect of the payroll process and helps you manage everything on a cloud-based web application. 

One of the key advantages of GreytHR is that it has a sophisticated attendance and leave management module. You can get started for free and purchase a suitable plan if you are satisfied with the trail.  There are many other options in addition to what we have discussed here. Keka Payroll, PeopleWorks, and Saral PayPack are among the many others available in the market today.

Which is The Best Employee Management Software?

The way we chose these top employee management systems is based on ease of use, feature set, pricing, customer reviews, and relevance for small and medium-sized businesses. As such, based on everything we have outlined, you can rest assured that you’re choosing the right employee management software.

1. Hubstaff: Overall best workforce management software

Hubstaff is our favorite workforce management software for most businesses.

In part, that’s because Hubstaff has a slew of tools and features that can simplify your workforce management. For businesses with simple needs, its Basic plan offers time tracking and some productivity tracking. 

But for businesses that want more from their workforce management software, Hubstaff’s higher-tier plans offer invoicing, integrations, scheduling, and more (like cost management tools for your projects).

That means that Hubstaff gives you everything you need to manage your workforce’s productivity, attendance, projects, and payment. In fact, the only thing missing from Hubstaff is benefits administration.

As an added bonus, Hubstaff has pretty great reviews from users. And while it doesn’t have the cheapest plans out there, Hubstaff offers competitive pricing. Its Premium plan (the one that most businesses will want) is cheaper than the basic plans from some other companies on this list.

2. DeskTime: Most affordable

If you want a workforce management software that’s easy on your budget (who doesn’t?), take a look at DeskTime.

DeskTime has productivity management tools for your business, including time tracking (for employees and projects), website and application monitoring, and idle time tracking. It also has attendance tools to help you manage scheduling and absences (on the Premium and Enterprise plans).

Of course, you can get all that from other software. The difference? DeskTime gives you those features at a bargain price. Your exact pricing will depend on your billing type (annual vs. monthly) and the number of users you have, but DeskTime offers its productivity tools at a starting cost of less than $4 a user. Yes, that pricing comes with some compromises―DeskTime doesn’t do payroll or benefits, for example.

But if you want essential workforce management tools at a delightfully low price, DeskTime will work just fine.

3. Time Doctor: Best for productivity monitoring

If you mostly care about managing employee productivity, you’ll love all the ways Time Doctor lets you keep an eye on things.

Time Doctor has all the productivity monitoring features you could want. Yes, it has basic time tracking―but it also takes screenshots, tracks the websites your team visits, and monitors the apps they use. And while that can seem a little oppressive, Time Doctor also has tools that help employees stay on track, including alerts when they visit non-productive websites or don’t do anything for a while.

Of course, all that monitoring can give you an overwhelming amount of data. Fortunately, Time Doctor offers a reporting tool that can help you spot trends and habits at a glance. It also lets employees view their own stats, giving them the chance to manage their own productivity. Oh, and Time Doctor gives you storage space for all the data you’ll collect―a perk that makes up for its clunky interface. 

So while plenty of workforce management software offers employee productivity monitoring, Time Doctor does it best.

4. Gusto: Best for payroll

Look, we don’t need to tell you how much payroll matters. We also don’t need to tell you how much of a pain it can be.

Fortunately, Gusto can make payroll virtually painless for you. It has payroll tools for businesses of all sizes. For example, small businesses with simple needs can use its basic plan to get full-service payroll (including workers comp and direct deposit tools) in one state. Large businesses with multiple locations can upgrade plans to get those payroll services (and more) in all 50 states.

Gusto does more than payroll though―it can also help with benefits administration. So whether you’re thinking health insurance, 401(k)s, or even 529 college savings accounts, Gusto can help you offer employee benefits with ease. (You will have to pay more to offer those though.)

Put simply, Gusto has everything you need to make payroll (and benefits administration) a breeze.

5. Paychex: Most comprehensive

We’ve pointed out that some workforce management software has a narrow focus. But if you want a software that does everything? Then you want Paychex.

Whether you want to track time, schedule employees, simplify payroll, or offer benefits, Paychex can do it for you. But it can also help with hiring, onboarding, insurance (for your business and property), compliance, and more. Paychex can even hook you up with small-business loans (through Biz2Credit) and marketing services. In other words, Paychex does it all.

As you can imagine, all those features don’t come cheap. Paychex has a high monthly base cost and a per-user cost, making it one of the most expensive workforce management solutions. But given all the WFM tools you get in one place, that high cost may well be worth it for your business.

So if you want workforce management software that includes everything but the kitchen sink, you’ll love Paychex.

6. Teramind: Most user-friendly WFM software

Teramind is a solid human resources talent management service that caters to businesses that desire an intuitive and easy-to-use interface. While some of its robust monitoring features can be daunting, Teramind’s well-designed platform is why it made our best workforce management solutions list. 

