Best HCM Software

SAP’s SuccessFactors HCM software suite is a comprehensive set of HR and business management tools, but it’s unfortunately only available for larger businesses. According to an SAP representative, it’s only available for businesses with more than 300 employees, and its payroll tools are only available for businesses with more than 1,000 employees.

Features

SuccessFactors offers a full toolkit of features, so if your business is of the size to take advantage of it, your HCM needs will be fully covered. There’s the requisite core HR functionality, payroll processing, tools for every stage of the employee journey from recruiting to offboarding, AI and data-driven analytics to surface your business’s strengths and weaknesses, and sales tracking and optimizations to help your bottom line. SuccessFactors is a comprehensive platform that will cover almost every HR need for larger enterprises.

Pricing

Because SAP doesn’t surface pricing for its SuccessFactors suite online, assessing value is difficult. Customers are required to contact SAP directly for a quote, which may differ depending on the size of your company and the services you require. However, it does offer an all-in-one solution for HCM services, so you likely won’t have to additionally pay another company to fill in gaps in the platform.

Customer Service

SAP offers a Learning section on its website with classes and links to SAP certifications. There’s also a Community tab for events and learning about other SAP products, and a Support section covering common issues. You can reach out directly to SAP customer support by phone, support form or live chat, and its Customer Interaction Center is available 24/7, 365 days a year.

Reputation

SAP enjoys a good reputation on review aggregator G2, sitting at 4.1 out of 5 with over 1,200 reviews. Users praise its helpful tools and features, though some are critical of its unintuitive design.

Learn more: Read our full SAP SuccessFactors review.

Paycor offers an employee-friendly HCM service that prioritizes accessibility. This is especially evident in the company’s approach to benefits, which empowers employers to reduce onerous, repetitive and confusing open enrollment tasks and lets employees manage their benefits anywhere and at any time.

Features

A big part of Paycor’s sales pitch is how its employee-friendly platform can save you time by being an all-in-one, single source of truth for employee data. It starts with HR and payroll that are integrated into a single interface, so HR data feeds into payroll and automations. Auto-run features help slash the amount of time you’ll spend getting your people paid.

Paycor also has a full set of employee management tools. There are talent acquisition features to find, recruit and onboard the best people available for your open roles, management tools to train and cultivate the people already on staff and time and attendance tools to simplify scheduling.

Pricing

Paycor also doesn’t reveal its pricing online, and you’ll have to reach out to the company for a customized quote specific to your company. There are two plan groups available, one for businesses with fewer than 50 employees and one for larger companies. The small business group is broken into four tiers with scaling features, while the larger business option requires you to reach out to the company for a tailored quote.

Customer Service

Paycor offers a deep resource center on its site where you can view webinars on HR and compliance trends, read guides and white papers published by the company, review case studies of successful businesses utilizing Paycor’s software or brush up on HR vocabulary with an online glossary. You can also reach customer support by phone, Monday through Friday between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. ET.

Reputation

Paycor currently holds a 3.9 rating on G2. Reviews point to the ease of use of its platform and its excellent payroll features, though there are some negative comments about Paycor’s customer service and payment issues.

Learn more: Read our full Paycor review.

Paycom’s focus is on providing a single platform that communicates across all the services it provides, so you don’t need to constantly reenter data or worry that one part of the software isn’t communicating with the others. Contributing to that sense of unity are a number of built-in automations that eliminate much of the manual labor normally associated with HCM software.

Features

Amongst those handy automations are automated payroll and time and attendance management tools. Payroll is hooked directly into HR and can pull existing employee data directly, so you don’t waste time reentering wages or hours every time you need to run payroll. It’s also built to allow your employees to review and correct errors before a run, saving you time and eliminating errors before they happen.

Time and attendance systems also all interconnect with the rest of the platform, so any time an employee requests time off, you can approve or deny the request, with or without comments, and that decision will auto-populate throughout the rest of the system. You can view a calendar at any time displaying which employees are off when as well as leave accruals, and set which procedures you wish to automate.

