December 24, 2013

Saba TalentSpace (formerly Halogen) Review: ""Bright" Employers should consider Halogen"

Rachel Carrillo, PHR

Human Resources Generalist

CBREReal Estate, 51-200 employees

Score 8 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Software Version
Business Edition

Pros and Cons

Automatic email notifications - you can customize the verbiage of each system-generated notification, and tweak the frequency of notifications.
Multi-rater feedback - very easy to solicit feedback from employees or even 3rd parties outside of the company.
Performance center - a place where managers can keep performance journals, upload documents, etc for employees, and it's easily viewable in "split screen" while writing employee reviews. Everything is kept in once place.

Reports - Reports are very standard, and you don't have much control of what info you want to include/exclude.
When looking to tweak a process or form, the specific place you need to go to make the change is sometimes very "hidden" or buried. The system is capapble of so much that sometimes you can't easily figure out what you need to do. On the flip side, their customer support is very helpful.
Forms are "smart", but they're not as "smart" as I would have liked. For example, you cannot pre-determine the review period on forms each year, resulting in numerous calls from employees and managers asking what the period is. Also, forms are not smart enough to pre-populate the last review date into the new form. These aren't major issues, but little things that would be nice to have.

Return on Investment

Employees looked forward to receiving multi-rater feedback, which heightened their awareness of performance throughout the year.

Likelihood to Renew

The product is user-friendly, employees are familiary with it, and it is cost-effective.

I recommend asking if Halogen is compatible with current HRIS. This would greatly help with employees changes (i.e. new hires, terms, promotions, transfers, manger changes, etc) when it comes to automatically updating employee info in Halogen.

Support

No one is perfect, but Halogen's support comes very close. They're extremely helpful and always pleasant and friendly.

Saba TalentSpace (formerly Halogen) Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	None