Although its user-centric approach is the focal point, its advanced performance management tool is also noteworthy. It also offers a plethora of alerts and automations, analytics, and reporting. And to help businesses run more efficiently and securely, Teramind notifies users if there’s any suspicious activity.

7. VeriClock: Best for time tracking

VeriClock, a cloud-based software for employee management, was designed to be a solid time tracking tool with additional workforce management system features, including a web and phone punch clock, reporting, and payroll integration.

With VeriClock, users can upload a batch of employees and then check into certain job roles to see how each employee is performing. This feature makes VeriClock one of the best batching systems we’ve seen. In addition to its time tracking features, VeriClock offers QuickBooks integration, GPS tracking, one-on-one training, and much more.

8. Zenefits: Best for hiring and onboarding

While you get hiring and onboarding tools from other workforce management software, Zenefits is one of the few companies that includes them with every plan. For example, all Zenefits plans let you easily create offer letters from templates and then send them right from Zenefits. Likewise, they let you request background checks.

Plus, Zenefits allows you to do paperless onboarding. New employees can select benefits, fill out tax documents, and arrange payroll through the Zenefits platform. So if you want to save time (and paper) on hiring and onboarding, we recommend Zenefits.

9. Cake HR: Best for scheduling

Cake HR has the best workforce scheduling features we’ve seen. It has a drag-and-drop interface that you can use to plan your shifts, making scheduling fast and simple. Cake HR also lets you create groups and shift templates to make scheduling even faster, and it offers one-click time off approval.

It has nice scheduling features for your employees too. Cake HR lets them add preferred schedules, request time off, and see who won’t be around. Keep in mind that you’ll have to pay for an additional “module” to get Cake HR’s shift scheduling features―but for frequent schedulers, the time savings will pay for themselves.

10. 7shifts: Best for restaurants

If you operate a restaurant, 7shifts is the workforce management software you want. Sure, you can adapt other software to work for you―but 7shifts has been designed from the ground up for restaurants and their unique needs. It offers workforce scheduling, shift-based task lists, POS integrations, and more.

Note that 7shifts has per-location pricing, not per-user pricing. And it actually has a solid free plan (if you have only one location), though we suggest paying more to get the task management add-on. But no matter what plan you pay for, 7shifts offer the best workforce management solution a restaurant can get.

Do Small Businesses Need HR Software?

The short answer is yes. While a small business primarily focuses on driving immediate ROIs, getting the right HR software sets a foundation to support the management of their recruitment and talent pool with a plan for growth and longevity.

Many small business owners think it’s unnecessary to have an HR tool because they’re “too small” or only have a few employees. However, this impacts their workflow and even growth. Here’s why your small business needs HR software:

1. The recruitment process is crucial.

Hiring the right candidates who are qualified for their jobs means less time spent on training and supervision. These tasks are expensive for a company, especially a small business, in two aspects: financial and time. Of course, it goes to say that developing your team’s skills is essential. However, training an employee about the basics of their role incurs high initial costs for your business.

An HR software can carefully sift through and sort applications and resumes to pick qualified candidates. It also leverages the use of social media networking, tracks and manage candidates, and reach multiple job boards, among others. With an efficient recruitment and applicant management, you can attract the right talent for the right position at the right time.

2. An HR system helps you oversee your talent pool.

Since your team is small, you want to ensure each member is right for and skilled at their job. Employees who are equipped with the experience and expertise in their role can handle the responsibilities and challenges that come their way.

That translates to a more efficient team with members that contribute the best practices to their role. Furthermore, consistently providing a high quality of service is crucial for earning your customer’s trust and loyalty.

An HR tool can help by elevating the quality of communication between your team members. It also lets you track performance reviews and appraisals to engage your employees, build relationships with them, and clearly outline transparency in expectations from both sides.

After all, a healthy corporate culture is vital for meeting your goals, attracting and retaining talent, and enhancing your brand identity.

3. A small business still needs to comply with legislation.

HR regulatory requirements set by the government vary from one country to another. In most cases, small businesses are exempt from certain legal requirements. However, there are still employment legislation you must comply with regardless if you have one or 1,000 staff members.

Labor laws, taxation, healthcare, and insurance are only some of the documents you needed in place. Companies with 20 employees and less also have up to 60% higher compliance costs.

4. Automation improves productivity and efficiency.

An HR tool automates tasks that are otherwise time-consuming and redundant, such as entering and copying data on spreadsheets, reconciling employee’s payroll, handling tax, remittances, ROEs, and manual T4s, and scheduling and approving employee time-off requests. 

Automation also replaces the error-prone method of manually accomplishing admin tasks through spreadsheets, files, and folders. For instance, self-service tools enable employees to be proactive in scheduling their shifts and updating their employee records with access permissions.

