BambooHR Reviews

Pros

The product is very easy to use. The customer support is incredible. The system is aesthetically pleasing. Bamboo listens to feedback and is always updating and releasing new features based on customer feedback.

Cons

Some features are not the most robust. Time tracking and reporting specifically. Bamboo does not have built-in scheduling. The employee notes feature could be more like applicant notes (replies, attachments, email notifications).

Alternatives Considered

Humanity and Deputy

Switched From

UKG Ready

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR

Ease of use, better customer support, better features.

Pros

The look an feel of BambooHR (BHR) is amazing! Its almost like Facebook for recruiting. It is very intuitive for what it does and offers to the administrator and end user. The applicant tracking system is very easy to use and goes the extra mile with automation and thoughtfulness concerning on-boarding and then " flowing" into the core HRIS. The BHR system was chosen by a previous HR professional that clearly had a recruiting bias. Although important, more vetting should have been done to make a sound choice for long term success regarding the needs of a small to mid-size business.

Cons

Beyond what I described above there is limited functionality without also purchasing and integrating other systems through a "bolt-on" approach. By "Bolt-on" I mean that BHR will not automate between the core HR system of BHR and a timekeeping system, a payroll system, benefits administration system, leave administration system. The ability to have a robust system is possible but is not practical or cost effective with BambooHR. In order to get a full platform, covering the full life cycle of and employee, through BHR, a business would have to pay upwards of 30-40 dollars per employee per month. Simply put other options are available and far more robust with better long term results for less money- See my review of APS Payroll for an example.

Alternatives Considered

APS Payroll, Paycom, ADP Workforce Now, Namely and Paycor

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR

Price and lack of proper education as to the actual functionality and potential cost of the system beyond on-boarding.

Pros

BambooHR is a great online HR software that allows for quick and easy employee management. It has many features that make it a great choice for small businesses. Here are the top five features of BambooHR that make it a top choice for small businesses.1. BambooHR is easy to use.2. It is affordable.3. It has a wide range of features.4. It is secure.5. It is adaptable.BambooHR is a great HR software that offers many features to its users. In this article, we will take a look at the most and least important features of bamboo.The most important features of bamboo are its ability to manage employee records, its ability to connect to various systems, and its ability to generate reports.The least important features of bamboo HR are its ability to integrate with other HR software, its lack of a digital signature feature, and its inability to export data.

Cons

Most bamboo HR features are designed to make your job easier. Whether it's the ability to access your information from any device, the ability to share documents easily, or just the sheer convenience of being able to access your information from anywhere.One of the least bamboo HR features is the fact that bamboo HR doesn't allow for remote access. While this may not be an issue for some, for others it could be a life-or-death situation. If you are ever out of the office or unable to log in for some reason, you may be out of luck.One of the most bamboo HR features is the fact that bamboo HR is completely secure. Whether you are working on the go or at your desk, your information is always safe and secure.BambooHR offers many features that are useful for employers and employees. However, not all features are universally useful, so it is important to understand what features are most important to you before signing up for BambooHR.BambooHR offers a variety of features that are helpful for employers and employees. Here are the top three features that are most important to employers:1. Employee Management: This feature allows employers to manage employee records, including wages, benefits, and leave information.2. Employee Communications: This feature allows employers to send messages to employees and track their replies.3. Time Tracking: This feature allows employers to track the time employees spend working on specific tasks.

Pros

- easy tool to navigate- easy tool to get a sense of the scale of the organization and reporting lines

Cons

- difficult tool to use to understand headcount movements- difficult tool to understand promotions- difficult tool to consolidate relevant information in one central location (docusigns, signing offers etc)

Pros

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

Cons

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

Alternatives Considered

Lattice

Reasons for Choosing BambooHR

We needed a more accurate / visible PTO tracking.

Switched From

Zenefits

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR

Price, features

Pros

BambooHR is a popular human resources management software that offers a range of features designed to streamline HR processes and improve employee management.Here are some this I mostly like about this software:User-friendly interface: BambooHR has an intuitive interface that is easy to navigate, making it easy to manage employee data, track performance, and run reports.Comprehensive HR features: BambooHR offers a range of HR features, including payroll, time tracking, applicant tracking, onboarding, and performance management, all in one platform.Customizable options: BambooHR can be customized to fit the unique needs of your organization, allowing you to add custom fields, workflows, and reports.Strong reporting capabilities: BambooHR provides extensive reporting options that allow you to generate data-driven insights into HR metrics, such as employee engagement and performance.Good customer support: BambooHR provides excellent customer support, including a knowledge base, training resources, and live chat support.

