10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (2024)

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (2)

Kristy SnyderSmall Business and Personal Finance Expert Writer

Kristy Snyder is a freelance writer and editor with 12 years of experience, currently contributing to the Forbes Advisor Small Business vertical. She uses her experience managing her own successful small business to write articles about software, small business tools, loans, credit cards and online banking. Kristy's work also appears in Newsweek and Fortune, focusing on personal finance.

  • 10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (4)
  • 10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (5)

Kristy Snyder

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (6)

Kristy SnyderSmall Business and Personal Finance Expert Writer

Kristy Snyder is a freelance writer and editor with 12 years of experience, currently contributing to the Forbes Advisor Small Business vertical. She uses her experience managing her own successful small business to write articles about software, small business tools, loans, credit cards and online banking. Kristy's work also appears in Newsweek and Fortune, focusing on personal finance.

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  • 10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (9)

Small Business and Personal Finance Expert Writer

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (11)

Kelly MainStaff Reviewer

Kelly Main is a Marketing Editor and Writer specializing in digital marketing, online advertising and web design and development. Before joining the team, she was a Content Producer at Fit Small Business where she served as an editor and strategist covering small business marketing content. She is a former Google Tech Entrepreneur and she holds an MSc in International Marketing from Edinburgh Napier University. Additionally, she is a Columnist at Inc. Magazine.

  • 10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (13)
  • 10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (14)

Reviewed

Kelly Main

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (15)

Kelly MainStaff Reviewer

Kelly Main is a Marketing Editor and Writer specializing in digital marketing, online advertising and web design and development. Before joining the team, she was a Content Producer at Fit Small Business where she served as an editor and strategist covering small business marketing content. She is a former Google Tech Entrepreneur and she holds an MSc in International Marketing from Edinburgh Napier University. Additionally, she is a Columnist at Inc. Magazine.

  • 10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (17)
  • 10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (18)

Staff Reviewer

Reviewed

Updated: Mar 27, 2024, 3:32pm

Editorial Note: We earn a commission from partner links on Forbes Advisor. Commissions do not affect our editors' opinions or evaluations.

Managing the people at your company is a core part of your role in human resources (HR). To do that efficiently, you need employee management software that gives you full control over onboarding, benefits administration, scheduling and more. The leading employee management apps include these features as well as internal communication capabilities and all-digital paperwork. Forbes Advisor has compiled a list of the best employee management software to help you discover the right solution for your business.

Read more

The Best Employee Management Software of 2024

  • monday.com: Best overall
  • Paycor: Best for larger companies
  • BambooHR: Best for employee satisfaction
  • Workday: Best for managing global employees
  • Rippling: Best for training employees
  • Zenefits: Best for goal management
  • ClickUp: Best for customizable solutions
  • UKG Pro: Best for life-work management
  • ADP Workforce Now: Best for new hire onboarding
  • Sage HR: Best for performance reviews

Why You Can Trust Forbes Advisor Small Business

The Forbes Advisor Small Business team is committed to bringing you unbiased rankings and information with full editorial independence. We use product data, strategic methodologies and expert insights to inform all of our content and guide you in making the best decisions for your business journey.

We reviewed 25 HR management systems using a detailed methodology to help you choose from the 10 best employee management software for small businesses. Our ratings consider factors, including general and unique features, customer reviews on third-party sites, pricing and our own expert scoring system. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.

Best Overall

monday.com

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (19)

5.0

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (20)

Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.

Starting price

Free; $8 per seat, per month

(three seat minimum)

Free trial

14 days

Standout features

Highly customizable, flexible and user-friendly

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (21)

Learn More 10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (22)

On monday.com's Website

Free; $8 per seat, per month

(three seat minimum)

14 days

Highly customizable, flexible and user-friendly

Editor's Take

As soon as a new employee joins your team, monday.com makes them feel welcome (and takes their questions off your plate) with automated onboarding. They’ll clearly be able to see their schedule of activities and tasks, and you can follow along as they complete each step in the process.

When it comes time to manage performance reviews and feedback, monday.com also excels with premade workflows that allow for direct communication between managers and their reports. You can see who’s up for review and schedule 1-on-1s all from your main dashboard.