Pricing

Along with many of the HCM providers on our list, Paycom doesn’t provide pricing details online, so evaluating the value of its platform is challenging, as price may fluctuate depending on an SMB’s circumstances.

Customer Service

Paycom hosts a resources section on its website with a blog covering topics such as benefits enrollment and how to avoid common payroll mistakes, some educational webinars and an HR and payroll glossary. You can also reach Paycom customer service by phone or at one of its corporate headquarters. Every customer is also assigned a primary point of contact who will be familiar with your account and help answer any questions you have about the platform in a way tailored to your business.

Reputation

Paycom has a very good reputation on Trustpilot, garnering a score of 4.3 out of 5. Reviewers praise the company for its training and support options, as well as knowledgeable customer service representatives.

Learn more: Read our full Paycom review.

Zoho offers a number of business management systems of which its HCM platform is just one, with a focus on employee experience. In the company’s own words, your employees are your first customers, and Zoho aims to ensure they’re satisfied and productive to boost recruiting and retention.

Features

Zoho is slightly different from many competing HCM platforms in that instead of a unified system, it separates its offerings into a number of plans and add-ons. The core of the HCM side is the People Plus plan, which, as the name implies, includes a lot of employee management tools.

It starts with talent acquisition, which runs the gamut from candidate sourcing all the way until you’re ready to make an offer. There are also management tools for tracking goals and training and a communication and engagement suite that includes a social wall where employees can collab. It’s all in support of the core HR system, which is how Zoho labels its time and attendance features, document and expense management and HR analytics. Curiously, payroll is only available in India through the People Plus plan (it’s otherwise available as a paid add-on).

Pricing

The People Plus plan starts at an attractive $10 per employee per month (or $9 if you pay annually), but that price is heavily caveated. You don’t get payroll outside of India, premium expense features, Zoho’s security suite, video features or any of Zoho’s advanced communication and collaboration tools. All of those are paid add-ons, and most are priced on a per-user per-month basis, meaning costs can stack up quickly.

Customer Service

Continuing the people-first trend evident across Zoho’s site, the company has a section dedicated to Employee Experience, where you can read blog posts and listicles about improving quality of life for employees and facilitating collaboration. There’s also a full resources section with more blog posts, compliance guides and webinars. Live support is available by way of email, phone or support ticket.

There are also tiered support plans available, two paid and one free, with varying levels of service options. The free tier email and phone support during limited hours, while the top paid plan offers full 24/7 support through email, live chat, phone, the Zoho community and remote assistance.

Reputation

Zoho sits at a 4.2 on Trustpilot, with numerous reviews lauding its various individual tools and services, though perhaps unsurprisingly, there are several complaints about how scattered its features are.

UKG’s HCM software attempts to toe the line between servicing large enterprises while retaining a human touch, focused on employee satisfaction and building a healthy workplace culture. Part of the way it accomplishes that difficult balance is by leveraging AI. UKG leans into AI for analytics and reporting, as well as parsing that data to make actionable recommendations.

Features

UKG offers a complete HCM platform with all the core HR features, payroll and compliance tools that implies, but its standout features are its AI-driven analytics and reporting. The platform’s AI can report on data across talent HR tools in one place and allows you to compare data from various points in time to get insights into how your workforce is changing and evolving.

AI will also attempt to anticipate your employees’ needs before they arise based on the datasets you feed it, and you’ll get proactive alerts anytime you’re in danger of overrunning your budget or violating compliance regulations.

Pricing

UKG is another HCM provider that doesn’t surface its pricing online. To source a quote, you’ll need to contact sales through a form on the website (the same page also includes a handful of product demos stepping you through some of the platform’s features, with links to sign up for a live demo).

Customer Service

On the Resources tab of UKG’s website, you can access some of UKG’s research on topics such as HR and payroll, its Aspire conference and other trade shows, some webinars and the company blog. Support is available for existing customers by logging into the UKG Community portal on the website, as well as 24/7 by phone, live chat or online.

Reputation

UKG has earned a very good reputation online on aggregate site G2, with users specifically calling out its comprehensive features and ease of use, though some reviews ding it for poor customer support.

