Best employee management software of 2024

Managing employees is crucial to long-term organizational success. Effective employee management can help optimize human capital performance, improve employee experience and satisfaction, and reduce employee turnover and associated costs. It also helps organizations align their own goals with those of their employees – an important requirement to promote mutual development. 

An employee management platform lets you manage important employee functions such as payroll, time and attendance management, conduct various surveys, and communicate effectively with your employees. You can also create various automated workflows to streamline redundant HR tasks.

However, with so many employee management tools around, choosing the perfect one for your organization's needs can be difficult. We’ve dug in to find the 5 best employee management software, each with unique offerings.

We've also featured the best employee monitoring software.

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The best employee management software in full:

Best overall

Rippling is one of the most comprehensive employee management solutions with a complete suite of HR modules, including performance management, benefits management, time and attendance, global employment modules, and payroll management, among others.

Organizations with an international workforce would love Rippling’s Global Payroll solution. You can process global payments in as few as 5 days when most global aggregators need 15-20 days to do the same. Plus, you can pay all your employees in their local currencies without worrying about conversion rates – Rippling takes care of that. The best part? Rippling also calculates and files payroll taxes as applicable in other countries for you. This takes a huge burden off the HR shoulders.

Rippling has a robust time and attendance management module. For starters, your employees can clock in from anywhere – whether on a desk or on-site, through a tablet kiosk, Rippling web login, or mobile app. Plus, you can set geolocation restrictions that would not allow an employee to clock in if they are too far from the office or the site. To prevent buddy punching, you can even activate selfie logins and QR code logins.

Next, managers can see all the live clock-in details on a single dashboard, You also have the freedom to design your own custom time rules or even send and receive alerts. Let’s say you want to be notified when any employee goes into overtime. You can simply set up a custom alert from the dashboard to do so. Once approved, all of this time data automatically flows into Rippling’s Payroll module. After that, you can run payroll in a matter of minutes.

The Payroll dashboard allows managers to control elements like custom deductions, reimbursements, garnishment payments, and so on. Once you’ve run the payroll, Rippling will automatically make entries into your accounting software through its powerful integration.

Rippling Pulse is a dedicated module used to build and send engaging employee surveys that can be used to measure satisfaction. The best part is that you can automate these surveys based on specific events. Let’s say you want to conduct exit surveys for outgoing employees. You can build a survey and then send it out automatically to employees whose end date is tomorrow. Similarly, you can send onboarding surveys to employees who have joined three days back. These time-based automations ensure that you do not miss out on critical HR processes.

To support all of its functions, Rippling offers various templates, which it calls “recipes”. There are templates for almost all HR functions. Some popular recipes include a payroll journal report template, FSA enrolment template, unsigned document reminders, employee anniversary notifications, PTO request notifications, and much more. These recipes save a lot of time in designing common workflows that all organizations usually need.

Read our Rippling employee management review

Best international

Deel takes global team management a notch higher with its exceptional EOR services. Deel has entities in 100+ countries and a dedicated onboarding team with 200+ local HR and legal experts who make sure you’re in compliance at all times. Everything from hiring and onboarding to payroll is handled by Deel experts. You just need to make a bulk payment every month, and Deel will take care of taxes and deductions. The platform also offers an immigration support plan wherein local immigration experts from 25 countries will handle the visa legwork for you. 

Nowadays, salaries are not enough to attract top talent. That’s why most organizations now offer equity to deserving employees. But what if these employees are international? How would you calculate the taxes in this case? This is where Deel steps in – it recommends the best form of equity, such as NSOs, RTUs, SARs, and Phantom stocks, depending on the local tax laws of different countries. Simply reach out to a Deel expert, provide them with all the details, and they’ll help you with the best course of action. 

Another challenge associated with global employees is equipment management – procuring, allotting, and setting up devices can take a lot of time and effort. However, Deel’s partnership with Hofy makes this easy for you. Select from 400+ equipment options available on Deel’s platform, and Hofy will take care of the formalities, such as customs and shipping documents. You’ll be notified when the device is delivered to your employee abroad. Plus, you get a lifetime device warranty and 24/7 expert IT assistance. 

Next up is Deel’s background check. While it is possible to carry out background checks for local employees, doing so for a global workforce can be difficult. Simply request a check through Deel, with a quick turnaround time. Moreover, Deel is compliant with various standards such as GDPR, SOC 2, SOC 3, and ISO. 

Another benefit Deel extends is their coworking spaces. It has as many as 700 locations across 38 countries with access to conferencing tools, high-speed Wi-Fi, and other hot desk tools. Thus, you can provide your remote employees with an office-like environment. 

What’s more? Deel also has a free-forever plan for teams of up to 200 members, which makes it an ideal pick for small and growing businesses and startups. You can create custom and automated workflows and several integrations, such as accounting, expense, and payroll. You can also generate various HR reports, collect custom documents safely, and view and change organization charts.

