Likelihood to Recommend I think BambooHR is meant for companies that have more than 200 employees, because it is not cheap, but for what they are offering, it is a nice software with some easy UI to understand for everyone at a company. I think for a small company, it is way too big of a software and it is not that worth the price.
Read full review For small to medium-sized companies HotSchedules works great when business is very static. If you are simply using HotSchedules for a schedule writing tool, it is phenomenal. However, it does miss the mark as a labor control software. Needs more controls to keep managers aware of spending versus historical sales data.
Read full review Pros Customer Service - The customer service is consistent and the team is always eager to help. They are polite, patient, and there are never terrible interactions. Communication - BambooHR communication channels are simple. There are many different ways to communicate with the team. I prefer e-mail because it helps me keep track of the conversations and they respond within the appropriate time. Also, the e-mail reminders or notifications help tremendously and it's not overbearing. User Interface - It's simple and easy to use! Read full review Communication is so simple on HotSchedules. Whether it is communicating a new schedule release, or a quick note about tonight's shift we as managers are able to easily communicate and know that it will reach our team through text notifications, or email notifications. The Meal Break planning tool is very useful in being able to help our floor leaders clearly understand and plan for what breaks are needed throughout the shift. This allows them to come up with a strategic game plan quickly and spend more time with our guests. Shift Swaps and Releases are so seamless. This is our favorite tool as it makes helping our team cover shifts extremely easy and painless. On the flip side it also makes staff who want more hours be able to find what is available in real time. Read full review Cons Reporting - I wish that you could choose a timeframe for all reports. There are times when I need to run a report for information at a point in time, but there is no functionality to complete this (maybe this is an add-on, but seems like it should be a basic function.) ATS - Customizable notifications and making it easier to figure out how to change notification/email settings. I figured it out, but it was difficult to find. I wish you could choose to notify managers of candidates 1/week instead of every time someone applies. Custom Holidays - being able to set up 2 different Holiday policies for different working groups. Some of our team gets a floating holiday, but we can't set that up without doing it for the entire company. Being able to intercept a form that was signed by an employee but not the 2nd signer. We can't access onboarding forms that new hires signed after the 2nd signer left the company. Now we have to have our team resign all their onboarding forms because we cannot access the one with their signature. Delegation for approvals - being able to delegate this when someone is on leave or time away so that Admins don't have to manage. Org chart - being able to customize this feature More broad or customizable EEO categories Read full review Clocking In and out can be a little slow. It takes longer to clock in then our previous method. Before we just had a card you swiped and it would clock you in. Took 2 seconds. Now with the Hotschdules method we use it take 30 seconds or so. Not a huge issue but it can add up if you have one computer and a line of employees waiting to clock in. Time Cards. It does not allow you to view someones current time until the "punch" has ended. If the manager would like to check what time the employee clocked in/out from lunch they have to wait until the employee has clocked out for the day before the record is generated. As a shift lead you may send and employee to lunch but forget to note what time you sent them. Awhile passes and you feel like they should be back by now, so you want to go in and see what time they left for lunch but it does not show you that punch record because the employee is still "clocked in" they are just on their "Meal Break" The ability to customize the restrictions for Clocking in and out. You can set it up so that employees can only clock in from a specific location, however if you have a manager who is allowed to work from home they would not be able to clock in without being at the same location as set in the software. It would be nice to see it able to be customized per user. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Overall we have not had any reason to discontinue our use of BambooHR. We have not found a better solution, and there is no pressing reason that we would want to move away from the product. If they should fail to continue to improve their features over time, I could see this changing down the road, but for now I would say we are very satisfied with them. We would definitely like to see continued growth of their product however.
Read full review Ease of use, efficiently creating and posting staff schedules.
Read full review Usability Is very easy to navigate. All processes once explained, you can actually create an implement process associated to your HR goals. It is like a digital file of your employees, with functionalities that let you be on track on onboarding, performance, information, among others process. Time off approvals are easy to navigate.
Read full review 6 Years of Experience provides me the insight on the upgrades and changes that HotSchedules has done to improve the experience of its users. There are so many features that we still have not started or used to the fullest, but we believe that we are currently getting a strong value out of the money that is paid for this product.
Read full review Reliability and Availability Yes, there is a huge team in the back of the online platform or it looks like it because I have never been left without an answer when I have a question or waiting from a response on my chat .... There must be a huge team, this is so great and I always seem to have someone that is very knowledgeable too. So many times in the past I had to leave with customer service that would connect you with someone else because of the expertise, here everyone seems to be some kind of an expert in the HR function.
Read full review Performance I love BambooHR. Reports are easy to run and download and it usually covers any types of requests I get from the management team. You get excel or .csv downloads/reports and it is fast and simple, not too crowded so it is easy to read through. We don't integrate the tool yet but again, soon we will. we just did not had the time to utilize it yet but that's the plan.
Read full review Support Rating I have used the help chat function several times and that is easy and great to use. There are also many articles, FAQs sections and an entire learning platform to learn on your own. I believe that is great. I also have used ChatGPT to ask how to do certain functions as well, which were accurately reported.
Read full review On rare occasions a phone call has been required to find the solution to a problem, the HotSchedules response staff have been helpful, courteous, and genuinely seem to care for their clients and take pride in what they do. The consistent development and fine tuning of the platform, interface, and mobile environment shows that this is not a program full of people who rest on their laurels.
Read full review In-Person Training I didn't have in-person training besides teaching my managers how to use the program. However, I couldn't omit this question (maybe a system glitch).
Read full review Online Training As far as I can recall, everything went well with doing it online and got questions answered. Was thankful to work with a dummy file to get used to some practices prior to getting our own domain within bamboo to then place our personnel information in the system, this helped a lot!
Read full review Implementation Rating It was some work involved in moving all of our documents from a drive over to the correct folders and creating the system of what folders were needed and what got placed where
Read full review Alternatives Considered Although there are many products in the marketplace, there is no perfect system. BambooHR is the most economical HRIS for a small business, start-up, or business that has never had HR software. BambooHR was selected for its affordable functionality. However, if they continue to ingore the lack of functionality the pretty package will no longer have any value.
Read full review I have not used any other Scheduling software for employees. As a campground manager in the summer season, we are using campground master for reservations. it is very similar in process to employee scheduling. the ability to the user of that program to set up their own parameters for time and reservations is something that would benefit the employee scheduling software.
Read full review Contract Terms and Pricing Model Since my organization has dropped with employees, I always find ways to reduce costs. I thought there would be a cheaper option, but I was glad that my package included a lot for the price, and downgrading would cost more. The rep could have let me downgraded and taken me to a higher package. I am thankful that didn't happen.
Read full review Scalability There is so much you can do with this platform, it is incredible and so welcoming. We don't utilize it 100% yet just because we are growing and the HR team has not been able to concentrate on other areas offered to us but but we will soon. Which is also why we got the product, specifically because what BambooHR can do to help us meet our growing business needs.
Read full review Professional Services VERY professional!
Read full review Return on Investment It's been a great force multiplier for our HR staff, supplementing their skills to allow them to focus on more complex tasks. Employees enjoy using it and have to talk to HR staff less with the self-service options. You may find as your organization grows that you outgrow a module or BambooHR and will replace with a dedicated solution. Read full review Saving time on scheduling means our managers can focus more on guest experience, managing the floor and other areas that contribute to the success of our business. Read full review ScreenShots