Tracking employees’ satisfaction levels is also easy thanks to the ability to plan well-being activities and survey workers after each one. You’ll be able to find out which activities they enjoy—and which they don’t find valuable.

Paid time off (PTO) is another dreaded task to manage—but not with monday.com. You’ll see all leave requests come in on a specific dashboard. From there, you can sort them by department, week and date to make them easier to approve or deny. Managers can receive reminders if they wait too long to approve while employees can get notifications after their pending request is finalized.

monday.com also lets you create your own workflow if you have other projects or plans in mind. Switch between table, timeline, Kanban, chart or calendar mode to make it easy to completely customize your employee management experience.

Learn More: Read our full monday.com review.

Who should use it:

Small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) will love the robust flexibility of monday.com. It can help you manage nearly every aspect of an employee’s development all from one centralized workspace.

Pros & Cons

  • Free plan and free trial let you test the waters
  • Over 200 templates to choose from
  • Unlimited boards, docs and items in paid plans
  • Up to five-year activity log
  • 24/7 support
  • Have to buy seats in set tiers rather than the exact number you need
  • No integrations or automations on free and Basic plans
  • Could get pricey if you have a lot of employees

Best for Larger Companies

Paycor

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (23)

4.9

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (24)

Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.

Starting price

Must contact for quote

Free trial

30 days

Standout features

Real-time notifications and reminders, let employees pick shifts, surveys

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (25)

Learn More 10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (26)

On Paycor's Website

Must contact for quote

30 days

Real-time notifications and reminders, let employees pick shifts, surveys

Editor's Take

Paycor offers talent management, workforce management, employee experience and benefits administration tools to make managing your workers simple. Its scheduling tools let you assign shifts with a few clicks and then send real-time notifications and reminders to update your employees. Employees also have the option to set their availability and pick up open shifts in real time.

You can ensure workers are satisfied by conducting employee pulse surveys to monitor low morale and identify potential problems. These results are collected into executive insights, which can then be shared with the leadership team. Even more intriguing is the use of natural language processing in every survey. This is meant to help you identify hidden opinions and attitudes employees might have that they aren’t sharing.

Developing and educating employees is key to improving the company, and Paycor does this by providing built-in, self-paced training modules. You can organize training programs and personalize content depending on a worker’s department or team. These modules can help you stay compliant with learning or licensing regulations.

We also like Paycor’s career progression tools. The software makes it easy to define a role’s responsibilities so you can make sure everyone’s on the same page when it comes to expectations. Action-oriented performance assessments are created based on the job description so employees see exactly where and how to improve.

Learn More: Read our full Paycor review.

Who should use it:

For a more robust employee management platform that goes beyond simple drop-and-drag tasks, Paycor is a good pick. It offers more in-depth services that work well for medium and larger-sized businesses.

Pros & Cons

  • Eightindustry-specific configurations
  • Only one of our picks that offers built-in course publishing
  • True all-in-one software for HR, payroll and employee management
  • Can add on workers comp, benefits admin or recruiting services
  • Pricing isn’t transparent
  • User experience (UX) isn’t as updated as some of our other picks
  • Career and talent management only available in most expensive plan

Best for Employee Satisfaction

BambooHR

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (27)

4.6

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (28)

Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.

Starting price

Must contact for quote

Free trial

7 days

Standout features

Employee records, time tracking, payroll, satisfaction tools

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (29)

Learn More 10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (30)

On BambooHR's Website

Must contact for quote

7 days

Employee records, time tracking, payroll, satisfaction tools

Editor's Take

BambooHR lets you easily manage every employee in the company with an all-in-one database. You can access all of an employee’s historical data—including compensation raises, title changes, start dates and more—from one easy-to-read record. This database connects with every feature of the BambooHR software—as well as third-party integrations—meaning you don’t have to double-enter anything. To keep things simpler on your end, you can enable self-service edits while also limiting an employee’s access to sensitive data.

We like BambooHR’s employee satisfaction tools. Built-in surveys let you use the Net Promoter Score method to take your company’s pulse. Surveys are also totally anonymous so employees are more honest about their opinions. To help you quickly identify main concerns, the survey software also offers intelligent keyword tagging and a most-mentioned topics report.

