Namely vs. TriNet HR Plus vs. Workday Adaptive Planning

Namely is aesthetically very pleasing and navigates like other social media platforms which can be appealing to potentially a remote workforce who interacts more online than in person. Unfortunately, it did not serve our population well as we are primarily manufacturing where people are not as interested in utilizing the HRIS for interactions when they would rather connect in person.

I think as a small business owner, this system gives peace of mind. When I'm onboarding an employee I can automatically integrate the process with Gmail and Quickbooks. I feel like they are always doing work in the background and I don't have to keep checking up on them or verifying the work that's been done

Incentivized

We're a mid-size organization working with a shoestring budget and an IT skeleton crew...not much room to dedicate resources to a platform like this fully. Having it SaaS based is helpful for system management through their Helpdesk system, and a single platform also helps streamline the knowledge needed by our developers when integrating other business aspects to Workday.

Incentivized

• Namely has helped with our COVID sick leave response. It has made a major difference both with the weekly payroll and the 941 tax filing
• Keeping track of our multiple PTO plans. Thank goodness for Namely, I have shredded my old PTO spreadsheets.
• Employees like the convenience of the cell phone app. As a payroll administrator, I like the Geo Tracking tool where I can see where some are when the clock is in or out.
• The flexibility inside of the payroll system both as you are finalizing an employee profile and when you are processing payroll is a major advantage.
• The reports I get out of Namely in Excel format work well for me.

Incentivized

• Payroll services in all 50 states, including payroll tax filings
• Integrations with tools like QuickBooks, Google Workspace, Slack, and Human Interest (401(k))
• Simple yet powerful mobile app for employees to access information including paystubs, benefits, and time off requests
• Streamlined admin portal for People Ops professionals

• It helps create dynamic plans for finances, operations and various functional units in an organization all under one platform
• It helps in scenario modeling to help analyze various business events and report by any number of business dimensions including channel, customer or product
• It can be integrated with any system including ERP, BI or CRM

Incentivized

• Limits to custom reporting
• No direct feed for Ohio Workers Comp (now a manual process on our end)
• No option to place an employee on Leave of Absence and exclude them from payroll while they are "inactive"
• No option to suppress certain deductions for certain pay types (i.e. allow 401K for commissions but block remaining deductions - also now a manual process to uncheck the suppress box for 401K for each commission check)

Incentivized

• Support doesn't exist once you are a customer
• Tax team has a 3-6 month response time
• Poor Menu/Navigation structure
• Fails to pay taxes on time, results in delinquency notices and fees
• Glitchy UI, sometimes you need to wait a day or two for a section to work again
• Feels like a perpetual beta product, nothing polished about it

• Dashboards are not the best for graphs/charts. However, I have heard of companies using the dashboards for forecasting/budgeting. I would like to see Workday Adaptive Planning demonstrate this part of the feature.
• Better security or locks to prevent deleting Actuals data - you are literally one click away from doing this.
• On the web-based reports, better functionality when needing to reverse the sign in calculations - right now it is only available for revenue vs. expenses.

Incentivized

Administrators and employees love Namely. It is very easy to use and streamlined. Employees stay engaged with news feed updates and enjoy all the self service options. The time cards are very easy to access and clocking in and out for non-exempt employees is a breeze. Namely is part of our family.

We've already renewed after our first year with Zenefits due to the cost savings, ease of administration, reduction in overhead required to perform HR functions, and the employees happily embracing and liking the software. I've found employees generally hate anything new, but we've had no complaints about Zenefits outside the first few weeks of getting used to it.

Incentivized

For one we're in way too deep to not move forward with Adaptive. We're integrated with Workday, we do a ton of reporting with Adaptive, and it's working very well for planning and forecasting. No reason to look back or change course.

It is very simple to use for myself, the HR team, and our employees. I find the payroll process very user-friendly. Reporting is simple to navigate and produce the required information requested. I know our employees enjoy the self-service feature and use it on a regular basis, which saves me time.

Incentivized

It's extremely user friendly and customer service is super helpful. The app needed help a while back but it has greatly improved. There were issues with files being cut off, and when I was onboarded, it actually cut my offer letter off hiding important information. Since then, it's been fixed so they are continually improving.

It is overwhelming at first, but once you really get to know it, you realize it is fairly simple and customizable, and then it has a lot more limitations than you first thought. Realizing those limitations and finding workarounds is when you know you've mastered the software.

Incentivized

We have not experienced any application errors or unplanned outages in the two years I have been using this app. Sometimes there is a lag in the time keeping/ confirming your location, however, it quickly resolves itself within seconds and more often than not is an internet connection error

Incentivized

There haven't been any lately. The only one issue I can think of is when there was an update in Adaptive that altered our reports. Before I realized there was an issue, Adaptive reached out to let me know, so that it could be fixed.