Cons

Limited integration options: BambooHR has limited integration options with other software, which can make it difficult to sync data with other business tools.Expensive pricing: BambooHR can be expensive, especially for smaller businesses, as the pricing is based on the number of employees.Limited customization options: While BambooHR can be customized to fit the unique needs of your organization, there are some limitations to the customization options available.Limited mobile app functionality: While BambooHR has a mobile app, it has limited functionality, which can be frustrating for employees who need to access HR information on-the-go.Limited recruiting features: BambooHR's recruiting features are somewhat limited compared to other recruiting-specific software on the market.

Pros

BambooHR allows businesses to store all HR-related data in one centralized location, making it easier to access and analyze employee information, HR-related documents, and other relevant data.BambooHR is customized to fit the unique needs of each business, with features such as custom workflows, document templates, and reporting tools.BambooHR's software solutions provide us with self-service tools and resources, enabling us to manage oud HR-related tasks and questions more efficiently and effectively.BambooHR's reporting and analytics features provide businesses with insights into HR-related trends and patterns, enabling us to make data-driven decisions about our HR strategies and operation.By simplifying HR processes and providing employees with self-service tools and resources, BambooHR helps me to improve the overall employee experience, leading to increased engagement and retention.

Cons

Higher cost than some other HR software options, especially for smaller businesses or those with limited budgets.Limited integrations with other tools, which could impact how well BambooHR fits into your existing HR and business workflows.Limited customization options, which make it difficult to tailor the platform to our specific needs.Complexity that take time and resources to fully implement and understand.Extensive training needed for both HR staff and employees, which could impact productivity.I have found that customer support is not as responsive.

Pros

Managing recruitment processes and ease of following an approach to recruitment and existing employees and making it easier for employees to view their data and performance and make planning for resource management very easy

Cons

It does not integrate with other programs easily, but requires a great effort to coordinate between them, and its cost is high for small companies, and employees may face some difficulties in adapting to the program.

Pros

BambooHR is a highly intuitive HRIS that offers a variety of modules at extremely affordable prices.Bamboo HR offers an applicant tracking solution that has higher capabilities than comparable HRIS systems and makes the recruitment to onboarding cycle easier.

Cons

Although Bamboo is more of an off-the-shelf solution created for SMBs, it can be limited in how configurable it can be. Bamboo is quick to deploy and simple to set up.Benefits management tools are not provided by BambooHR, hence a third-party [sensitive content hidden] Admin would be needed to complete the package.

Pros

It's super easy to use. We've been utilizing this software at our job for years now. It's not hard to find what you're looking for as all the information you need is on there. It is basically an online hr.

Cons

Honestly can't find any cons for this software. There can definitely room for improvement but nonetheless, everything's great with this.

Pros

I have implemented BambooHR as our primary HRIS system at 3 companies now. Bamboo is so intuitive training is a breeze. Whenever anything pops up I don't have an answer to Help desk is an IM away. Reporting cannot be beat. Hands down the easiest most intuitive HRIS our there for HR Professionals and Employees.

Cons

I wish there were more options within the review portal. Like having the ability to do quarterly assessments AND a formal annual assessment that combines all the quarterlies. Even though we have a quarterly assessment process at our Company people also want to traditional annual and we have to do that all manually outside of the system currently.

Alternatives Considered

Paycom, ADP Workforce Now and Paychex Flex

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR

Bamboo allows us a lot of flexibility to design it the way that works best for our company and our people that's didn't wrap us into anything additional we didn't want or need.

Pros

The software does have some nice features like Performance Management.

Cons

The worst payroll software in history! Sold me a bill of goods that everything was integrated, however, they use a remote link which is clunky and extremely frustrating to use unless everything is "just right". Do your research - there is better out there along with excellent customer support. I had to manually add employee PTO each pay period as their system was not integrated with their Payroll software.

Alternatives Considered

Gusto, QuickBooks Time and Zenefits

Reasons for Choosing BambooHR

Was moving from three HR systems into one, although in actuality, it was really moving into two systems - BambooHR and Trax.

Switched From

Gusto

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR

We didn't consider other alternatives as we were already using BambooHR for everything except Time Tracking and Payroll. This was a HUGE mistake on our part. We have now completed a change away from BambooHR after doing a complete review of alternative products. Much happier without the frustration of using their antiquated payroll system.