You can also check on employees’ well-being with surveys that use a six-point scale that eliminates neutral answers. Every question has a free-response section so they can go into more detail, potentially providing you with key insights. You have the option to send these surveys monthly, bimonthly or quarterly to monitor changes.

Learn more: Read our full BambooHR review.

Who should use it:

If your company is going through a lot of changes, BambooHR could be the tool you need to keep everything organized while also monitoring employees’ satisfaction and well-being levels.

Pros & Cons

  • Net Promoter-based eNPS survey method
  • Well-being surveys based on a six-point Likert scale
  • Self-service custom access levels for company data
  • Enterprise-level security
  • Need to contact rep for price
  • No chat or telephone support with base plan
  • Employee satisfaction and well-being tools only available in top plan

Best for Managing Global Employees

Workday

4.6

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (32)

Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.

Starting price

Must contact for quote

Free trial

By request

Standout features

Payroll, scheduling, absence management

Learn More

Read Forbes' Review

Must contact for quote

By request

Payroll, scheduling, absence management

Editor's Take

Workday’s best feature is its global-friendly setup. It can help you manage employees in over 200 countries, including helping you stay compliant with labor laws, taxes, benefit packages and more.

Not only that, but you can also help to engage and develop your employees based on their roles. Workday comes loaded with career development tools, such as job interest assessments and talent reviews so you can assess what your employees are best at while fostering new skills. You can then label what skills each employee has to make it easy to see where your company is the strongest and where you might need to improve. If employees want to transition to a new role, they can view the skills they need and pursue built-in learning experiences to get there.

We also like its integration with your company’s finances. If you choose to use this part of the app, it could help you visualize workforce costs and trends that could be bogging down your company. Of course, it also simplifies payroll, with both clock-in/clock-out and pay-on-demand features.

Learn more: Read our full Workday review.

Who should use it:

If you’re a global company with employees in several states or countries, Workday greatly simplifies employee management so you aren’t as stressed.

Pros & Cons

  • Helps you manage employees in over 200 countries
  • Complies with general data protection regulation (GDPR)
  • Integrates with finance operations
  • 24/7 phone and online support
  • Lacks transparent pricing
  • Employee engagement dashboard can be hard to understand
  • UX is a bit clunky compared to our other picks

Best for Training Employees

Rippling

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (35)

4.5

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (36)

Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.

Starting price

$8 per user per month

Free trial

Not available

Standout features

Manage HR, IT and finance in one place

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (37)

Learn More 10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (38)

On Rippling's Website

$8 per user per month

Not available

Manage HR, IT and finance in one place

Editor's Take

Rippling bills itself as a single source of truth for your HR, information technology (IT) and finance departments, and we agree. In particular, its HR software features robust automations that you can set up using an if/then infrastructure. This can be used for something as simple as PTO requests or as complicated as gender compensation inequity alerts. Time and attendance can also be highly automated, reducing the time it takes to review schedules and hours worked.

Our favorite feature of this powerful tool is the training modules. Rippling lets you build rules for all employment courses, as well as track the progress of who’s mid-course and who hasn’t started. You can upload your own Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) e-learning packages or use one of Rippling’s 1,000-plus courses, including modules on sexual harassment, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and cybersecurity. You can even prevent employees from clocking in before they finish certain training modules.

Benefits are also simple to manage in Rippling. You can let employees choose their health, dental and vision insurance as well as make contributions to their 401(k) or flexible spending account (FSA)/health spending account (HSA) all from the same interface. It’s also easy for employees to compare plans and choose the right one for them.

Learn more: Read our full Rippling reviewand Rippling pricing guide.

Who should use it:

Companies with a global presence who want to prioritize training employees with customized courses will appreciate Rippling’s in-depth learning modules. It’s also great for companies who want to rely heavily on automated processes.

Pros & Cons

  • Over 1,000 prebuilt courses
  • Hundreds of prebuilt workflow templates
  • 90-second onboarding
  • Global workforce management tools for over 50 countries
  • Need to contact rep for price
  • No free trial
  • System has a lot of features to learn about

Best for Goal Management

Zenefits

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (39)

4.5

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (40)

Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.

