BambooHR® vs. Workday Human Capital Management

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BambooHR®
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
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.
$10
per month per user
Workday HCM
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Workday Human Capital Management is a cloud-native system offering a globally consistent user experience. Workday HCM is part of an intelligent, unified system with other Workday products.N/A
Pricing
BambooHR®Workday Human Capital Management
Editions & Modules
Core
$10
per month per user
Pro
Contact Sales
per month
Elite
Contact Sales
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BambooHR®Workday HCM
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BambooHR®Workday Human Capital Management
Considered Both Products
BambooHR®
Chose BambooHR®
I used to use workday at a past company and BambooHR® is less extensive but very easy to use. Again, the features and functionality on the former were more fleshed out and readily available but the functions that I use most often are more easily accessible via BambooHR®.
Chose BambooHR®
Bamboo's simplicity in utilization beats all the above. The functionality isn't as robust as some, but it gets the job done well and has no huge misses, especially as I believe the simplicity outweighs the lack of functionality in small areas!
Chose BambooHR®
BambooHR was already in place when I started. BambooHR has much better intuitive navigation than any of the other systems but not as much customizability as something like Workday.
Chose BambooHR®
I think that Workday is a much more robust and intuitive system, but the cost for many small businesses is a barrier to entry for them. BambooHR was selected because a member of our HR team was familiar with the system and was an absolute asset to us as we integrated the …
Chose BambooHR®
For small business, like myself, BambooHR is enough. When working for more giant corporations, Workday was amazing. However, I cannot compare their customer service. In terms of user experience, BambooHR is definitely better than the others listed.
Chose BambooHR®
BambooHR was a more inclusive package that was much easier to navigate and use according to the team that evaluated it, I was part of this effort. We spent a lot of time on this as we were ditching several other platforms to consolidate to one tool and wanted to make sure we …
Chose BambooHR®
BambooHR offers flawless perfoming apps for different operating systems and it is recommended to remote and decentralized teams. It has a quote-based pricing scheme which can be tailored by any business to meet their needs no matter the size and even before making the final …
Chose BambooHR®
I have never worked with bamboo before this and I think there is no better program than this one.
Chose BambooHR®
UltiPro, from what I remember, was clunky and always had an awkward calculation of my hours. I could not "project" how much PTO I would have when I wanted to take time off in the future. Also, I was planning my maternity leave with UltiPro, and I truly feel like the software …
Chose BambooHR®
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.
Chose BambooHR®
I did not select BambooHR and there is an ongoing search for the replacement of BambooHR led by our new HR VP.
Workday HCM
Chose Workday Human Capital Management
Not as customizable
Chose Workday Human Capital Management
I've only used BambooHR and used an internally developed software before and those did not have half the features of Workday. That's why we switched to Workday.
Features
BambooHR®Workday Human Capital Management
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.9
285 Ratings
3% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
9.0
99 Ratings
10% above category average
Employee demographic data8.3256 Ratings8.884 Ratings
Employment history8.1257 Ratings8.394 Ratings
Job profiles and administration8.1257 Ratings8.896 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.7.7240 Ratings9.091 Ratings
Organizational charting7.8262 Ratings9.790 Ratings
Organization and location management8.1252 Ratings9.787 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)7.4151 Ratings8.362 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.7
196 Ratings
5% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.7
82 Ratings
7% above category average
Pay calculation8.2141 Ratings9.670 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors7.0106 Ratings7.458 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment7.5107 Ratings9.220 Ratings
Benefit plan administration7.2151 Ratings8.965 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.4141 Ratings8.971 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management8.0159 Ratings9.068 Ratings
Reimbursement management7.597 Ratings7.645 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.8
246 Ratings
8% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.6
77 Ratings
5% above category average
Approval workflow8.7240 Ratings8.876 Ratings
Balance details8.5229 Ratings8.176 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment9.2129 Ratings8.962 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.5
277 Ratings
4% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.3
97 Ratings
1% above category average
View and generate pay and benefit information8.6188 Ratings8.286 Ratings
Update personal information8.9271 Ratings8.295 Ratings
View company policy documentation8.4240 Ratings7.875 Ratings
Employee recognition8.0169 Ratings8.858 Ratings
View job history8.9255 Ratings8.286 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
9.1
74 Ratings
13% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.4
25 Ratings
5% above category average
Tracking of all physical assets9.174 Ratings8.425 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.2
224 Ratings
4% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
7.6
81 Ratings
1% above category average
Report builder7.3216 Ratings8.977 Ratings
Pre-built reports7.5214 Ratings6.679 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data6.9159 Ratings7.267 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.2
235 Ratings
3% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.9
59 Ratings
11% above category average
New hire portal8.5222 Ratings8.854 Ratings
Manager tracking tools7.9207 Ratings8.955 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.9
161 Ratings
2% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.8
63 Ratings
9% above category average
Corporate goal setting7.0119 Ratings8.953 Ratings
Individual goal setting7.9155 Ratings8.962 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility9.169 Ratings8.753 Ratings
Performance tracking7.6148 Ratings8.961 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.8
180 Ratings
1% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.2
66 Ratings
4% above category average
Performance plans7.3165 Ratings8.265 Ratings
Performance improvement plans7.3141 Ratings8.257 Ratings
Review status tracking8.697 Ratings8.261 Ratings
Review reminders8.1101 Ratings8.360 Ratings
Multiple review frequency7.8156 Ratings8.253 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
9.0
81 Ratings
14% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
7.9
43 Ratings
1% above category average
Create succession plans/pools8.846 Ratings8.237 Ratings
Candidate ranking9.067 Ratings7.937 Ratings
Candidate search9.068 Ratings8.041 Ratings
Candidate development9.359 Ratings7.739 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.0
195 Ratings
2% above category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.3
51 Ratings
6% above category average
Job Requisition Management7.7149 Ratings8.748 Ratings
Company Website Posting7.7159 Ratings8.841 Ratings
Publish to Social Media9.291 Ratings7.436 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting7.4155 Ratings8.842 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention7.588 Ratings8.642 Ratings
Applicant Tracking8.1176 Ratings8.042 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts8.2186 Ratings8.146 Ratings
User Ratings
BambooHR®Workday Human Capital Management
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(293 ratings)
8.3
(133 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(17 ratings)
9.0
(18 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(220 ratings)
7.9
(15 ratings)
Availability
9.3
(5 ratings)
6.6
(8 ratings)
Performance
8.7
(5 ratings)
7.3
(7 ratings)
Support Rating
8.2
(149 ratings)
8.0
