BambooHR is an cloud-based human resources solution that provides onboarding, payroll, and benefits management. It also offers automated time-off management and employee self-service.
$250
per month (minimum price for 25 employees or fewer)
SilkRoad Recruiting
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
SilkRoad offers OpenHire, a recruiting and ATS system. It offers recruiting access through social media channels, data security, and EEO compliance for mid-sized to large businesses. It is a component of SilkRoad’s Lifesuite product line.
It works very well for submitting PTO requests and identifying information around personnel matters. I love being able to quickly see how long someone has worked for the company or whether there are upcoming birthdays so I can send a personal note. There are analytics and charts around organizational segmentation that are less valuable for a smaller company like ours.
I think OpenHire is best for a small company (max about 2500 employees). The more employees you have the more HR people you should have and this can get expensive. I know most larger companies are using more advanced systems as well (Workday). During the selection process be sure to determine how many OpenHire users you would need. Ask whether your managers will be willing to work in the system as well or whether HR would have to own the entire process. If you are EEOC compliant, make sure you ask about diversity posting, APP tracking of applicants, and reporting needs. If you require an onboarding tool, SilkRoad offers RedCarpet. I found it to be very complex and hiring managers refused to use it. If you require an onboarding tool, definitely look into it. The demo may look great but there were a lot of implementation steps done to make it work and it just didn't fit our company culture. So make sure it fits yours.
Recruiting- communications are easy for both the internal team and candidates
Onboarding- the onboarding tasks are great. I love being able to attach documents as well as delay sending out tasks
Communication- the employee community is a great tool to keep our communications clean and organized. I love that we now have insight as to who has viewed the comms
The ease of use when it comes to create requisitions from a hiring managers side of things is definitely a positive. It's very much user intuitive and the specifications can be completely customized as to what a company would like to appear within said requisition.
Candidate correspondence is an absolute breeze as you can custom load templates into the system that can be edited at any time through an administrator in your company instead of having to go through a technical support team on the other side of things.
Overall, it's a pretty no muss no fuss system to use as there's not a great layer of complication about it and like most things, spaced practice and consistent exposure to it tend to iron out those rough edges. From an administration standpoint, adding in locations and hiring managers is incredibly simplistic along with reporting functionality.
Candidate folders have come a long way in the system and are much more user friendly at this point than when I began using the system some four years ago. It's very easy to shift candidate profiles between folders and edit on the fly.
I feel like BambooHR is rolling out a lot of updates all at one time, which is awesome, but I could see somebody who's maybe not as tech savvy, feeling like it's a lot of information at one time. I think the support area of the website has thorough walkthroughs, but sometimes the search functions don't really take you to exactly what you're asking about.
OpenHire's user roles can create issues depending on how your company's hiring process flows. For example, at one company, the hiring managers were extremely involved in screening candidates yet the system seems very geared towards use of centralized recruiters who distribute candidates. The lack of ability to customize roles and security to match our managers' needs created additional burden on HR as well as frustration from hiring managers.
I experienced several problems uploading documents to accompany a candidate's offer. There was a limit on the number, size and type of attachments that could be included, and there was no alternative (as vetted with OpenHire) besides sending a separate correspondence to the candidate. I found this to appear unprofessional to the candidate as well as creating an extra step in the process for HR/recruiting.
The requisition process had a few issues which created inefficiencies in the process. Firstly, for times when you need to post a role confidentially outside of your standard process, there was no way to designate the req as 'confidential'. Instead, you had to use the 'executive' status which created issues (ie: inaccurate data in reporting). Secondly, OpenHire was unable to upload the company directory of emails in the requisition approver fields so rather than being able to select from a drop-down or using a 'smart' field, you had to type each approver's email out manually thus increasing the potential for error and delay in the process.
There's nothing wrong with this platform. I would recommend it to any business starting with more than 10 employees. I will continue to use the program for as long as I need to, hoping they continue being tremendous and finding other ways to incorporate more technology.
It was a great solution for the company in all aspects, especially the cost. The company was not in a position to afford a solution such as Oracle PeopleSoft. The only reason we did not renew OpenHire was we got acquired by a much larger organization and started utilizing the tools that the parent company had available
It's clear and well appointed with prompts on where to go for each category of information it holds. The user has limited access based on a need to know/job related basis. It has a clear help option with the ability to chat, email or read documentation on how to do something.
It's not a bad system to use, there just seems to be so much click through to get one task achieved. Once you know all the little routes and pieces it gets easier.
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.
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.
I have used their support team over a dozen times. They have chat agents available throughout the day. They have support ticket submissions. They have their own resources website with different programs to learn BambooHR®. They also have onboarding support.
The support for Silkroad is awful. I know they are working on it and it seems to be slightly better but it's still not great. I have had multiple cases I have never heard from them on, others I have had to follow-up multiple times and one that took a year
Overall this training was great and our implementation specialist was wonderful and very helpful. We felt really prepared once our training was completed, But we could get additional help immediately even when we were live. The continuation Support heros after implementation are wonderful and you can always get a LIVE person each time you call into their office.
We implemented bambooHR in Fall, 2023 then implemented Payroll 1/1/24. A vital piece of information was not known or missed in that we are exempt from State Unemployment Tax and have a Reimbursement Set-up, so bambooHR did not send Payroll Reports to the State. Those reports need to be sent regardless if we are exempt or not.
At my previous employer, I evaluated over 20 HRIS platforms before choosing and implementing BambooHR® (in 2019). I love it! The continuous improvements are promising and I actually feel like product feedback is reviewed and, at times, implemented. With BambooHR®, it truly comes down to what you are looking for. If I was solely doing performance management and career ladders, BambooHR® probably wouldn't be a fit. However, it does an overall great job at most things, and is a good quality product.
NeoGov is a more simple system but just being able to require specific documents has been a huge time saver for us. Other elements in NeoGov aren't as robust but still it saves me a lot of time compared to OpenHire.
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.
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.
Time Savings: Automating onboarding, payroll, and employee record management has cut HR admin time by up to 30%, allowing teams to focus on strategic initiatives instead of paperwork.
Improved Onboarding: Streamlined workflows have cut onboarding time by nearly 50%, ensuring new hires are productive faster, reducing turnover risk in the critical first months.
- Enhanced Informational Clarity: Centralized employee data means fewer errors and faster access to essential information, reducing compliance risks and increasing accuracy in reporting.