5. You can establish a good foundation from a clean slate.

As they always say, prevention is better than cure. Absence and leave management may not be a problem when you only have four people in your team. You may even think that implementing policies is not yet a requirement with a ‘this is just how we do it here’ mindset.

But with the growth of your team, these small matters can bubble into the surface. Having HR software for small business from the offset can help you establish and communicate policies and practices clearly to save you from conflicts in the future.

6. HR systems are now more affordable.

Years ago, the only HR software in town was HRIS (Human Resource Information System) that was jarringly expensive. Today’s systems, especially with cloud technology, no longer cost an arm and leg.

HR vendors offer packages for small businesses with subscription-based payment models that are paid on a monthly or yearly basis. This means you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars upfront to set up the system or hire more consultants to explore, implement, and train for the product’s deployment.

7. Insights from HR tools improve decision-making.

When you work with spreadsheets, you have to extract and analyze data from it manually. Using this method leaves potential factors to be missed. With HR software, it generates data and identifies patterns and trends. Retrieving for key content and information is quick using dashboards and reporting tools.

How do I Choose The Best HR Software?

Let us now consider how to choose your HR software and what features you actually need. As a small business, you don’t need every feature offered by HR solutions. This means choosing the essentials over the nice-to-haves.

A comprehensive business evaluation is crucial to know the pain points that your business encounters and the features to address them. The following are only some of the features you need:

1. Employee self-service. Enable employees to log on and perform actions like updating details and requesting time-offs.
2. Recruitment. Manage the recruitment process and keep track of job applicants.
3. Performance reviews. Monitor your employees’ performance yearly and set goals and objectives.
4. Reporting. Create custom reports on employee attendance, performance, and turnover, among others and analyze data.
5. Benefits administration. Assist employees in enrolling for benefits.
6. Employee record-keeping. Store important employee records.
7. Mobile access. Allow employees to use their smartphone for remote access.

What Types of Software Are Helpful For Small Businesses?

Nevertheless, there are a number of software options that are essential for business operation.

1. Accounting Software

Accounting is, as everyone knows, an integral part of operating any business. Choosing the best accounting software for your business needs is highly important. But there are many types of accounting software which cater to a variety of different needs.

Understanding what’s on offer will allow operators to select the best accounting software for small businesses, helping you to make more efficient use of your time and facilitating the monitoring of cash flow, expenditure, tax filing and other essential business data.

Keeping your books accurate and up to date is integral to smooth business operation, and companies such as Xero, QuickBooks, and FreshBooks provide streamlined, easy to use accounting software for small businesses.

Payroll Software

One of the best accounting software options for small businesses to use is payroll software. A quality payroll software application, such as Xero software, will allow small business users to accurately and efficiently process payroll, pay slips, superannuation payments, year-end bonuses and a host of other payroll concerns common to any business operation.

Easy to use payroll software can be a lifesaver for over encumbered small business owners, allowing smooth daily operation of business activities and making sure that employee satisfaction and morale is kept high through competent pay management.

The ability to use streamlined software services like QuickBooks payroll software can take the hassle out of otherwise complicated and problematic processes and allow you more time to spend on what’s important for maintaining a successful business operation.

Making sure your employees are paid correctly and on time, as well as keeping a comprehensive track of the expense of paying workers is a vital part of making sure your business is running smoothly.

With companies such as FreshBooks competing to provide the best accounting software for small businesses, there has never been a wider array of tools available to make the lives of small business owners easier.

Tax Software

A comprehensive, easy to use and easily implemented tax software application can provide exactly what business owners need in order to navigate the complexities of any nation’s tax framework. It is well known that fulfilling legal tax obligations and calculating the best tax outcome for your business is one of the most important aspects of maintaining business integrity.

The best accounting software programs on the market are those which provide small businesses with the ability to easily accommodate and deal with the complexities of different international tax regulations. Software applications such as Xero allow users to make efficient use of valuable time resources in dealing with tax.

Bookkeeping Software

Streamlined and easy to understand bookkeeping software programs are the lifeblood of any successful business of any size. The ability to have easily understood critical bookkeeping information at your fingertips is crucial to making sensitive business decisions for your company.

When it comes to accounting software for small businesses, the ability for layman business owners to have important accounting information delivered in an easy to use, easy to understand format can be absolutely essential, allowing business owners to focus less on understanding complex accounting mechanics and more on running their business.

When combined with tax and payroll services the best accounting software will allow smooth and uninhibited business operation.

2. Time Tracking Software

Time tracking software allows users to engage in effective time management through the detailed documentation of work performance on different tasks. Time is one of the most important resources a small business owner has, and the use of an appropriate time tracking tool allows businesses to better quantify their use of this precious commodity.

Understanding how your and your workers’ time is spent by using time management software can let you identify areas of your business where you may be focusing too much or too little.

