Item: Namely
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We currently use Namely as our HCM system, along with payroll, benefits, and our time and attendance module. Our whole organization uses Namely as a tool to read about what's happening in our company, as well as for clocking in and out, benefits selection during open enrollment, and viewing pay stubs and annual statements.

Pros and Cons

HR to payroll integration--Seamlessly transmits data from HR to payroll in a very quick manner.
Payroll process functionality--Fast turnaround for calculating payroll and reports to review.

Reporting on workflows--Sure, you can make changes quickly with approval flows; however, there's no report to show you when an employee's data was changed and who approved it. You have to scroll through pages of workflows until you find the one for said employee before you can look at what was requested/approved .
Talent reviews--The ratings don't come over on reporting. You have to go to each person's profile to view their prior review.
Customer service--While it has improved tremendously, sometimes it still takes time to close out cases you opened.

Return on Investment

Has improved employee self service by quite a bit.
Lessens paper waste (no printing pay stubs).
Acts as a central hub for our company news.

Alternatives Considered

UKG Pro (formerly Ultimate Software UltiPro), ADP Workforce Now and Oracle PeopleSoft HCM

I have forever loved ADP, since they are, after all, the gold standard for payroll and HCM. Namely is now top of my list, followed by ADP. Namely's reporting is extremely helpful and easy to create, which is why for me, it's ranked above ADP. Plus, it is easy to navigate through the system and complete your tasks.

UltiPro is absolutely not worth the investment, in my opinion. They hardly help when issues arise when HR data does not flow to payroll and their reporting capabilities require you to have knowledge of HTML reporting structure. Oracle is even worse. During testing, when we were transitioning to Oracle, their payroll software didn't calculate tax--you know, one of the most important functions of payroll. But they still insisted we complete the test cycle as if it were a live payroll. We argued that if this was a live payroll, the fact that taxes are not calculating would have stopped payroll in its tracks completely, so no, we were not moving forward as it was clear it had to be fixed.

My suggestion: avoid UltiPro and Oracle. Namely and ADP are way better, though Namely has ADP beat in reporting and customer service, without needing to pay more for a dedicated service team.

Implementation Rating

As always, there were hiccups, but the team was able to resolve these issues as timely as possibly. You have to ensure you're giving Namely specific deadlines for when things are due and make sure you have someone dedicated on your end to follow up and guarantee the tasks are audited for accuracy.

Key Insights

Do you think Namely delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Namely's feature set?

Yes

Did Namely live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Namely go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Namely again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

I think it's well suited if you do the full HCM, time, payroll, and benefits modules combined. It would not be appropriate if you only want to use it for one thing--for example, if you only want payroll but not HCM. Then you're dealing with multiple vendors and file feels, and you're going to run into a variety of issues that you'll have to figure out who needs to resolve.

Namely--The System You Didn't Know You Needed

Overall Satisfaction with Namely