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BambooHR
In Short
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BambooHR offers a one-stop-shop for business software. As well as HR services, it provides a performance management module that includes reviews, reports, and feedback. It’s available in a readable format, which nudges users towards actionable communication through comments and automated notifications. It also comes with a wide range of support, including online content, guides, and videos.
Granted, BambooHR’s phone support is only 12/7, and its prices are a little higher than the industry average. But given the service’s ease of use, as well as its robust feature set, are these shortcomings worth it? Read on to find out.
30 Second Facts
- 7-day Free Trial
- 12/7 Support
- Intuitive interface
- Serves all business sizes
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With over 13,000 client organizations in operation today and more than one million employees using it, BambooHR’s software has a pretty big footprint in the HR and performance management industries. While BambooHR’s main focus is HR management software, it also includes performance management software as an add-on within its suite of services.
BambooHR’s software program allows employees to communicate with team leads and executives. This well-reviewed service comes in two tiers – Essentials and Advantage – but its performance management tools are available as an add-on module rather than through the two main plans.
This review looks primarily at BambooHR’s performance management features and pricing options. These allow businesses to track the performance of employees, teams, and their entire organization, using specific metrics that are clearly communicated to all employees and supervisors.
Here, we’ll cover BambooHR’s core features, as well as its broad range of support options. We’ll then explain more about its pricing structure, before delivering our final verdict on how useful a service it offers.
BambooHR: Core Performance Management Features
BambooHR’s Performance Management add-on lets employees create goals, document feedback for themselves, their managers and their peers, and fill out regular assessments. Using this information, managers can generate reports for employees, or the entire company. Here’s a bit more detail about the main features that let all this happen.
User Profiles
When logged in, users will see a left-hand sidebar featuring information about their position. This includes their hire date, their department, their location, their manager, and their direct reports. A menu bar across the top of their screen divides the software into its main categories: Personal, Job, Benefits, Documents, Training, and Assets. It’s an intuitively designed interface that lets users keep track of their goals, data, and relationships to others within the company.
Performance Reviews
Employee performance reviews are never fun, especially when they take the form of an hours-long flop-sweaty annual event. Like many performance management services, this is one essential chore that BambooHR streamlines and smooths out. Instead of a yearly review, employees can receive regular, frequent feedback throughout the year – a practice that lets rewards be delivered after successes, rather than at the end of the year.
Employees can log into BambooHR to answer questions about their work and their managers at set intervals across the year (every three months is a popular option). These set, specific questions leave less room for subjectivity, making the process more transparent and fair. The entire timeline can be reviewed quickly within the software. In addition, employees and managers can collaborate on goals, which come complete with due dates, a bar that tracks percentage of completion, and a commenting function.
Talent Management
Spring-boarding off the performance reviews, BambooHR’s performance appraisal software helps managers know what to do with the information they’re tracking. Greater accuracy leads to smarter decisions: Managers can easily figure out the next action needed for each employee, from bonuses or promotions to disciplinary actions. Custom email alerts can also be created to ensure no employee milestones are missed.
Employees will feel like they are being heard, and will stay engaged with the company as a result. And, since talent management all happens slowly and clearly, no one feels ambushed or surprised by the result.
Employee Performance Reports
Finally, managers can generate visually rich reports in order to get a full picture of the entire company’s performance, and where each employee stands in relation to other individuals and teams. Employees can be displayed on a chart, with engagement levels tied to an X axis and performance levels tied to a Y axis. This chart automatically locates the rock stars who may feel under-valued, and the low-performers who might need better incentives.Video Highlight: Customer Reviews
Here’s one video showcasing how BambooHR’s Customer Reviews feature helped a company trim down their laborious hours-long review process, and turn it into a simple, useful part of their performance management process. A few of the keys to their success? Getting specific and keeping supervisors on the same page as employees. Watch the rest of this six-minute video for more.
Set Up and Customer Support
BambooHR offers a phone support line which is open 12 hours a day for its customers, as well as email support that can be accessed through a support request form on BambooHR’s website.
In addition, a number of online resources are available 24/7 to anyone with an internet connection, including a help center, blog, content library, webinar library, HR Glossary, and a series of tutorial videos hosted on YouTube.
Customers can also share feedback though a Product Feedback form on the service’s website.
Support & Training
Support options
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Online Form
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Phone: 1-866-387-9595
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Phone hours: 6 am – 6 pm MT
Training options
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Help center
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Online videos
BambooHR Plans and Pricing
BambooHR offers two different pricing plans: Essentials and Advantage.
The Essentials package starts at around $6 per employee per month, and offers basic HR functionality, like employee records and benefit tracking, along with some employee self-service features, like time-off management and company calendar.
The Advantage plan starts at around $8 per employee per month. This plan adds hiring features, like onboarding and training tracking, along with some advanced components, like high-level reporting and company branding.
Live demos of the software can be scheduled, while a 7-day free trial is also available. The Performance Management add-on is available on both plans for an additional undisclosed price. You’ll need to contact BambooHR’s sales team to find out the exact cost for your business.
BambooHR Alternatives
While BambooHR certainly represents one of the better performance management and HR software providers on the market, it obviously isn’t the only option. For example, if you’re looking for an affordable solution, our best bet would be PeformYard, or if it’s compensation and performance management software you’re after, Performance Pro would be our best bet.
There are many great choices when it comes to performance management, however, and we’ve collected data on a lot of them to help you decide for yourself. Take a look at this in-depth table to see what these providers offer, as well as their pros, cons, and core benefits to keep your team working effectively and efficiently.
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Starting price
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Pros
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Cons
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Performance
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Training
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Recruiting
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HR
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Benefits
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FEATURED PROVIDER
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Workday |
BambooHR |
Betterworks |
Leapsome |
Engagedly |
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Custom |
$10 per employee, per month |
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Custom pricing |
$2/user/month |
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BambooHR offers robust features wrapped up in a smart, easy-to-understand interface. Given that the point of performance management software is to increase efficiency, that’s a good thing. The service’s prices, while not the cheapest, are reasonable, making BambooHR a recommended software solution.
Frequently Asked Questions
Not only is BambooHR secure online, it’s also Safe Harbor Certified, which means that they adhere to the U.S.-European Union and U.S.-Swiss Safe Harbor Framework as mandated by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Yes, BambooHR is cloud-based, which means you won’t have to download or install any external software. The whole platform is simply available online, so you can access it form anywhere with your credentials.
The price of BambooHR can vary depending on how many users you need and how many employees you have, but the starting price is around $6 per employee per month. You’ll have to contact BambooHR to get specific pricing for your business, but that’s a good starting off point.
Yes, BambooHR offers a payroll software, but it is available as an add-on, rather than as a core functionality of the software. Dubbed TraxPayroll, this app will seamlessly integrate with BambooHR, so you can do it all from one, easy to use hub.
BambooHR doesn’t have a parent company. The company was founded in 2008 by Ben Peterson, who remains the owner to this day.
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