Software from a company such as MinuteDock lets small businesses accumulate comprehensive data surrounding their time management, allowing you to record time spent on specific tasks or projects, by specific workers or groups, and therefore allowing you to better understand where your business can improve its use of time, to comprehensively document work effort spent on particular clientele, and also to better manage your charging of clients by quantifying the time resources spent on their projects.

One of the most important things you can do as a small business is to check out a trial of free time tracking software from companies like MinuteDock: the value that can be added to your operation from time management software cannot be overstated.

3. Project Management Software

The best project management software can provide an invaluable logistical asset to your business operation. This type of software provides users with the important ability to organize complex projects by breaking them down into specific task segments while still allowing a comprehensive overall view of the project.

Companies such as Trello allow the organization and management of projects into easily understood segments, letting you increase your business efficiency by making the organization of your complex projects a cinch. Not only will this kind of free project management software allow you to improve the organizational management of your business but it will also ensure that you know exactly how, where and why your resources are being expended toward the completion of a given project.

A professional and well-organized plan is furthermore essential to providing clients with the assurance of their project being completed in a timely, organized manner. In combination with a timekeeping program like MinuteDock, your clients will be able to understand exactly what is happening on their projects, allowing for simplified invoicing and payment processing.

With the comprehensive documentation and organization provided by these kinds of software services, a small business can remove hassle and make resource management easy.

4. Customer Relationship Management Software

One of the best ways to better understand your relationship with customers and to drive business growth is to use a CRM software tool in order to better analyse the ways in which your business interacts with its customer base. Small businesses are able to successfully manage customer relationships through the best CRM for small businesses.

Companies such as Zoho provide users with a straightforward interface and present data in an easy-to-understand fashion in order to allow small business operators to gain valuable insight into business relationships, increase customer retention and drive the growth of sales. CRM software is able to provide vital and valuable assistance to small businesses which are trying to gain a better understanding of their interactions both with current and potential customers.

The ability to identify valuable data trends within multiple interaction channels can add an innumerable amount of value to the operations of your small business.

Better understanding the interactions you have with customers in your market is vital to the growth of your business, allowing you to identify appropriate areas to expend marketing resources and make the best use of the tools you have available to improve the performance of your company.

5. Communication Software

Effective and efficient communication, both internally within the business and externally towards customers, is vitally important to the successful operation of any small business. It is important to identify and make use of competent workflow software in order to maximize the efficiency of your business communications.

Communication software, such as the likes of Skype and Slack, will allow your team to communicate and collaborate more effectively on all projects and allow your business to engage with customers and workers regardless of their locality. The ability for a modern small business to engage with global markets through the use of modern communication technology is almost unthinkable.

Effective use of workflow and communication software will allow your business to expand the horizons of its market and help the organization and communication between members of your team as much as any other software on this list.

When used effectively in combination with streamlined management and timekeeping software applications, even the simplest of communication programs can allow your business to remain highly organized and efficient when working on any given project, as well as allow easier flow of communication to your customer base.

Regardless of what industry you operate in, communication will remain an important part of your operation, and the choice of a suitable software to facilitate this can undoubtedly improve your business.‍

6. Website Building Software

The right website design/building software app can make building a professional and attractive website a breeze. This type of software can help the layman in efficiently editing or creating attractive and clear web pages for their site, or help the experienced web designer to add that cutting edge to their design which will set it apart from their competitors.

Building feature rich websites from the ground up is a complicated and painstaking process, one which can require a lot of different areas of expertise when attempting to work without outside help. So unless you have the artistic and IT skills required to make a worthwhile effort, you’ll likely be much better off just using one of the myriads of great website building services around.

Innovative companies like WordPress and Squarespace provide a great variety of professional and visually versatile templates which can be used as a launchpad for creating unique and sleek looking web pages for your brand.

7. Payment Transaction Software

Automating and streamlining your payment transactions can be a huge benefit to our overall workflow and make your billing process so much easier. If you provide a subscription-based service, this sort of software will be a must! Automating monthly invoicing and automatic payments can massively reduce your workload when it comes to billing.

It can also make any necessary refunding process easier as well as help to keep a detailed record of all of your payments and keep a tally of any account credits or customers who are behind on payments. Automating payments can help reduce the likelihood of your customers forgetting to pay their invoices.

While this sort of software can come with its own issues, such as customers forgetting to unsubscribe and overpaying after they no longer use your service, the benefits will usually heavily outweigh the costs.

Ultimately, how suitable this sort of software is for your business will likely depend on how your payment and billing processes are structured – if every job you do is unique to the customer, every invoice will be unique as well, and automating things won’t be as possible or worthwhile.

8. Sales, Marketing, and PR Software

Perhaps the best benefit of using software applications to organize and optimize your workflow is that it allows you to work in a very structured manner. Sales, marketing, and general PR software can help you stay organized, which leads to greater efficiency, a better ability to collect and analyze your sales/marketing data, and therefore more rapid improvements in your sales and marketing processes.