Pros

Our business truly benefits from being able to track due dates for trainings and documents. Because we are education, there are a ton of clearances, health forms, and professional development that must be completed. Keeping this all up to date has been done in the past on spreadsheets and not available to everyone to see. Now we can access this as admins and be able to verify things are being done when they are needed.

We have also really enjoyed the integration of time tracking, to timesheets, to payroll. It has made our managers lives easier and saved a ton of time for them. it has also made everything seemless for me to run payroll and process benefits without thinking about it too much or taking multiple days to get it done.

Cons

I feel like we would really benefit from a follow up training or someone to talk to. Kind of like implementation where someone would just check in to see if you could be using things better or differently to be more effective. We do reach out to support a ton and they are great!!

Alternatives Considered

ADP Workforce Now

Reasons for Choosing BambooHR

Cost, customer service, ease of use

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR

Bamboo seemed much more user friendly. We really wanted the system not to be scary to our staff and managers.

Pros

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

Cons

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

Alternatives Considered

Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate and QuickBooks Time

Reasons for Choosing BambooHR

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

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR

Ease of use.

Pros

We previously used Time Doctor to track our time and for payroll. However, as the company expanded. We want a system that allows us to track all employees from their assessment/ job application to their onboarding. We can even send new hire packets to get them prepared for the job.
This includes what they needed to do on their first day, what documents they needed to submit, and who they should contact. It's also easy to track time off request and UPTOs. BambooHR can also be integrated with LMS tools such as TalentLMS.
As a user, the app is very useful; seeing your timesheet hours and pay period, as well as the payroll reminder, is a great feature.

Cons

The training section of BambooHR is a little complicated, and adding new training and categories is done alphabetically. As a result, having your own training roadmap and guidelines causes everything to become jumbled. When we asked their support team for help in resolving the issue, they were able to help us by manually assigning a number to each category. Another thing is, marking each training category as complete must be done one at a time. It takes a lot of effort, but it works.

Pros

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

Cons

It will be pretty minor details, part of which will simply have to do with their client size positioning. As we were growing, I encountered director-level newcomers in our HR department who were used to the more prominent HRIS players, and to the ability to set up more complex workflows than BambooHR allows (example: self-service on employment letters, sending change notifications to other people than change approvers, allowing back-up assignees for tasks, etc).

One feature that I feel might need adjusting (but again, that's detail) is their "Who's Out" calendar, which is synced with their time-off feature: regardless of whether the person has booked 1 hour off or the full day off, it will look like the person is away for the whole day, which looks confusing.
Then two things come to mind on the analytics side, but again, they are minor and for more advanced users: I would love the ability to report on changes for personal details (beyond the audit trail report) and on custom fields. Then, custom calculation fields (which are already a great thing to have!!) are limited to the employment profile itself, i.e. you cannot return data fields from other employees' profiles, for example, who the manager of their manager is, etc.

Pros

The product is easy to implement , out of the box. The product is best for small to mid size companies, but especially if you have minimal processes to manage. The add on features of Performance and eNPS are simple to use and very effective. You can find workarounds for unique processes.

Cons

As a company continues to scale and grow, the incremental processes added become more difficult to manage with the system. A simple example is onboarding. Onboarding is only geared to true new hires. If you have an employee who is transferred to a new division within the organization and needs to be assigned new tasks that are well documented, the software does not have the ability to manage transfers.

The ability to format a document for e-signature would be incredibly helpful.

A little more flexibility in problem solving rather than simply suggesting to put suggestions on a future product launch list.

Pros

• User-friendly
• Customizable (ie. you can have Bamboo set up tables that you can use to track your Medical Examiner’s certifications/driver’s licenses & set reminders for expiration)
• Hiring system ports directly into employee creation
• Applicant tracking system (automatically posts to Indeed, Glassdoor & ZipRecruiter)
• Onboarding / offboarding
• Standardized & customizable reports
• Org chart
• Company directory (the app is nice but offers less functionality than the website)
• E-signature for your forms to port directly into employee files upon completion & route as directed (ie. direct deposit can route to payroll or reimbursements to A/P)
• Asset tracking (you can set security levels to allow IT – or appropriate individuals to access / make changes / run reports for assets)
• Electronic approval process for compensation, approvals, and other customizable events
• Preview as user allows you / admin to see things as the individual sees them – really helps with problem-solving
• You establish access levels
• Track training (but very simplistic process)
• Works with single sign-on

Cons

• Lack of ability to set up onboarding tasks for internal promotions
• Training tracking is simplistic, they do offer integrations with LMS
• Doesn’t connect with our payroll system (although you could have someone build a custom integration)

Pros

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

Cons

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

Pros

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

Cons

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

Alternatives Considered

Bambee

Reasons for Switching to BambooHR

Bambee was expensive and seemed inferior

Pros

Onboarding, employee database, time off tracking, performance management, reporting, customization, friendly and functional user interface. Users like using it!