Read our Deel review

Best communication

Connecteam is the best solution if you are an organization with a lot of remote employees. Let’s accept it – employee communications are not always interesting. But with Connecteam, you can design social media feeds like updates for your employees. You can add GIFs and images to your announcements, allow or disallow comments, and add company branding. It comes in handy for creating employee polls, sharing important work links, and even recognizing employees for their good work. Managers can also track if anyone hasn’t viewed the update and send them custom notifications. 

Clearly, Connecteam focuses more on employee communication. It’s evident with its Work Chat app – a business chat solution that lets employees and managers interact with each other and create broadcast channels or company-wide groups. You can even share files, images, and other important documents. This helps separate your work from your personal life – all your work-related stuff will be in a separate app altogether.

Connecteam’s task management is another feature you’ll love. Sure, other management platforms also provide this feature, but we love how simple Connecteam has made it. Managers can create new tasks within a matter of seconds, add files to the task, and set start and due dates. Employees will be notified immediately that a new task has been assigned to them. Managers will receive notification when the employees view the task and once they have completed it. Plus, managers can view the live status of all tasks assigned to employees from a single dashboard, send nudges, and ask for updates – all from a single location.

Just like Rippling, Connecteam also has a robust time and attendance management feature. You can track live time, get alerts for overtime, and set geo-restrictions. But, Connecteam goes a step ahead with its Shift scheduling, something that’s only available on a third-party integration with Rippling. You can assign shifts to all your employees, view their availability, and create reusable templates. You can even create open shifts for employees to claim. Employees have the freedom to trade shifts with approvals, set their availability, and request time-offs.

However, a feature the platform lacks is robust payroll management. You have to rely on third-party integrations and tedious XLS and PDF files to process payrolls with Connecteam.  But it more than makes up for it with its intuitive and easy-to-use app, which is certainly one of the best in the industry.

Best sourcing and recruitment

Are you on a hiring spree and looking to fill multiple roles with the best candidates possible? Paycor’s Smart Sourcing is just what you need. It is an AI-based sourcing tool that searches through a huge database of active and passive job seekers to find and communicate with the best-suited candidates for a specific role. 

With this single tool, you can expand your search, engage with candidates, and filter them based on various parameters. It saves a lot of HR time and cost that would have otherwise been used to interview non-deserving candidates. All the data sorted by Paycor’s Smart Sourcing module flows into its recruitment dashboard, where you can create custom hiring workflows based on your specific needs. 

Paycor also offers a robust timekeeping and tracking solution with various options, such as Wi-Fi connectivity, PIN entry, badge proximity entry, and a multi-language badge reader for accurate time recording. You can make policy-based custom rules to automate the whole process and even connect your payroll function to eliminate duplicate entries and improve accuracy. 

To complement timekeeping, Paycor also offers on-the-go shift scheduling functions. You can plan shifts right from your mobile and send real-time updates to all employees. Just like time management, you can set custom rules here as well. Let’s say you’ve assigned 4 hours of rest for every employee each week. 

So, Paycor won’t let you schedule a shift of the employee if the mandated rest hours have not been completed yet. These automations can be difficult to manage manually. Employees can even set their own availability and even swap shifts among them. 

Expense management is another area that takes a lot of HR resources. Collecting, verifying, and paying out employee reimbursements can be an ordeal. That’s where Paycor’s expense management, which is integrated into its HR and payroll modules, saves the day. 

Employees can submit their expense receipts through the Paycor app. They will get real-time notification of any policy violations so that they can correct them before submitting. Managers get real-time updates of the requests. Once approved, these flow automatically to the Paycor payroll module so that you don’t have to rely on third-party integrations. The Paycor app allows you to even record mileage details with its in-app trip tracking. Thus, Paycor acts as a one-stop solution to all employee management needs.

Best survey and data collection

BambooHR offers a host of employee management tools. Its management module is divided into three parts – manager and self-assessment, peer feedback, and goals. Manager assessments are made easy with just four objective questions per employee. If you do need some industry-specific data, you can add up to three custom questions.

Managers can choose two peers to give feedback to a particular employee. They are also asked just two questions to keep things simple. Plus, the feedback can only be seen by the manager, maintaining confidentiality.

BambooHR allows both employees and managers to set goals, which can be assessed at all times. Employees can also choose to create a shared goal, which will show in the goals tab of each employee. Managers can view all the goals of their employees and can choose to align one with their own goals to ensure everyone is on the same page. 

BambooHR analytics are also pretty comprehensive. The employee performance report gives insights into each employee’s performance and feedback and shows their level of engagement. The company performance report shows how the organization is doing as a whole. I absolutely loved the goals status report, where managers can track the progress of each employee’s goals from a single dashboard. 