Starting price

$8 per month, per employee

(billed annually)

Free trial

14 days

Standout features

Scheduling, time off tracking, automated onboarding

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (41)

$8 per month, per employee

(billed annually)

14 days

Scheduling, time off tracking, automated onboarding

Editor's Take

Often, it can be hard to keep employees engaged and inspired. Zenefits helps you tackle that with goal management tools. You can create and display goals and their progress on each employee’s dashboard so they’ll know exactly how well the company is doing. It’s also easy to create personal goals for each employee as part of a performance improvement plan—these are integrated automatically into their future performance reviews.

When it comes time for performance reviews, you can use prebuilt templates for 360-degree, peer and manager reviews. You can also customize your own review forms and save them to use again later. To make sure you don’t miss anyone’s annual or six-month review, you can automatically schedule reviews based on employee or company actions.

There’s even a built-in one-on-one meeting tool in Zenefits that keeps track of how often you touch base with employees. During these meetings, you can share an agenda and create action items so you don’t forget about important tasks, as well as jot down private notes that only you can see.

The Zenefits dashboard itself is also an engaging tool. As soon as an employee logs in, they’ll see all of their tasks. There’s also a communication tool that functions a bit like a Facebook feed, where users can post announcements and questions that pop up in chronological order.

Learn more: Read our full Zenefits review.

Who should use it:

For companies that are struggling to track goals—both corporate and on the individual level—Zenefits holds you accountable while also making it easy to reward those who go above and beyond.

Pros & Cons

  • Robust HR and employee management software
  • People Hub acts as all-in-one communication portal
  • Customizable employee engagement surveys
  • Real-time comparison salary data
  • Visualization of employee trends
  • Least available customer support of our picks
  • Most employee management features only in top two tiers
  • Five employee minimum

Best for Customizable Solutions

ClickUp

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (42)

4.4

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (43)

Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.

Starting price

Free; $7 per member, per month (billed annually)

Free trial

Not available

Standout features

Highly flexible project management software, prebuilt templates

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (44)

Learn More 10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (45)

On ClickUp's Website

Free; $7 per member, per month (billed annually)

Not available

Highly flexible project management software, prebuilt templates

Editor's Take

Full disclosure: ClickUp isn’t specifically an employee management software. But that’s what makes it so unique. As a project management software, it lets you customize your interface specifically to your needs through tasks, folders, lists and docs. You can choose from over 100 premade HR templates or build your own depending on what you want.

In particular, we think the 1-on-1s template is useful for employee management. It lets you define individual roles for each employee, as well as their expectations and a meeting agenda. Along the same lines is a 30-60-90 day plan that helps you set goals for both new hires and seasoned veterans. Career pathing makes it easy for employees to see the next step in their future, while a board skills matrix helps you keep track of everyone’s capabilities.

ClickUp can also be used to conduct engagement surveys (through the Likert scale) and performance evaluations. Managers can even use daily reporting to send updates to their direct reports, record issues and share feedback across the team. All data is collected securely so it’s only seen by the people you choose.

Learn more: Read our full ClickUp review.

Who should use it:

If you’d like to take the organization of every HR and employee task into your own hands, ClickUp lets you do that. You can set up everything to meet your company’s demands precisely.

Pros & Cons

  • Over 100 HR templates to choose from
  • Free plan, which most other picks don’t offer
  • Tons of app integrations
  • Extremely customizable to your needs
  • No phone support
  • Not HR specific
  • Takes a while to set up

Best for Life-Work Management

UKG Pro

4.2

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (47)

Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.

Starting price

Must contact for quote

Free trial

Not available

Standout features

AI integrations, real-time productivity analytics and custom employee groups

Learn More

Read Forbes' Review

Must contact for quote

Not available

AI integrations, real-time productivity analytics and custom employee groups

Editor's Take

UKG Pro is a superior employee management software for managing life-work balance because of its people-centered technology. For example, its UKG InTouch DX time clock lets employees clock in just by looking at a camera—convenient for you, because it eliminates time clock mistakes you need to correct. And on your end, advanced AI-scheduling features let you create balanced schedules that automatically consider employees’ availability and skills.