Learn more: Read our full UKG review.

Rippling’s entire focus is on making its all-in-one HCM platform easy to use and intuitive. To accomplish that, it unifies its entire platform around a single source of truth and an intuitive interface, backed by a number of automations.

Features

Rippling builds automations into many parts of its HCM ecosystem. What this means practically is that when you make changes or enter new data into one part of the platform, Rippling will automatically update other affected modules to reflect downstream implications. For instance, if you note that one of your employees has moved to a new state, Rippling will automatically adjust their payroll taxes to reflect the change.

The same is possible for other parts of the employee life cycle. Mark an employee as promoted, for instance, and Rippling will adjust permissions, add the employee to appropriate Slack channels or assign them a corporate card. Automations are all customizable so you can fully control how changes in one module affect other parts of the platform.

Pricing

Rippling doesn’t disclose pricing information on its website. Instead, customers need to fill out their information in a contact form on the website in order to schedule a 30-minute demo with one of the company’s representatives—a convoluted and onerous (though unfortunately common in the HCM market) way to sell software.

Customer Service

On Rippling’s Resources tab, you can find a huge number of educational tools, including Rippling U, which offers free training and continuing education credits. There are also webinars, a glossary and a blog, as well as “recipes,” which are templates you can install into the platform to handle tasks such as exit interviews or DEI surveys. Customers can contact Rippling through the Help Center and by live chat and email.

Reputation

Rippling has an excellent reputation on Trustpilot, with a 4.4 review rating. It earns plaudits for its legible and easy-to-use software, though there are some negative reviews citing difficulty communicating with support or account managers.

Learn more: Read our full Rippling review.

Paylocity is a complete HCM platform with a focus on payroll, both domestic and global. Its payroll features include automations, tax compliance tools and automations for expense management. There are also systems to handle complex tasks such as garnishments or navigating foreign currency payments.

Features

Beyond the payroll features, Paylocity offers a number of workforce management tools to help reduce your time spent doing repetitive administrative tasks so you can focus on growing your business. It starts with automated time tracking, which in turn feeds into reporting and ultimately payroll to streamline the entire process of getting your employees paid accurately.

Scheduling is also simplified by the same system. Paylocity allows you to schedule by roles to ensure your people are available to coordinate and collaborate together, and can deploy AI to estimate hours and determine what that schedule will cost you. There’s also a mobile app that both lets you respond to employee requests at any time, and offers self-service options to your employees as well.

Pricing

Paylocity doesn’t reveal its pricing structure online. You’ll need to reach out with details including your employee count and contact information to schedule a live demo before you’ll be able to account for the price of the software in your business plan, which is less than ideal.

Customer Service

Paylocity offers a handful of resources on its site, including training courses for its products led by instructors, event listings and tax resources. You can contact customer service by phone or email. Hours are Monday through Friday, 6:00 a.m. – 7:30 p.m. CT.

Reputation

Paylocity is highly rated on review aggregate site G2, currently sitting at 4.4 with several thousand ratings. On the positive side, a number of reviews cite the excellent customer service, payroll management features and comprehensive nature of the platform. Negative reviews point to issues with employee management features and transferring data from previous systems.

Learn more: Read our full Paylocity review.

HiBob is an HCM platform that’s designed to be accessible by everyone in your organization, from management to HR professionals to individual employees. There’s also a big focus on culture, starting with the ability to build a personalized onboarding process. It allows you to provide opportunities for new employees to self-identify and introduce themselves to your veteran staff, and fill out a profile with what they consider the most important parts of their personalities.

Features

The idea of creating a welcoming culture is central to HiBob’s entire platform, and extends to engagement features that are designed to make all of your employees feel at home within your organization, whether they work from, at the office or a hybrid of both. In the same vein, HiBob offers a feature called Your Voice, which provides a safe space for employees to voice concerns about workplace misconduct or other issues.