Another handy feature BambooHR has is its pre-built approval workflows, such as updates in employee information, promotion requests, and time-off requests. You can also create custom workflows with up to five approval levels, and choose an approval chain, either by location, department, or division. This makes sure that the approval is processed by the right person.

Employee satisfaction is another area where BambooHR excels with its eNPS surveys with anonymous feedback. Now, there are some additional features that make this survey absolutely unbeatable. BambooHR offers smart keyword tagging features that pick out important keywords mentioned in employee feedback. It then creates a report of these keywords, highlighting the positives and the negatives. 

For example, some keywords might include Compensation, Company Culture, Leadership, Benefits, Ethics, and so on. These keywords will then be segregated into the top 5 likes and dislikes so that you have a bird’s eye view of the areas you need to improve. 

BambooHR also has an Employee Wellbeing module- a survey tool that focuses on intangible employee aspects such as happiness, relationships, personal motivators, and company motivators. Each category has several well-researched questions you can pick from so that you can send out surveys with different questions each time. Employees need to answer these questions on a 6-point Likert scale so that you can collect concrete answers. 

Plus, employees have the option to leave a comment on each question. Once the data is collected, you can view them all on the well-being record, which shows transitions in employees’ emotional health over time. You can even filter data by department, division, location, and so on.

Read our BambooHR review

Best customer support integration

A popular service across the world with some big names using it, Zendesk is a powerful and versatile software. The service offers solutions for all kinds of businesses, regardless of size.

There’s plenty to like here, with the service’s powerful internal help desk or the great Sunshine CRM that comes with a bunch of features. Zendesk also offers some very neat customer support integrations. You can add a phone, email, live chat, or online ticket, and you can create your very own personalized knowledge base.

As for the software itself, the interface will vary depending on your choice of product, but you shouldn’t have any issues no matter what you pick, as the software is designed in a way not to have any cluttered space while still providing relevant information.

Regarding security, Zendesk has a dedicated security page where you can see how serious they are about taking care of customers and their privacy. Most of Zendesk’s service data is managed by Amazon Web Services, which also means they take full advantage of Amazon’s infrastructure. Worth noting is that the system supports a credit card field that complies with PCI standards, concealing all digits except for the final four, and enhancing security measures against fraudulent activities.

There are several pricing plans available depending on your needs, with the most basic one starting at $19 per agent/month, and the suite plans starting at $55 per agent/month.

Read our Zendesk review.

Best features

Remote.com is an employee management software ideal for those looking for a wide array of features. The software includes contractor management, global payroll, EOR, and HRIS (human resources information system) which allows you to manage the entire global workplace in one place. 

In addition, there’s a remote API that allows you to easily share global employee data across platforms, and ‘remote talent’ that helps you find the right candidates for any roles you might have. This feature is basically another product as it has plenty of options and its own pricing.

Speaking of pricing, Remote has several options and even a free one. The HRIS plan is free and has several features of note, including guided onboarding and offboarding, employee profile and document management, time and attendance (time off and tracking), and a few more.

The Contractor Management plan is priced at $29 per month per contractor, and it allows you to work with contractors in over 200 countries, create, edit, and sign tailored localized contracts, and more. Also, you only pay for contractors you actively work with. Furthermore, there’s a ‘plus’ version of this plan, which is priced at $99 per month per contractor, and it’s pretty much the same, except you get an added indemnity coverage.

Then, you have the EOR plan, which is quite expensive, starting at $599 per month. There are zero onboarding or offboarding fees in this one, and there’s built-in security and compliance. 

Lastly, those interested in global payroll will have to pay $50 per month per employee.

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We've also featured the best employee scheduling software.

FAQs

How we test

Employee management software comes in various shapes and sizes, and choosing the best ones isn’t an easy task. We’ve used our years of industry knowledge and strict measuring criteria to handpick the best management solutions for all your needs. First, we assessed all the features these software offers. The features must not only be on paper but actually provide ground-level utility. All of our featured software provides value-for-money features that’ll actually help you streamline your HR processes.

Next, we consider the ease of use. An employee management software must be easy to understand and use. A complex platform will take up more time and resources to comprehend and become a hindrance in day-to-day use. Thus, all of our recommended platforms have an intuitive user interface and a shorter learning curve.

We also considered the extent of reports and data these platforms can generate. After all, management involves drawing and acting upon meaningful employee data. If you’re not able to measure metrics like employee motivation and satisfaction, it becomes difficult to drive performance. That’s why all our platforms can generate extensive reports on various parameters so that you can make meaningful decisions.

Lastly, we consider how scalable the platform is. As your number of employees increases, your current platform should be able to accommodate your growing needs, and you should not be forced to change providers. All of our employee management solutions are capable of handling diverse workforce needs, from less than 20 employees to more than thousands.

We've also featured the best employee monitoring software.

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