Intuitive dashboards curate all of your employees’ information on one easy-to-access page. You can also see hierarchical views of your company that show demographics—which can help you reach the level of diversity you want. We also like UKG Pro’s compliance updates that let you track key information for government regulations in both the U.S. and Canada.

Communication features are also a big part of UKG Pro. One such feature is the ability to create custom employee groups based on shared interests or hobbies. It’s also possible to measure communication metrics so you can gain actionable insights on how to improve your strategies.

Learn more: Read our full UKG Pro review.

Who should use it:

UKG Pro works well for businesses that have a lot of hourly employees, as AI-powered scheduling can reduce your workload.

Pros & Cons

  • AI-powered scheduling
  • Employee groups and messaging features
  • Intelligent compliance and tax jurisdiction tools
  • AI and predictive analytics
  • Pricing isn’t transparent
  • Applicant tracking features are limited
  • Many features are more employee-focused than HR-focused

Best for New Hire Onboarding

ADP Workforce Now

4.1

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (51)

Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.

Starting price

Must contact for quote

Free trial

Not available

Standout features

Employee development tracking, custom reports and surveys and onboarding workflows

Learn More

Read Forbes' Review

Must contact for quote

Not available

Employee development tracking, custom reports and surveys and onboarding workflows

Editor's Take

If you’re looking to scale up your hiring, ADP Workforce Now will be a valuable tool. It features an onboarding workflow that’s configurable based on the employee type. ADP even lets you set up a meet-the-team experience, collect employee payment preferences and provide an office neighborhood map—all before the first day.

Unfortunately, benefits administration and workforce management are only available in the more expensive plans, so you’ll likely need to upgrade for a complete employee management solution. With benefits administration, you can configure plans and view various benefits reports to see which options your employees are taking advantage of. Workforce management features allow you to manage time-off requests, seamlessly integrate payroll and analyze scheduling and overtime.

Another useful tool in ADP is the research-reviewed and scientifically validated survey templates that let you get employee feedback. You can also build your own customized surveys for more individualized answers. Surveying is available for specific employee groups or the entire company, and you can analyze results based on department, location and team.

Learn more: Read our full ADP Workforce Now review.

Who should use it: Companies looking to make a major hiring push might appreciate ADP Workforce Now’s customizable onboarding workflows.

Pros & Cons

  • Scientifically validated survey templates
  • Cloud-based document storage
  • Library of benefits reports
  • Employee development tracking
  • Pricing isn’t transparent
  • Benefits administration and workforce management features not included in base plan
  • Recruiting, performance management and learning management are paid add-ons

Best for Performance Reviews

Sage HR

4.0

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (55)

Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.

Starting price

$200 per month, plus $16 per user

Free trial

30 days

Standout features

Custom workflow builder, custom employee fields and shared vacation calendar

Learn More

Read Forbes' Review

$200 per month, plus $16 per user

30 days

Custom workflow builder, custom employee fields and shared vacation calendar

Editor's Take

Sage HR shines when managing performance reviews. You can set aspirational OKRs and keep track of progress every step of the way with intuitive graphs. The 360 feedback reviews allow you to collect and share anonymous feedback, while one-on-one meetings give employees time to work directly on improvement with their managers. You can also create HR surveys to analyze company sentiment and gauge satisfaction and engagement.

We also like Sage’s workflow builder feature. It lets you create custom workflows based on an “if this, then that” structure—but without complicated coding. Custom fields in the employee database also let you track employees with specific hobbies or other unique facts.

Another selling point of Sage HR is the shared company vacation calendar. It allows the entire team to know when a certain member is going to be out of the office—hopefully letting them plan ahead. On your end of things, approving time off and scheduling shifts is easy with automated tools. It’s a very visual interface, and you can organize shifts by groups and areas.

Learn more: Read our full Sage HR review.

Who should use it:

Companies that want to empower employees with good feedback but don’t need benefits administration or learning management tools will appreciate Sage HR.