Being able to use marketing software to analyze your sales conversion data is a huge boon in being able to make rapid and substantial improvements to your sales/marketing practices. These software apps can help you to get the most possible value out of your marketing budget, and to improve your sales conversion.

More than this, the right app will make data collection for future analysis much easier, by automating the collection and keeping the data well organized to make interpreting the information easier.

Free Employee Management Software

Having the right human resource software is critical to the success of any growing business. Acting as the system of record for all of your employee data, HR software is the digital hub you need to support talent management needs and automate important HR tasks, from time tracking and payroll, to benefits administration and employee performance reviews.

HR software isn’t cheap though, and you may not have the budget to spring top dollar for a premium solution—which is why you should look into free and open-source HR software systems. Costing zero dollars, these products are more than just a free sample, and can have all the functionality you need to run your small business.

Below, we’ll look at five of the best free and open-source HR software systems on the market based on real user reviews.

Bitrix24

• Free plan: Includes 5GB of storage and access to self-help support materials. Bitrix24’s free plan supports up to 12 users normally, but a special during the COVID-19 pandemic allows for unlimited users.
• Cost to upgrade: Upgrading starts at $19/month for two users and 10GB of storage. You also get access to live chat support during business hours.

A jack of all trades, Bitrix24 has applications designed to support a variety of business needs from customer relationship management and customer support, to videoconferencing, to document storage and project management. Within the free HR software application, you can create a company org chart, maintain every employee record, and manage a knowledge base with all of the HR process materials employees need to access.

Bitrix24 has both on-premise and cloud-based deployment options, and mobile apps for iOS and Android devices.

Fluida

• Free plan: Free for up to 10 users, Fluida’s free plan includes a company directory, time and attendance functionality, and access to email support.
• Cost to upgrade: Fluida’s first paid plan is €2 (~$2.50 USD) per user per month and gives you access to advanced reporting, the ability to export your data, and support via live chat.

Based in Italy, Fluida is a core HR solution and attendance tracking tool available to customers worldwide. Within Fluida’s free HR software, an HR manager can manage paid time off (PTO), track overtime, maintain an employee directory, and even see who’s working in the office and who’s working remote through a shared calendar. Notifications pop up when employees request time off, and attendance reports are automatically generated.

Hardware devices to monitor employee location and check-ins at the office are available for an additional cost. A cloud-based HR tool, Fluida can be accessed through a web browser on any device with internet capabilities.

Freshteam

• Free plan: Freshteam’s free plan, which allows for up to 50 employees and 3 simultaneous job postings, supports applicant tracking, core HR management, and basic time and attendance. Email and phone support are included.
• Cost to upgrade: Costing $50/month for up to 50 users and 250 employees, Freshteam’s basic paid plan allows for more job postings, more customization, more advanced time and attendance features, and access to live chat support.

Freshteam is the human resource information system (HRIS) offering from Freshworks and the first on our list to have applicant tracking features. Alongside the ability to maintain a separate recruiting email inbox, recruiters in Freshteam can post up to 3 job postings, create a basic career site, keep track of job applicants through their hiring pipeline, rate applicants with an interview scorecard, and maintain a roster of employee referrals.

Freshteam’s free plan also includes an org chart, an employee directory, and basic time off management features to support more general HR department needs. Cloud-based, Freshteam also has dedicated mobile apps for iOS and Android devices.

Homebase

• Free plan: Allowing for an unlimited number of employees, Homebase’s free software solution has time tracking, employee scheduling, core HR management, and applicant tracking features. Phone, email, and live chat support are all included.
• Cost to upgrade: Paying $14/month gets you access to Homebase’s Essentials plan, which has everything in the free plan plus functionality for performance management, GPS tracking for field service workers, and automated shift scheduling.

Homebase is a time tracking and scheduling platform, first and foremost. Within Homebase’s free plan, employees can clock in and out, department heads can track breaks and overtime, and HR management can download daily time and attendance reports. A schedule builder is also included, which can be customized and auto-filled with employee PTO requests and availability for ease of use.

Beyond that, Homebase users can also manage employee information, post job openings to job boards, and track the status of job applicants. Homebase is cloud-based and has dedicated mobile apps for iOS and Android devices.

HRLocker

• Free plan: Intended for startups and microbusinesses, HRLocker supports up to four employees and includes core HR, onboarding/offboarding, and absence management features. Support is limited to self-help resources.
• Cost to upgrade: Upgrading HRLocker starts at $3.50 per employee per month with a minimum of 15 employees, and gives you a dedicated account manager and access to phone and email support.

Based out of the U.K., HRLocker’s free offering is HR management software suitable for startups around the world. In addition to employee database, document management, and absence management features, HRLocker can generate standard reports, automate employee onboarding and offboarding processes, and highlight important employee information through an HR dashboard.

