The Best Human Resources Software of 2022

Gusto is our choice as the best HR software for payroll. Gusto's payroll features are robust. It offers nationwide full-service payroll functions, workers' compensation administration, and the Gusto Wallet app, which you employees use to access their payroll and account information.

Editor's Score: 9.3/10

With Gusto, you have access to unlimited and multistate payroll, tax filing and payments, direct deposit, state and federal unemployment insurance, year-end tax forms, garnishments, multiple pay rates and schedules, PTO policy management, holiday pay, and time-off tracking. It also offers reporting, accounting integrations, time tracking integrations, new-hire reporting and payroll reports.

To expand its payroll usability, Gusto recently released Gusto Embedded Payroll, a product that allows vertical SaaS companies to provide payroll support to their own customers. By offering pieces of its service to external platforms via an API, Gusto payroll is more accessible to a wider range of users.

When hiring and onboarding employees, you can access onboarding checklists, offer letters, e-sign documents, and document storage. You can use anonymous employee surveys and survey trend analyses to gauge employee satisfaction.

If you are looking to customize your software with integrated employee benefits, Gusto offers workers' compensation insurance, health insurance, health reimbursement, 401(k) retirement plans, 529 college savings plans, health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and commuter benefits. Gusto also offers licensed benefits advising, online enrollment, and complies with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and ERISA (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974). Employees can access important payroll and benefit features like paystubs and tax information, payroll self-onboarding, and payday emails.

Gusto offers a contractor plan (the base fee is $0, but you pay $6 per month per contractor) and three different employee-based plans. (Plans range from $39 to $149 per month, plus $6 to $12 per month per employee).

Rippling is the best HR solution for easy implementation. You can easily get your business up and running with Rippling and its workflow and approval automation tools and customizable features. Rippling's employee management platform starts at $8 per user per month, and you can add a variety of HR management features like applicant tracking, payroll, benefits administration, time and attendance, flex benefits, ACA and Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) administration, and an HR help desk.

Editor's Score: 9.2/10

Rippling says it takes users, on average, two and a half weeks to integrate the platform.

You can automate onboarding, offboarding, create workflows and approvals. With HR automation, your new hire is funneled through the onboarding process (e.g., offer letters, new-hire paperwork, background checks, e-verification). The automated process is seamless – Rippling says the average time it takes a new hire to complete onboarding is 90 seconds.

To further simplify your HR needs, you can automate other processes like time and attendance, applicant tracking, and ACA and COBRA administration. Rippling comes with customizable reporting, an open API, and more than 400 third-party integrations.

The Rippling platform is intuitive and easy to use; you can contact customer support for their help and guidance in answering questions about the software or HR issues. If you want one-on-one email and phone support, you can add the HR help desk feature to reach certified HR pros and get real-time compliance updates. Rippling has a mobile app for iOS and Android devices.

With its mobile-friendly platform, performance management add-ons, and employee self-service features, BambooHR is our choice as the best HR software for managing and tracking the performance of your employees. Depending on the plan you choose, the software allows for goal tracking, peer feedback, self and manager assessments, and employee and company performance reports. Additionally, you can see what employees think of your company by polling them with BambooHR's employee satisfaction surveys.

Editor's Score: 9.0/10

You have a choice of two plans: the Essentials or the Advantage plan, both of which are priced per employee and charged on a monthly basis with no contracts or cancellation fees. The platform is also customizable, with the ability to add features, such as performance management tools, payroll services and time-tracking features.

One feature that we liked about BambooHR was its employee self-service capabilities (e.g., time-off management, employee directory and organization chart, company calendar, mobile app, single sign-on). This allows employees to take more control over certain HR functions and minimizes friction throughout the HR management process.

BambooHR has new performance management tools that can help your organization tailor employee assessments to each team member. If you want to address a problem as soon as it arises, you can request an impromptu performance assessment. You can also schedule individual assessments for promotions and raises. Another new feature is the ability to skip assessments; this is especially useful if you hire or transfer an employee and don't have enough data for a meaningful assessment during the standard assessment period.

Employee wellbeing is essential to maintaining high performance. With BambooHR's Employee Wellness feature, Advantage users can survey their employees based on four categories: relationships, happiness, and personal and company motivators. These surveys can be sent regularly (monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly), and results can be aggregated into a digestible reporting section. Employers can use this data to identify growth opportunities and improve performance.

Paychex Flex is our choice as the best HR software for remote teams.

Since Paychex is a full-service solution, businesses can take advantage of features like new-hire reporting, time and attendance tracking, payroll processing, payroll tax management, and benefits administration. The software can integrate with several other third-party vendors, which is great for remote teams. Your HR department and other teams can track employee information and maintain legal compliance through data analytics, general ledger reports, and automatic W-2 and 1099 forms. It also offers a secure document management center that serves as a centralized location for remote and hybrid employee documents. It supports multiple uploads, in-app signing capabilities, real-time reporting, and rule-based restrictions.