Pros & Cons

  • Module setup lets you only pay for the features you need
  • Workflow builder
  • Advanced performance tracking tools
  • Includes expense management features
  • Choosing all of the modules can get pricey
  • No benefits administration
  • No learning management tools

Forbes Advisor Ratings

CompanyCompany - LogoForbes Advisor RatingForbes Advisor RatingStarting priceFree trialStandout featuresLearn More CTA textLearn more CTA below textLEARN MORE
monday.com10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (58)5.010 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (59)Free; $8 per seat, per month (three seat minimum) 14 days Highly customizable, flexible and user-friendly Learn MoreOn monday.com's Website
Paycor10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (60)4.910 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (61)Must contact for quote30 daysReal-time notifications and reminders, let employees pick shifts, surveys Learn MoreOn Paycor's Website
BambooHR10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (62)4.610 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (63)Must contact for quoteSeven days Employee records, time tracking, payroll, satisfaction toolsLearn MoreOn BambooHR's Website
Workday10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (64)4.610 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (65)Must contact for quoteBy request Payroll, scheduling, absence managementLearn MoreRead Forbes' Review
Rippling10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (66)4.510 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (67)$8 per user per monthNot available Manage HR, IT and finance in one place Learn MoreOn Rippling's Website
Zenefits10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (68)4.510 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (69) $8 per month, per employee14 daysScheduling, time off tracking, automated onboarding View More
ClickUp10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (70)4.410 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (71)Free; $7 per member, per month (billed annually)Not available Highly flexible project management software, prebuilt templatesLearn MoreOn ClickUp's Website
UKG Pro10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (72)4.210 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (73)Must contact for quoteNot availableAI integrations, real-time productivity analytics and custom employee groupsLearn MoreRead Forbes' Review
ADP Workforce Now10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (74)4.110 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (75)Must contact for quoteNot availableEmployee development tracking, custom reports and surveys and onboarding workflowsLearn MoreRead Forbes' Review
Sage HR10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (76)4.010 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (77)$200 per month, plus $16 per user30 daysCustom workflow builder, custom employee fields and shared vacation calendarLearn MoreRead Forbes' Review

What Is Employee Management Software?

Employee management software helps HR professionals streamline and automate tasks related to managing employees. It provides an all-in-one solution for handling a wide range of human resource functions, from onboarding to training to scheduling. With employee management software, you can reduce your workload while enhancing productivity, communication and collaboration across your organization.

How To Choose the Best Employee Management Software

Choosing the best employee management software depends on your company’s specific needs. Here are a few helpful tips to get you thinking about what you might really want in this type of software.

Essential Features

  • Automation features: Automation features let you set up certain actions based on predetermined factors to save you time.
  • Scheduling and PTO: Being able to track who’s working and when is a major feature of employee management software.
  • Hierarchical company views: A great software provides accurate and up-to-date job titles, salaries, skills and contact information for every employee on staff.
  • Performance reviews: Whether it’s 360 feedback or simple manager notes, the software you choose should have some way to track how an employee is performing.
  • Employee satisfaction tracking: This might come in the form of employee surveys or feedback modules and should include a way to analyze the results, either through sentiment analysis or statistics.
  • Benefits administration: Benefits administration includes health insurance, life insurance and other perks you offer your employees.
  • Payroll: Because payroll so often ties into scheduling and hour tracking, it should all be integrated into the same program for simplicity’s sake.
  • Learning management: Employees should never stagnate, so you want software that offers training and learning modules.

Software Integrations

Browse each software’s app integration list before nailing down your selection to make sure it’s compatible with the other software you already use. Why is this important? It can streamline your efforts and eliminate double entry of data across multiple platforms.

For example, you might want your employee management software to integrate with any external accounting software or payroll systems you use, such as QuickBooks or Gusto. It might also make sense to integrate with communication or project management tools, such as Slack or Asana.

Support and Ease of Use

The best employee management software has multiple forms of customer support available 24/7. Always check what forms of customer support a company offers. Does it have a phone number you can call if you have a quick question? Or does it only offer online chat support?

As for ease of use, try to demo a product before using it. That way, you can get a feel for the software and check out the user interface and layout. You might also read reviews to see how other users have rated the usability of the software. Ideally, you want software that has good UX and a mobile app for on-the-go management.