(27 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(6 ratings)
Online Training
8.3
(5 ratings)
7.0
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(6 ratings)
8.0
(11 ratings)
Configurability
7.5
(5 ratings)
7.5
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.4
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.6
(2 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.9
(5 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
9.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.9
(4 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(4 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
BambooHR®Workday Human Capital Management
Likelihood to Recommend
BambooHR
For companies with a "complex" PTO policy, it's one of the easier solutions to use I have seen. By complexity, I mean having different reasons for your time off and different amounts of time you can request on that end. If you need simple file sharing, it will work as well. For people who require more robust training material, it might not be the best fit.
Read full review
Workday
I would say it's well suited in every environment because I think it does so much. It's like the holy grail of HRIS systems is what I like to call it because thinking about all parts of the employee lifecycle, it lives here in Workday Human Capital Management. So I love the fact that you can do the people data analytics, you can store employee records, the talent acquisition pieces there. I'm thinking I can't think of anything negative right now except for the fact that I can't drill down into the data for the people analytics side. Other than that, I think it's literally, yeah, the holy grail of HRIS systems, I love it and I would highly recommend it.
Read full review
Pros
BambooHR
  • Ease of use for established staff and admins, all the way down to brand new hires.
  • Integrations, especially for posting and managing jobs during the hiring process.
  • Making regularly occurring things like meetings and assessments easy to customize and to action easily.
  • Being able to assign out tasks for onboarding and offboarding.
Read full review
Workday
  • Groups employees in management hierarchies and creates Org Charts that are easy to navigate and allow for visualizing management chains regardless of employee locations
  • Intuitive and easy to use. The Workday search functionality works very much like Google; one can search for anything that they have access to in the database and drill down into the various details. All information is connected through hyperlinks and users can easily keep digging into the details for as far as their security access would take them.
  • Tasks such as to do, review or approve items are sent to the user's Workday Inbox, very much resembling email. Notifications about outstanding "to do" items are also sent to each the user's work email address on a daily basis.
Read full review
Cons
BambooHR
  • The biggest issue is on performance assessments. We are not able to customize the reminder dates so the automated reminder dates shown to people and on the email reminders is often misaligned with our actual internal deadlines. This causes a lot of confusion each review cycle.
  • Also on performance management, there is no way to push feedback to a supervisor for their direct report. The only way is if the manager requests the feedback from you. This limits the opportunity for people to give real time feedback throughout the half.
  • I wish we had a way to track notes from employee 1:1s in BambooHR® so when we do our performance reviews we can track. That may be a module we didn't purchase but it would facilitate more continuous and comprehensive evaluation of people at review time.
Read full review
Workday
  • Should have more option in time sheet like choose project code or something.
  • On The pay page, it should have options to view past salaries; it may be there already but not in the version that I use.
  • The employee information page does not have a back button to navigate to the previous page.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
BambooHR
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.
Read full review
Workday
It is work to make one system the source of truth for our data, but now that it is done, there is less work involved in staying on this path. This means for us that maintaining and/or implementing new modules like performance, finance, talent, etc. is simple. It's a no-brainer
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Usability
BambooHR
It is pretty intuitive and easy to use for most functions! This is helped by the clean and simple interface. The drop down filters and prompts are definitely strong points, and could be easily enhanced with more AI/automation features built in in future to make it even more efficient. I also like the playful icons, making it less dull as a HR tool :)
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Workday
Workday's on a great path in terms of user experience. Their goals is to deliver a use experience that doesn't require training or instruction, like Amazon on the consumer side for example. That's hard to do when you're talking about complex business processes and important and sensitive employee information, but they're doing it well
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Reliability and Availability
BambooHR
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.
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Workday
In 2014, Workday has changed the update process. There will be two updates a year; the updates will be delivered to customers typically in a 24 hour window during these two weekends a year. They also keep the Community up-to-date about any planned outages, etc. There is weekly scheduled downtime on Friday night.
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Performance
BambooHR
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.
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Workday
From my perspective, the system runs like a well oiled machine and I have not had any issues with customers complaining about speed. If a report is taking long to run, the report can run in the background and you can go about your business. For larger enterprises, there is additional space and machines to process the application in what Workday refers to it as Extended Configuration Tenant
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Support Rating
BambooHR
Support has always been excellent. I was skeptical about not having a dedicated account manager at first, but my concerns were quickly eased. I love the different options for communication. Being able to chat, send emails or call a representative are great so that my workflow isn't disrupted by having to complete a call. I have never had an issue reaching anyone and the email follow up is great!
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Workday
Workday is still learning about the needs of higher education. I have seen rapid improvement in support and knowledge over the last year so am confident this will continue to improve. Overall however, I have found the Support Team to be extremely responsive and Workday offers the advantage of having support across several timezones so that we never wait more than a few hours for a response.
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In-Person Training
BambooHR
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).
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Workday
Some training is offered online. Cost is per-person. This also gets quite expensive. Training doesn’t follow a logical path A to B. Starts in middle. When you try to do it afterwards at your desk, difficult.
• Training scenarios are not very real
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Online Training
BambooHR
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.
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Workday
I have done for report writing and mass imports (EIBs). They give materials and you run through examples, i.e. you don’t just watch them do tasks, so that is helpful. Training is expensive – a single reporting writing class is $600 per person for virtual training
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Implementation Rating
BambooHR
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.
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Workday
It was implemented before my joining the company. At my last company, we used Workday professional services.

