BambooHR vs UKG Ready

Overall BambooHr has excelled in satisfying our needs. It performs well as a one-stop-shop for HR challenges. It has benefitted us as an excellent repository for personnel information both in processing prospective and new hires, as well as existing employees. It provides a fairly simple, but [the] straightforward system for managing and using time off. Some areas do need some work, however. There is no ability to set up a default set of time-off types/accruals for a new hire, which means this has to be done manually for each new employee. This creates a lot of opportunities for human error. It also has a very opaque and unhelpful API when it comes to the management of the time data; Whereas the rest of the API is exceptional. Lastly, the ability to request time off only allows for a flat number of hours in a day; it doesn't allow the employee to request specific times. As a result, we rely on the employee and manager to communicate the time successfully in the notes field. There is a big difference between arriving 1 hour late, leaving 1 hour early, and stepping out for an extended lunch.

UKG Ready is well suited for multi-location companies that are in jurisdictions as it provides a great platform for company-wide communication while also still having very clear options for location-based customizations that are required legally. I would say that it's been extremely effective for us as a company that has grown from ~400 employees when we implemented to over 500 in the past year, and it's been instrumental in giving us the ability to grow. I think UKG Ready is not well suited for small companies that have fewer than 50 employees due to the high PEPM cost.

• BambooHR has a top-notch electronic onboarding process. It is fully customizable and works very well with applicants of all technological capabilities. Onboarding allows you to add every step the new employee and the business partners must complete through timed, dated, notifications, digital documents, e-signatures, and a back-end administrative ability to follow up.
• BambooHR has good applicant tracking system. They currently integrate with indeed and ZipRecruiter. However, it is easy to create links for other platforms with the ability to distinguish where you are getting recruiting traction. In addition the ability to rate, and communicate about an applicant is confidential between the hiring managers and HR. Also, there is an easy way to create a candidate pool of eligible candidates for later passive recruiting, that is called Talent Pools.
• BambooHR has a unique feature called Announcements. This function allows various announcements to go out via email, through the application, or a combination of both to directed target audiences or the entire company.
• BambooHR also sends out announcements (customizable) on every new hire. This allows folks to see who is starting and learn a bit about them before they meet them.
• BambooHR has a great function for tracking time by the task or job. This is great for tracking productivity gaps for administrative positions or job costing for positions that have billable hours.
• BambooHR also has easy to organize digital documents. You can easily upload documents via drop and drag. Documents can be added to folders and then downloaded later if an employee terminates.
• Goal in performance management are very good, they follow the SMART methodology but there is no way to attach them to a performance review. They do allow the employee to adjust using a slide bar and you can attach people to a goal. In addition it notifies the supervisor but you cannot shut off notifications.

• Streamlines the process between HR and payroll. Each team can quickly see and share information.
• Our entire hospital team can use the system and it's easy to provide trouble shooting support to our teams.
• Appearance -The system is easy to use and attractive for users.
• The payroll process specifically is very well laid out.
• Communication! UKG has really stepped up on communication and training especially around tax related deadlines.

• Some edge cases aren't as fleshed out. For example, asset inventory management isn't something BambooHR can really excel at currently.
• Something akin to Google Forms but with the privacy protections of being already in the HRIS would be great for collecting anonymized responses.

• Recruitment module is clunky for hiring managers, people who are not administrators.
• Some of the setups don't make sense when administering - for example managing multiple pay rates.
• Some of our integrations do not work properly and it is difficult to get a UKG Ready person to work through it with the 3rd party partner.

We have tried other software in the last year and have not found it to be comparable to Bamboo HR especially in relation to the HR functionalities such as workflows, onboarding, automation, user-friendly experience, innovation, timekeeping, and ability to integrate with other 3rd party Payroll processing software. In addition, the employee ease of access and navigation of the platform makes this software crucial within our current culture of multi-site and remote work environments.

We plan to renew our support and use of UKG Ready each year unless it becomes unavailable or the district seeks another vendor. As of now, there are no plans to changes vendors. The district staff is now familiar with using UKG. Another vendor will need to meet the same expectations we have come to enjoy with using UKG

Does not have many problems and this ensures all of users are able to use it reliably. There is a free demo available to illustrate the accurate usage of the platform and even customer support. All of these help in improving the usability of the platform and ensure that all users are comfortable with the platform.