HRLocker is cloud-based, and offers dedicated mobile apps for iOS and Android devices.

Employee Management Software For Small Businesses

Employee management encompasses a whole set of employee-centered HR processes throughout the employee lifecycle. Depending on the needs of the small business, HR processes include some combination of

• Hiring: choose the employees who fit your needs, culture, and growth plans and build a candidate pool
• Benefits: administer benefits to hires including health insurance, death benefits, retirement, and leave benefits.
• Performance: track and improve employee performance through goal setting
• Communication: facilitate communication between employees and their managers in the form of messaging. Bonus points for tools that also include goal-based communication
• Training: train employees on job skills, career pathing, leadership, or company-specific knowledge.
• Rewards: recognize and celebrate great behavior and improvements employees with bonuses, games, or let them choose how to spend their rewards.

Best for Hiring: Workable

Workable is an applicant tracking system for small businesses that helps them source, track, communicate, and manage candidates throughout the selection process. The pricing model is per user, meaning you get all of the features for every plan. That’s fantastic for companies who only have 1-2 HR staff members who hire.

Best for Benefits: Zenefits

Zenefits offers a full HR software for hiring and employee data storage, and the benefits program is an add-on at no additional charge other than fees you pay to the health plan. Benefits administration works for health, life, commuter, FSA and HSA accounts. You can extend your Zenefits plan with add-on payroll, performance, and time and attendance tools at a low monthly or annual cost.

Best for Performance: 15Five

15Five can manage all of these employee performance management tasks inside a great interface. Set up 15Five to notify employees of their ongoing goals and when to fill out their quarterly reviews.

Employees will receive email reminders to fill out their reports, and you’ll receive notification of their completion. Check sentiment and progress toward goals in your dashboards. Best of all, watch how employees reinforce great communication with virtual high-fives

Best for Communication: connecteam

connecteam is a mobile-first employee management tool that’s designed with communication in mind. Combining time clocks, scheduling, forms, checklists, messaging and training in a single app, connecteam helps mobile-ready teams share information on the go. Chat one-to-one with the messaging feature, or send an update to the entire team. Find a colleague in the directory, and call them from the app. connecteam even includes surveys, which can be used to check employee sentiment pulses, team and company reviews, or to poll teammates for the best meeting time.

Best for Training: Xyleme

Xyleme is an employee training program that makes it easy to upgrade your workforce knowledge. Build a custom library within the tool, or use the easy upload feature from Office products Word and Powerpoint.

You can publish to web directly from your training tool, and the responsive design is a must in a mobile-first world. Xyleme allows for easy distribution to many different content types and facilitates translation for multilingual companies.

Best for Rewards: Bonusly

If you haven’t heard about Bonusly, you’re in for a treat. This system incentivizes team members to give one another praise and recognition through a point system, and teams pass out points through the existing messaging app.

Once team members gather a store of points, they can trade them in for gift cards to their favorite stores, cash donations to a cause, or custom rewards like lunch with the CEO. Track most-used hashtags and individual points total in the dashboard.

Free HR Software For Startups

If you are a startup or a small business looking to get HR software, then you may already know: There are so many options to choose from!

Now, the sheer number of available options is, in itself, a double-edged sword. How so? Well, too many options mean it can be quite hard and confusing to choose the right HR software for your startup.

However, it also means there is plenty of free HR software for startups to choose from.

Cost is critical for any business, not only small businesses and startups. So we will take a look at some of the best free HR software for startups.

Gusto

Gusto is an HR platform that can simplify your business’s complex HR operations. It offers a centralized platform that enables users to manage benefits administration, payroll, and workforce compliance.

The solution helps businesses go paperless by allowing them to move all their paperwork to the digital platform. Businesses can store their documents, forms, and employee information – all in one central location.

The employee directory allows you to streamline tracking and manage time-off requests. You will also easily create a vacation and sick policy and store them where all your employees can easily access them.

Gusto offers plenty of features that you will need to pay for with other HR payroll services, such as W-2s, 1099s, automated tax filings, pay schedules, expedited payrolls, and multiple states. Even better, it doesn’t limit you to a certain number of payrolls, and you get unlimited payrolls.

Bitrix24

Bitrix24 is a cloud-based collaboration and project management software that helps with all your HR-related tasks. In addition, it offers 25 free HR tools that can give you all the HR features and functions you need.

The solution is top-rated among small businesses and is currently used by over 2,500 HR departments, staffing agencies, and HR recruiters.

Like an HR system, Bitrix24 offers features such as a private social network, document management, employee portal, shared calendars, leave requests, and employee workload planning. The solution also offers plenty of project management features.

It also offers some advanced features, such as appreciation badges, which can help companies give employee management a boost when needed.

Bitrix24 is a project management software that doubles as an HR platform. Still, if you are looking for something more specialized in project management, we highly recommend looking at the best project management software for startups.