Based upon my experience at my last company, I would rate the implementation experience an 8/10. There are different ways to set things up and we had different people telling us different things. It set us back a couple of times.

Regarding configuration advice, we could set things up where every manager has supervisory organizations, or have it financially based i.e. aligned to cost center/department. We chose the individual manager path and I think we should have chosen a department route. Going down the individual manager path, to maintain the information, we have to inactivate a supervisory org whenever a manager changes/leaves.
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Alternatives Considered
BambooHR
BambooHR® is not in the same category as others that I have used. BambooHR is truly comprehensive and if you pay for all the extras, you wouldn't need anything else. The parts we use are great for us and the fact that we can add custom fields means that our unique needs are addressed.
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Workday
Workday is an incomplete product, by this I mean it must work alongside other products and does not work by itself. Trying to make several different products work smoothly together becomes very challenging. As compared to ADP products, when purchased all together work very well all together. Also, ADP has extensive Training programs and extensive Customer Support. So ADP's products are far superior to Workday's products in my opinion.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
BambooHR
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.
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Workday
No answers on this topic
Scalability
BambooHR
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.
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Workday
Workday has released Financials and is continuing to develop it's Human Capital Management footprint with the addition of Workday Recruiting. I think customers will find that is easy to add on additional functionality in the system. Workday does make it easy for customers to make changes without relying on IT resources. The Business Process framework is a visual tool that allows functional resources to make changes and see the flow of the transaction
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Professional Services
BambooHR
VERY professional!
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Workday
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
BambooHR
  • HR team members have been saved thousands of hours over the 3.5 years we've had BambooHR®. It saved me personally several hours a day once BambooHR® was set up. Specifically, onboarding, offboarding, and a formal Hiring system are the major time savers.
  • Employee Information is much easier to access and is all centralized. Employees are empowered to update their information when applicable, and we have designed custom access levels for different positions and managers to ensure every individual is seeing the appropriate types of information about employees.
  • We saved significant money by switching from Lattice to BambooHR®'s Performance Management solution. This solution is less advanced, but the simplicity meets our needs perfectly fine, and it even saves time for managers and employees by BambooHR®'s standard questions, carefully designed to get to the heart of performance and improvement.
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Workday
  • Positive ROI, we were one of the first organizations that went with Workday HCM, and we received numerous discounts. Cloud systems are the way to go and we feel the system is stable for our growing work force.
  • The user conferences have been helpful to network and learn more deepness in the modules and functionality.
  • Right off the bat, our implementation costs were lower than budgeted and we had less 'billing' surprises.
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ScreenShots

BambooHR® Screenshots

Screenshot of the Job Info tabScreenshot of Onboarding TasksScreenshot of a New Hire PacketScreenshot of an Employee Performance ReportScreenshot of Employee Satisfaction (eNPS®)Screenshot of Open Enrollment

Workday HCM Screenshots

Screenshot of Workday Human Capital Management HomepageScreenshot of Workday Human Capital Management Manager Insights HubScreenshot of Workday Human Capital Management HR Partners HubScreenshot of Workday Human Capital Management Expense AnalysisScreenshot of Workday Human Capital Management Skills DashboardScreenshot of Workday Human Capital Management HR Operations and Compliance Dashboard