This app always loads extremely quickly and in a reasonable time frame. Like I said, when we do experience lags from this app, it is more often than not an internet connection error

Incentivized

All aspects of Adaptive Insights perform well. One area that I wish was quicker was integration. When importing data from Intacct our accounting ERP platform, it can sometimes take 4 hours for the import to process. The earlier imports are done, the quicker they complete. My estimate for a quick upload is about two hours.

Namely platform has pretty good support: knowledgeable and relatively fast response times. Namely Payroll and Namely Benefits are very much depending on the quality of the support agent or CSM: we have had knowledgeable and attentive ones, but also ones that have provided erroneous information or failed to respond to urgent asks in a timely manner

Incentivized

Not good at all. Basically I typically feel like they can solve the issue at hand. However, they take forever and it never feels like they really care. It can be frustrating that the agent will never speak with you on the phone or just give you their direct contact info so that you can continue to follow up on the same issue. Once they "close" the issue - you have to go back to the main customer service email or line again, even though it may be related to something you've contacted them about in the past

Incentivized

Whenever we have had any questions, issues, or concerns, the support has been quick and thorough. [This] allow[s] us to be able to fully resolve any issues, or be connected with the right group quickly to attain the result we were after; be it from simple formatting to adding new detailed reporting.

Incentivized

Can't really say just because I would not know.

Incentivized

This was extremely helpful so that they could walk you through the model and teach you more about the complexity of various areas. It is most helpful when it is specific to your organization's model. The larger in-person trainings were helpful but they tended to be more generic and entry level. The trainings that are more tailored to your specific needs are the most helpful.

Incentivized

It went through successfully.

Incentivized

They often times tended to be way too generic or entry level. They would also become sales pitches to upgrade or get new Adaptive Planning products. The questions in the training would be very niche and specific to other organizations. They were rarely helpful to the group at large.

Incentivized

Implementation was a bit complicated and our company had to carry most of the weight. It often felt like our implementation manager was giving us extra work that she did not want to do herself. It also took much longer than expected - I believe almost 2 months. I believe our company carried a bit too much of the weight.

Incentivized

Unfortunately I do not have any insights on the implementation of Zenefits as I was not employed with this company when Zenefits was introduced. Based on how effortless it is to use Zenefits, I wouldn't image there would be many issues with the implementation of Zenefits

Incentivized

Trust the expertise of very strong 3rd party implementers. Having deployed Adaptive at a separate company before, I thought I knew it all (hubris, I know). Fortunately, I began to (very quickly) trust the judgment of our Carlson implementation team, and they provided invaluable insights and best-in-class processes that have benefitted me and my team greatly.

Incentivized

The reason I continued to choose Namely at multiple employers is due to the continuity of employee experience. And the features have continued to grow since I initially onboarded in 2014. Also, through the years, I have had terrific benefits teams. The customer service has been the worst part of the experience outside of the benefits team.

Incentivized

Zenefits has been a better tool for our purposes than Paychex Flex. While Zenefits is a fairly rigid tool without a lot of options for customization, Paychex has even fewer options for customization and their customer services is even more difficult to deal with

Workday became our choice because it is fully web-based and easily integrates with other systems. The learning curve for Workday was shorter than that of Dynamics. The reporting tools in Workday are more user-friendly than that of Dynamics. However Workday did not have Check Printing tools which are available in Dynamics. The organization started a project to digitize all financial transactions so it was not a priority feature. When it comes to scaling up the functionalities of Workday it was much easier than Dynamics.

Incentivized

Good read only seat access

Incentivized

It is very easy to use and does not require the end user to go to multiple sites to obtain many facets of HR/ Payroll information that the app offers

Incentivized

We went from 2 users to 70+ users over a 2 year period of time. The application scaled wonderfully. 65 of those users were non-finance users so they were able to quickly learn the software and prepare budgets quickly and efficiently. That is the power of Adaptive and its ability to scale

This is now available in house at Workday which is convenient.

Incentivized

• We were able to transition to a fully digital onboarding process which saved us hours in time per new hire and made the process smoother for the new hire.
• Namely is our first HRIS and has helped the HR department to find data and information quickly.
• Namely helped us digitize our performance management process which the company undergoes on an annual basis.

Incentivized

• California Meal Break Violations cost a full hour of each employees pay rate. If an employee clocks in 1 minute early it costs us at least 10.50 (minimum wage Ca, 15.00 in Los Angeles) which adds up quickly. We had 37 meal break violations when we first rolled it out. They need to add a feature that disallows them to clock in ahead of 30 minutes, or add a feature that shows them how long they've been on break.

• It's facilitated a better financial literacy and management by the non-financial managers in the company, giving them a much better ability to see what they're spending, control it, and plan better in the future.
• It's hard to quantify the ease of model and version management, but we could never do what we're doing now with our current staff. It would take a small army to replicate anything close to what Adaptive pulls off using Excel, if it's even possible.

Incentivized