Cons

Hard to say really - it's a pretty great system. The benefits section doesn't seem to be set up to be useful for our kind of benefits program (typical health and dental plan in Canada). I'm still exploring some functions...for example, we haven't really put their ATS to the test yet as it seems a bit basic vs. our current system but I want to give it a try since BambooHR has a way of delivering the needed functionality in a deceptively simple interface. I do need to maximize my use of BambooHR functions further given the investment we have made in it - I have a lot of faith in their products and am confident I will find even more value there if I look. I hope they can keep up the amazing customer and user experience I have had these last few years as they continue to expand their functionality.

Pros

Just being able to organise all employee information and documents in one, safe, place is great, as well as easy time off booking and tracking.
The recruitment side of things is so easy with Bamboo - again, it keeps everything together in one place, including correspondence with candidates, and the application, offer, and onboarding processes are easy to set up and save an enormous amount of time.
Signature templates - we really love these! Being able to send out documents and get proper electronic signatures on them is a huge benefit for us.

Cons

We would love to be able to use the Payroll function, but we are UK-based, and it only works in the US.

It is very American in language, and it would be good to be able to change some of that, e.g. use CV instead of Resume. Small things, and certainly not game changers in terms of us using Bamboo.

Pros

The platform offers us a good management of the documentation of our employees. It is easy to make detailed follow-ups about the activity of each employee, and their work time. The same thing happens with the follow-up of the candidates, and their abilities, because this is very complete. Another advantage of bamboohr is that the work can be organized so that specific employees can manage the rest. Bamboohr has proven to be a very reliable service, with which we can support all the work reports of our staff, and much more. The platform has also been of great help to achieve a more methodical workflow, and for the whole team to be aware of the skills and talents of each member of the team. Thanks to this we can create work strategies based on these skills.

Cons

Bamboohr offers a quite poor smartphone application. This is much better when used directly from the web page. The Platform does not offer enough communication tools. It does not handle motors of revision of curricular summaries, and neither it allows to administer criminal records (in the case of the candidates).

Pros

BambooHR was very easy to set up and implement and my contact was extremely helpful and patient. I love that this can be a one stop shop for so many functions and is user friendly. The ability to add on new functions and apps is fantastic. Prior to BambooHR we did everything on paper and spreadsheets but now I can run reports so quickly and know that critical forms and information is saved and protected forever.

Cons

The I-9 functionality is difficult at times. If the employee forgets to complete part of Section 1 it will not send a notification to me or back to the employee. It would be nice to also have a function that will not allow the employee to finish their tasks unless the I-9 is completed correctly.
One other issue that would be great is if there would be a way to assign a new signee in an already partially completed document. Example is an I-9 that the employee has done their part and is then assigned to the HR representative to input ID and sign, but that HR rep has left the company and there is currently no way to remove her and assign someone else. I am told to cancel and send the task again to the new hire, but this is impacting the compliance of the I-9 process.

Pros

From a manager's standpoint, it's incredibly easy to navigate around BambooHR to find annual review documents, approve OOO/PTO requests, and access timecards. The software has also provided a way to quickly see who is out of the office at any given moment, access our other HR resources, implement a digital company directory, and sign off on HR forms. I no longer need to search emails for PTO request approvals or other communications—I simply access my BambooHR inbox from my laptop or even on my mobile device while I travel. In addition, BambooHR has also allowed us to create a branded portal with our own brand colors and logo, which is quite a nice touch. BambooHR's mobile app makes it simple to find incoming out of office requests, company links, a directory, and file access. I can also submit requests and access my own information pretty quickly.

Cons

There is facial recognition available the app, but it's a toggle that needs to be activated within Settings once you log in. There isn't a pop-up when logging in that offers you this option, which makes logging into the mobile app a little clunky upon first use. In both the mobile device and the browser app, a calendar view provides a summary of who is out of office each date. However, there is not a filter option to isolate this view to your direct reports. This makes it difficult to quickly approve time-off requests if you are unable to quick reference a calendar for when team members will be out of office.