Zenefits

Zenefits is an online HR management software to help startups and small-to-midsized businesses with their HR and payroll needs.

The solution offers an employee directory, business intelligence, insurance benefits management, and payroll processing.

The solution gives businesses the ability to manage all their HR-related processes from a single interface. It also gives employees the ability to access the system to control all their HR records.

Zenefits also works hard to keep your managers updated with things like employee tax and earnings, deductions, and more. With Zenefits, you will also not have to worry about ACA compliance, and the mobile app and PTO tracks add a new layer of functionality to the solution.

Zenefits’ features include personnel management, onboarding, and offboarding. In addition, Zenefits can smoothly integrate with your already-existing infrastructure and the apps and systems you are already using.

Freshteam

If you want a human resources platform that will actively increase employee productivity, then Freshteam should be on the top of your list.

The solution offers plenty of features that allow you to manage all of your HR processes. These features include applicant tracking, CRM (customer relationship management), employee recruitment, and more.

Freshteam gives its users complete control over the hiring process, and it does so without sacrificing the quality of candidates.

The solution also offers referral management and basic team collaboration. Another bonus that comes with Freshteam is email application management. All of these features help to make Freshteam your go-to system for tracking and recruitment as you get all the functionalities you need in a single platform.

Freshteam offers integrations with many third-party apps and services such as Facebook, Google Calendar, Freshsales, and Freshdesk.

OrangeHRM

OrangeHRM are a user-friendly, cloud-based resource management and HR tool suitable for businesses of all sizes and in all fields. In fact, the solution is used by more than 3.5 million users around the world, thanks to its cost and the offered features.

This is an open-source solution, and it comes with all the benefits you expect. You can learn all about why Open Source Software is good for small businesses.

OrangeHRM does offer paid plans, but the solution is basically free as you can get almost all the features you want at zero cost. OrangeHRM’s features include benefits and leave management, recruitment, personnel and information management, time and attendance tracking, and employee self-service.

There is also a large number of available customizations to choose from. Is the level of customizability means the solution is flexible and easily scalable, which means as your business grows, you won’t find yourself in a position where you must migrate to another system, which can be very annoying time-consuming.

Free HR Software For Startups

An employee database software allows you to store, manage, and track all employee data. It holds a variety of employee personnel fields such as name, age, job title, salary, length of service, etc for an HR to refer from. A good employee database software should be self-service based where the employees themselves can add and edit their information. 

Freshteam is a perfect HR software for rapidly growing businesses. It offers employee database management capabilities that include a self-service portal, a directory of employee profiles, organizational charts, that span across multiple locations.

Free HR Software For Small Business India

Driven by a philosophy to create world-class products, the Kredily team has created a powerful and complete HRM and Payroll software for enterprises to automate their workflows without spending a single penny!

With Kredily, you can now streamline your HR workflows without shuffling between spreadsheets, empower and engage your employees, track performance and optimize your business expenditure.

Below are some features:

• Create Account & Set Company Info
• Upload Employee Data
• Manage Leave, Attendance & Payroll
• Support for Payroll Cycle
• Enjoy Free Forever HR & Payroll

HR Software For Small Businesses UK

Whether you’re taking on your first employees or growing fast, your company will have its own unique requirements and you should research your options thoroughly. That said, there are some standouts among the small business HR software available in the UK. Here are five of the best.

Zoho People

Zoho People is part of the Zoho ecosystem – a growing range of cloud-based apps that can help with almost every aspect of managing your business. It has a simple, visually pleasing interface, and as with every Zoho offering, it’s easy to pick up with no training or expert knowledge. There’s a free option for basic functions and the paid option starts at £0.66 per user a month.

CakeHR

CakeHR is growing in prominence thanks in part to its visualization features: you can use the platform to create a range of visual reports and references, including company org charts and a range of employee reports.

It also has easy-to-use leave management systems, and syncs in real-time to software you might already use, including Outlook and Google Calendar. Plans start at £3.13 for one employee a month – you pay based on the number of active employees. They offer a 14-day free trial.

BambooHR

BambooHR is pitched not only at the smallest companies but also growing, medium-sized firms. As such, its feature offering is more exhaustive than some of its competitors.

It includes applicant tracking for when you’re hiring, self-onboarding systems for new employees, and custom workflows to help you streamline your processes. Pricing is determined on a bespoke basis – you just need to fill in a a short form on their website.

WebHR

WebHR claims to be used by at least 20,000 companies worldwide. It includes all the core functions you’d expect from a cloud-based HR software option, but where it stands out is in its ‘social’ functions, including an employee messaging service.

It also has a very large range of integrations, and should fit in with software you’re already using.

CascadeGo

Formerly known as Octopus HR, CascadeGo offers a full range of employee self-service options to help take some of the pain out of HR management. It also offers customizable work patterns for individual employees, which can be very useful if you have part-time or flexible workers.