The improvements have made some of my previous challenges easier...the new layout definitely makes it easier and you can toggle between different views. Some of the new features in recruitment have made things easier for our hiring managers...they really seem to like these features.

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.

The system seems very stable. Being hosted in the cloud, we are vulnerable to internet speeds and busy times. The system has been down a couple times over the 3 months we have been live, but Kronos resolved the issues very quickly. To have access from a desktop, tablet, time clock, or phone app is one of the best features....users have almost NO REASON they can't clock in.

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.

We were always told that Kronos was the best, but there are reports that we got out of ADP and other payroll providers that we cannot get out of Kronos. One example is a report of Productive/Non-productive hours by department. We also need the dollar amount associated with the hours. This is information that is required on our cost report and we were told that that report is unavailable. It is very frustrating when I can't get what I need.

Support is effective and responsive. During our time with BambooHR we did not experience many issues, but initial support on setup was helpful and allowed for a quick turnaround on getting started. Since then, few needs have arisen for contacting support, but I would not hesitate to do so and would recommend BambooHR based on the quality of their support team.

If I was only rating support itself that would be a 10. Every support case I have entered has been addressed efficiently and with the desired result. On the implementation and transition to support there were multiple issues that those doing the implementation or transition could not answer or workflows and various settings left undone only to be discovered later. We implemented 3 different modules and the expertise we got for each one varied widely.

Our in-person training was a hybrid. Live online training with an instructor. They were very knowledgeable of the product & the area they were training on. I asked several specific questions and if they didn't know the answer immediately they followed up after class.

The online training team is great. Theis is so well done! very user friendly, very nice to go through. Then you get all those exemples and questions to test you and make sure you understand the training as we go along. This is a great asset from the tool, I don't think I have ever been left without understanding because there is help and additional resources to understand or extra windows that explain terms or answer Q&A.

Lots & lots of training available. Timing was wrong for our organization. We had lengthy down time in the beginning while the implementation consultant setup our system. We did online training then. Difficult to train on a generic system setup that isn't your industry and hard to understand what you are learning how to do w/o actually being in your system. Online training was well documented and the instructors were very knowledgeable.

it was very easy to sign up, quick and we could use the site very quickly as well.

Make sure the people who are doing the build have extensive knowledge on employment law and asking the right questions. I would bet that the people who helped with our builds did not read any of our employment contracts or ordinances; and when I asked questions about how other companies handled certain basic dictates from federal employment laws, they didn't have any idea what FMLA, FLSA, etc were.

I would say they both have a lot of strengths for sure. Workday manages data on a mass scale a little bit better in my opinion, but Bamboo HR is more user friendly and pleasing to the eyes

Our organization was a long-time user of UKG Telestaff and we found that the ADT payroll services did not integrate easily for payroll processing and management. The success we experienced with UKG Telestaff (formerly Kronos) made the decision easy to continue with their products, like UKG Ready, when our organization separated from local government and became a stand-alone entity. UKG Ready's integration did not come without issues by any means, however, the build and integration teams (on both sides) were able to cooperate and work through all the problems encountered.

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.

Thus far we are able to add as many users as necessary, implement 3 different bargaining units, 5 different types of user groups. Very flexible.

• There has been an excellent rate of profitability in our work season, especially thanks to the optimization of our operations through BambooHR.
• Currently estimated gains appear to be 500%, which leaves our ROI at 4, demonstrating that the platform has a high return on investment.

• Positive: We have had better reporting with UKG Ready.
• Negative: We still have no benefit integration with our external benefit administrator after 2 years on the UKG Ready Platform. The first attempt that took 2 years failed and now UKG wants us to pay for a single directional integration. This has cost excessive staff hours for manual intervention.
• Negative: Any payroll adjustment requirements are not easy and the UKG Process is outdated. We recently had a payroll issue and were forced to issue a 2nd payroll but the payroll was delayed because UKG cannot (will not) process the same day. This is unacceptable and since Kronos and Ultimate Software merged, Ultimate software was able to process same day as are many other payroll companies that do not have as much power as UKG Ready does.
• Positive: We are able to use position management for better budgeting. There could be some upgrades to this module, but it does do what was promised.
• Negative: Quarterly and year-end closeouts are 3rd business days, which is not always possible. Very inflexible in regards to this. Even when it is done timely, we get random notices and charges that it was not done even though we can prove it was.
• Positive: It appears customer service is getting better. We struggled at first, but lately, it seems better.