How Much Does Employee Management Software Cost?

Based on our research, employee management software can cost anywhere from $350 to $1,000 a month for a 50-person company. Prices may go down if you employ fewer people or up if you have more than that.

Most employee management software providers price the software based on the number of users. There may be a set fee per month and then an additional charge for every employee.

Some software options also have an add-on structure, where you pay for different modules you want. This can sometimes be cheaper if you just want a few features, but if you want every available feature, it might end up being more expensive than an all-in-one solution.

Featured Partners

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Connecteam

Pricing

Free; $35 per month for up to 30 users, or $29 per month when billed annually

Mobile app

iOS and Android

Drag-and-drop scheduling

Yes

1

Connecteam

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (78)

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (79)

Learn More

On Connecteam's Website

2

Acuity

Free Trial

7 days

Pricing

Save 20% on Annual Plans

Seamless client scheduling

Yes

2

Acuity

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (80)

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (81)

Learn More

On Acuity's Website

3

ClockShark

Free Trial

Yes

Time Reports and Mobile Time Tracking

Included

Attributes

GPS verification

3

ClockShark

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (82)

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (83)

Learn More

On ClockShark's Website

4

Homebase

Take control of everyday work

Yes

Schedule your team on autopilot

Yes

Free for up to 20 employees (no credit card required)

Yes

4

Homebase

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (84)

10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (85)

Learn More

On Homebase's Website

Methodology

To curate the list of the best employee management software, we started with 25 of the top HR systems on the market. We then ranked them all in five different areas. Each criterion had a different weight depending on how important it is for employee managers:

Here are some of the categories Forbes Advisor used to rank the providers that made the top of the list.

Pricing – 10%

Factors, such as upfront pricing, offering a free trial and the number of different pricing plans a provider offered, all factored in our rankings for employee management software. Companies with transparent pricing received slightly higher ratings than those offering custom pricing after prospective customers fill out a lead capture form or make a call to a sales department. Pricing accounted for 10% of our scoring.

General Features – 30%

The number of available general features software offers allowed it to fare better in our rankings than those with limited features. Some of the general features we looked for in this category included mobile app access, providing peer reviews and an applicant tracking system (ATS) and allowing users to provide reviews and offer employee feedback. Benefits administration, reporting dashboards and task assigning and management capabilities also scored well in our metrics. General features added up to 30% of the total score.

Additional Features – 20%

We also wanted to ensure each software provider offered unique features that customers would find useful. Some of the most important ones we looked for included third-party software integrations, shift scheduling and engagement tools, tax functionality and custom branding. Offering PTO tracking and live customer support was also good-to-have features for each provider. We weighted additional features as 20% of our final score.

Third-party Reviews – 10%

We considered reviews from real users of the software as part of our evaluation. We looked at products scoring 3.5 or higher out of 5 on G2 and Capterra and having at least 300 reviews that score that high on both sites to get the fullest picture of reality and reduce bias. These reviews accounted for 15% of the total score.

Expert Analysis – 30%

Our final analysis considered each software in relation to each one’s stand-out features, value for the money, high popularity and ease of use, with the provider doing better in each of these criteria scoring higher. Altogether, this made up 30% of the total score.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the best employee management software?

Our top pick for employee management software is monday.com because it lets you manage every aspect of an employee’s development, pay and benefits all from one centralized workspace. Learn more in our monday.com review.

What is the purpose of employee management software?

With employee management software, you can track employees’ performance and help them meet their goals. You can also monitor their hours and ensure they’re being paid appropriately. For extra help with that, you may want dedicated payroll software as well.

What are the benefits of employee management software?

Employee management software can make it far easier to onboard, train and schedule employees. It also simplifies benefits administration, payroll and employee records. On the whole, it should save you a ton of time and give you more insights into employee performance and satisfaction.

What features are desirable in employee management software?

Some of the features to look for in employee management software include a time tracker, shift scheduling system, attendance management system, central employee database, performance management system, HR workflow automation and integrations with third-party applications and software.

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10 Best Employee Management Software Of 2024 (2024)

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