Editor's Score: 9.0/10

Keeping employees satisfied can be tricky, especially with so many teams working remotely – Paychex Flex can help with this by offering direct deposit and pay cards, employee financial wellness programs, employment and income verification services, and an e-learning management system.

Paychex recently added new tools to help businesses retain remote employees. This includes the ability to review retention insights that helps identify which employees are most likely to leave. Paychex also offers pay benchmarking for compensation detail comparisons and a talent dashboard for an aggregate look at employee data and performance.

One feature that sets Paychex Flex apart from its competition is its mobile capabilities: The free Paychex Flex mobile app is comprehensive, whereas most competitors limit the functionality of their mobile apps. This is great for on-the-go managers, remote employees and teams with flexible working arrangements.

GoCo is our choice as the best HR software for designing custom workflows. This easy-to-use software starts at $5 per employee per month. GoCo's Workflow add-on simplifies your company's HR processes by automating HR tasks. For example, you can streamline your onboarding process by standardizing new hire packets, training and orientation, and onboarding checklists. You can also automate offboarding checklists, travel and promotion requests, performance reviews, employee surveys, equipment requests, and expense reports.

Editor's Score: 9.1/10

Automating an HR process is as easy as creating a workflow template (e.g., create tasks, collect data, set due dates, customize permissions), collaborating with others (e.g., assigning tasks to others in the organization), and tracking workflows (e.g., viewing HR workflows on one dashboard).

Users can hire and onboard employees with customized offer letters, e-signatures and assigning onboarding tasks to other employees. To simplify the paperwork involved in filling out HR documents, employers can use the GoCo MagicDocs feature to digitize documents and add fillable forms that can be automatically merged into the employee's profile. GoCo has also enhanced its MagicDocs tool so users can access drag-and-drop templates, add multiple signatories to a document, and approve and deny documents. GoCo has also enhanced its MagicDocs tool so users can access drag-and-drop templates, add multiple signatories to a document, and approve and deny documents. With GoCo, you can customize the software with a variety of add-on features, like benefits administration, payroll, and time off and time tracking.

Another useful feature that GoCo just released is its COVID-19 compliance tracker. Businesses can maintain legal compliance by setting up COVID-19 status tracking workflows. Employees can upload proof of vaccination or weekly proof of negative COVID-19 test results. Unvaccinated employees will receive reminders to upload their documents each week.

With its applicant-tracking capabilities, onboarding checklists, and customized onboarding documents and agreements, BerniePortal is our choice as the best HR software for employee onboarding.

Editor's Score: 8.5/10

With its free language translations, global HR capabilities, and multicurrency recording, Cezanne HR is our choice as the best HR software for international businesses. It caters to U.K. and international organizations with 100 to 3,000 employees. Pricing is based on what features you need and how many employees you have.

Editor's score: 8.4/10

Namely is a comprehensive, full-service HR software that comes with multiple software options for businesses between 50 and 1,000 employees. Namely's HR platform includes workforce management and benefits administration, as well as the ability to customize the software for your specific needs. Namely is our choice as the best HR software for midsized businesses.

Editor's Score: 8.6/10

Paycor is our choice as the best HR software for service customization. The platform, which can cater to businesses of all sizes, best serves nonprofits and companies based in the healthcare, manufacturing, restaurant, retail, professional services, and education industries. Since Paycor is full-service human capital management (HCM) software, it offers a variety of features for HR, payroll, benefits administration, talent and workforce management, and employee engagement.

Editor's Score: 8.8/10

Sage Business Cloud offers software and services for businesses of all sizes and is our choice as the best HR software for growing organizations. Whether you are running a new startup or managing a busy, midsized business, Sage Business Cloud has accounting, finance, payroll, customer relationship management and HR tools to fit your needs.

Editor's Score: 8.4/10

SAP SuccessFactors' HR solution offers the best employee experience. SAP understands that your employees are the key to your organization's success, so it offers features that help you manage and improve their overall experience when using HR software.

Editor's Score: 8.0/10

Ultimate Software UltiPro, which is now UKG Pro under the UKG brand, is our choice as the best HR software for customer support. HR software is an integral business solution, and having great customer support when you need it can make a big difference in the success and usability of the software. UKG understands this and is there to offer friendly and informative assistance when needed. Representatives can be reached 24/7 by phone and an online contact form.

Editor's Score: 8.1/10

Workday is our choice as the best HR software for compensation management because it gives users the ability to create award budgets, configure and distribute budget pools, and process compensation-related events. Workday is ideal for nonprofits and businesses in a variety of industries, such as communications, energy and resources, financial services, government, healthcare, education, hospitality, insurance, life sciences, manufacturing, media and entertainment, and professional services.

Editor's Score: 8.3/10