Another standout feature of HiBob’s platform is Sandbox mode, which creates a dummy duplicate of your standard HCM environment. It allows you to experiment with features, data, imports and automatizations without risk of impacting existing employee data.

Pricing

HiBob’s pricing is available by custom quote only. Its plans depend on the number of employees in your organization and which features you choose. However, all plans come with Core HR and Digital Admin by default.

Customer Service

HiBob’s resource center features a blog, webinars, case studies and a number of other tools. You can contact customer support by logging in to an existing account and filing a support ticket.

Reputation

HiBob has a very strong reputation online and a 4.5 star rating on G2. Reviews praise the easy transition from other HCM platforms, helpful customer service and the easy-to-use interface. Some users, however, complain about limited or missing features.

Workday offers a number of business tools, amongst them a broad, powerful HCM platform with an intuitive, easy-to-use interface. It also puts an emphasis on keeping your company prepared for what’s next in a changing landscape, and allowing you to get a real-time, constantly updated and top-down view of your organization.

Features

One of the most interesting features included with Workday’s HCM platform is its Skills Cloud system. It uses Workday AI to catalog all of the skills currently available throughout your workforce, and then identifies connections between skills. You can then boil the data down to identify the most important skills to your business, and track and develop those skills across your personnel.

You can further amplify the Skills Cloud’s effectiveness by importing data from third parties to better train the AI. You can then leverage this data to match employees to the tasks that best suit their skill sets, identify places where upskilling and reskilling would benefit your business most and create Flex Teams to deploy personnel to the projects where they can contribute the most.

Pricing

Workday is another HCM that, frustratingly, doesn’t provide any pricing details on its website. It requires you to fill out a sales form to request a custom quote, which also automatically signs you up for email updates about Workday products, which you then have to manually unsubscribe from.

Customer Service

Workday does offer 24/7 customer support, but it’s only available to existing customers and the company doesn’t spell out what contact channels are available. It does have a Learn tab on its site where you can view product demos or recorded webinars as well as a variety of resources and other trainings.

Reputation

Workday has a mixed reputation online, with a 1.1 star rating on Trustpilot but a 4.0 star rating on G2. Negative reviews focus on difficulty using the software or accessing various features, as well as problems with the recruitment tools. Positive reviews, on the other hand, praise the HR management features and analytics.

Learn more: Read our full Workday review.

Omni HR is a great choice for businesses that are looking for both an HR platform and workflow management software in the same platform. While it doesn’t have the depth of dedicated software in either space, it does provide a basic middle ground solution for both, and may be suitable for SMBs that don’t need tons of advanced HR or workflow features.

Features

The big standout of Omni’s platform is the workflow management functionality, which is driven by automations. Beyond automating common HR tasks such as onboarding, Omni also allows you to build custom tasks and incorporate them into workflows.

As an example, you could construct a performance review template, schedule how many days (or weeks, or months) after an employee’s start date to automatically send it, and request that information be filled out and/or documents be uploaded by the employee, their manager or their colleagues. Now, every time an employee hits a certain threshold, a performance review will automatically be circulated with no need for further input from you. The system is also backed by unlimited document storage, so you never have to worry about running out of data to store all your templates and employee information.

Pricing

Refreshingly, Omni is one of the few companies on our list that publishes its pricing online. The base plan is very affordable at $3.45 per employee per month and includes the workflow tools, analytics and more core HR features. Signing up to be billed annually will save you 15%, bringing your monthly cost down to $3 per employee per month.

However, it starts to look less generous when you consider how many features are only available as paid add-ons. Payroll, time and attendance, and performance tracking all cost an additional fee, while features such as multifactor authentication are only available with the Enterprise plan.

Customer Service

Omni has a limited resources segment of its website where it publishes a blog, an FAQ and some document templates. Support is available by email or contact form, though no phone support for non-subscribers. There is, however, a Customer Success Manager available to all subscription customers that’s available by phone, Slack, email or WhatsApp, and Omni says they’re typically available within 60 minutes during normal business hours.

Reputation

Omni was founded in 2021 by a former Goldman Sachs executive, and has yet to establish a concrete reputation online.