CascadeGo charge a one-time ‘system implementation’ fee, followed by an annual subscription. Again, quotes are built on a bespoke basis.

Employee Management Tools

Selecting the right employee management tool is a challenge since there are an array of tools in the market. To help you speed up this selection process, we have put together a list of top 5 employee management tools that stand out from the crowd.

1. Zoho People

Zoho People is an employee management software that lets HR managers and business owners streamline their employee-related activities. This tool can help you manage employee onboarding, timesheets, leaves, performance, benefits, and personal details.

There are several templates that you can easily customize according to your business’s unique requirements. Although, the clunky and outdated interface makes it difficult to use the software.

Zoho People integrates with major tools like Gsuite, AdobeSign, Zapier, and DocuSign along with other Zoho products. But if you have a custom third-party application that you want to integrate with the tool, then it might be a bit challenging.

Zoho charges per user or employee. This can make the entire payment cycle confusing for fast-growing companies that are hiring new employees because they would essentially have to pay a different amount every month.

Overall, Zoho People is a basic employee management software that is more suitable for small businesses.

2. Kissflow HR Cloud

Kissflow HR Cloud manages all the HR processes through one single platform. It allows organizations to offer a better employee experience which can, in turn, improve employee retention and bring down the overall operating costs.

The simple, compliant, and intuitive tool lets you manage all the HR activities including:

• Talent acquisition management
• Employee management
• Timesheet and attendance
• Leave management
• Performance management
• Onboarding and offboarding

The tool has an incredibly easy to use interface which requires little to no technical knowledge. HR managers can directly automate all their HR processes and start benefiting from the vast features of Kissflow HR Cloud right from day one.

A powerful, yet flexible HR solution, Kissflow HR Cloud is scalable and it grows as your business grows to meet your future HR management needs. The tool also provides a free trial and transparent pricing so that you can get a clear idea about how Kissflow HR Cloud can help your business before you commit to it.

3. Dayforce HCM

Dayforce HCM is a cloud-based employee management software that allows you to manage employee payroll, talent, benefits, onboarding, and even offboarding.

The tool definitely has almost all the features you would ideally require from an all-in-one HR tool, but it is so comprehensive and complicated that it can take you months to truly take advantage of all the features Dayforce HCM has. With a much longer learning curve, your HR team is bound to struggle initially and it may take a long time for you to see the benefits of the tool.

Dayforce HCM doesn’t have transparent pricing or a free trial available. You have to contact them directly with your requirements to get a quote.

4. PeopleBook HR

PeopleBook HR is a comprehensive employee management software that helps you with employee information management, biometrics, payroll management, discipline archiving, performance management, asset management, time and leave management, training and development, and benefits management.

But there are no onboarding features available and you can’t create customized reports through PeopleBook HR. The software can also be a bit slow at times which can make it difficult to manage.

PeopleBook HR does not disclose the pricing of their product on their website. You have to contact them directly for a demo in order to get a quotation for the software.

5. Calamari

Calamari is not a complete employee management software. It is a leave management software that allows you to track the attendance and leaves of every employee in your organization.

The software also has an automated clocking in feature to track the clock in and clock out time of employees. However, you have to pay extra for this feature. It is important to note that Calamari monitors the location of all the employees through their smartphones in order to track their clocking times, which can make employees anxious about their privacy.

With accurate employee timesheets, you can easily automate team calendars and track holidays. The tool can also integrate directly with Slack, Office 365, G Suite, Asana, JIRA, and Basecamp.

But Calamari’s features end at leave management, and in order to streamline the other HR processes within your organization, you will have to get another software.

Read Also: Help Desk Software for Small Business

The prices depend on the number of employees you have and whether you want the clocking in feature along with leave management features.

What is The Use of HR Management Software?

HR software assists an organization’s human resources department by automating manual tasks, keeping employee information organized, and creating data-driven reports. This is all done electronically, eliminating the need for paper documents. HR software can also serve employees and managers within an organization, assisting with tasks like time tracking, updating employee directories, and performance management.

Some of the functions HR software can perform include:

• Securely storing and organizing employee data
• Creating workflows and tracking approvals
• Self-service time tracking
• Tracking employee training for development and compliance
• Gauging and reporting on employee satisfaction
• Performance management and goal tracking
• Benefits administration and management
• Pre-boarding, onboarding, and offboarding automation
• Third-party application integrations
• Monitoring all data changes with an audit trail
• Producing custom reports to provide strategic insight
• And much more

All these actions are done with various HR software programs that can be purchased as a package.

Finally

Employee management software comes in all shapes and sizes to fit the needs of your employees and your business. Get expert help choosing the right software for your budget and HR requirements. It only takes few minutes to get a list of employee management tools that fit your company.