People

Pros

The People HR platform is a easy to use and relativity simple HR platform that gives small / medium sized businesses a flexible HR solution. We've been able to get up and running in a few weeks with little intervention from the People team, which is a testament to the usability of the system. Out of the 11 platforms we looked at People gave us the best value and of offered the widest amount of functionality. The system is constantly being developed with new functions and features being added on a regular basis, due to the modular nature of the system you can cherry pick the parts of the system you need to use helping with the deployment process.

The ability to create custom forms (though the logbook) adds a unique level of on the fly customization which lets you capture additional data removing the use of third party tools.

There is a decent amount of supporting documentation (written & video content) which makes getting going really easy.

The reporting out of the system is also really solid and very flexible.

You can load your own data !!! (this is a great feature)

Cons

The custom logbook forms are good but are also very limited, and working with them can be frustrating . It can take some very creative thinking to get them to behave in the way you want, this can be very frustrating. (this feature has so much potential and more development would greatly enhance the functionality and impact the system has)

The ripple workflow engine is very "unique" and does require a solid understanding of the system to make best use of it. There isn't a "test now" button which means when you build a workflow, you have to sit about waiting to see if its worked which is time consuming and a little frustrating.

The guys on he support desk are really knowledgeable, although it can take along time to get the right answer out of them. They are prone to making assumptions about your request with out fully understanding your requirements, and you end up going round the houses.

There isn't a customer roadmap showing platform development, understanding whats being worked on would be really useful.

Training matrix offers little functionality and currently isn't very usable

After a few weeks of use you start to notice there are lot of unnecessary clicks when navigating the system, e.g. to jump between employee records takes 4/5 clicks, when making a single change across multiple records this can become very annoying.

There are parts of the system where you assume you will be able to click on something e.g. when looking at a line manager you can see all their direct reports listed, but you cant click on them to view their profile. Cant click on employee profiles from the org chart

To assign an employee goals they have to have an active performance review

You cant have goals linked / team goals

If you want to add the same goals across team you have to copy and paste each goal to every individual team member

The performance review isn't "smart" there is no ability to add weighted questions.

You cant have an employee involved in more than one performance review at a time.

No ability to plot your staff into a 9 box talent matrix using the outcome from the performance review (having to do this off system using a separate tool)

The implementation process is a little vague, with little project management from their side. e.g. handing over data to be uploaded and not being told when this will happen.

Our system training is being delivered after having the system for 2 months, we could be using elements of the system completely wrong and wouldn't know.

When uploading data into the system, the data was "adjusted" by the system during the upload process which caused a random (/nr) command to be added to all our employee addresses, I still haven't had a response as to what happened. This means i have to go through 110 employees and remove this manually....

Pros

- Good UX
- Link from recruitment to staff
- Ability to include a multitude of HR functions on Logbook - i.e. 360 reviews

Cons

Areas for development:
• With GDPR coming in, it would be extremely useful for PeopleHR to have retention dates on documents (this would show under the GDPR when we were required to dispose of the data)
• A automated chase for feedback. For example, if we could input the date of an event (i.e. appraisal) onto the individuals calendar, we could then set up automatic chases at specific time periods before the event.
• A look into how training can be better incorporated into the system
• Option for admin to see all employees calendars at once (similar to google calendars)
• A greater focus of customer service via phone – Online chats are good but email is time consuming. It is also helpful for the PeopleHR IT support for them and the company to be able to share screen to resolve problems
• Remove gender option. There is currently only a binary option for gender. Although we can add more through logbook, those who are already classified as male or female cannot be unticked.
• For admin to be able to view 2+ profiles simultaneously
• When refreshing the employee page, for it to not return to the alphabetically ordered current staff view but where you left of. Or, an option to choose in settings
• We have added our appraisal system via logbook. Our appraisals require individuals to refer back to a word/pdf doc. It would be great for our team to be able to access these documents through logbook when completing the appraisal.
• Statistics - feedback is a fundamental part of our business and the ability to analyse, for example, who has completed feedback over a time period would be extremely valuable
• For certain information to delete automatically on the day after an employees leave date. For example, work email.
• For salary updates to automatically calculate the salary per year based on the hours worked for part time staff
• To notify or automatically delete doubles in the ATS section

Pros

It is easy to use even for non-technical staff, so it is relatively easy to implement even with a workforce that has predominantly not grown up in the digital age.
It is simple yet sufficiently customizable to enable it to be shaped to many if not all of the idiosyncrasies of your own organisation.
It is modular, so you can take (and pay for) only as much functionality as us useful to you or that your organisation can cope with.
The customer service is excellent. Queries are dealt with quickly and satisfactorily, which is important with an evolving product like this which is constantly in improving development.

Cons

There are times when I've felt I'd like a tiny bit more ability to alter things or building upon them. An example is the 'return to work' functionality, in which I would like the ability to add a few more questions or to alter the tone of the existing questions. There are ways to work around this but I'd like to be able to do it within the native functionality of that area of the software. But as I say, if I feel that strongly about this there are workarounds available so this is more about the ability to tweak to the nth degree of personal Al taste, and of course they have to stop someone...but the ability to add custom fields to any area of the programme (or even just to forms that already exist) would be a big plus in my view.

Pros

From an introductory and initial stand point , we most loved the ability to effectively group and to communicate directly with top and the most competitive candidates for open positions at our company . The ATS tracking system from People HR makes this tasks quite manageable. The ATS feature has streamlined and consolidated our approach to posting new information on available positions and allows consistent and effective collection of all information relative to the hiring and vetting process. This is an absolute advantage our team is delighted to have. We also loved the attention to detail included in the software package such as the inclusion of customized signatures which can be formatted and included in all forms of email communication with prospective candidates.
Finally People HR's "A C A" tracking further allows us to keep track with regulatory and compliance requirements grouped by employee as legal changes present themselves. This features keeps us as agile as we need . Finally the inclusion of a mobile app makes a fine support tool for maximum portability.

Cons

We did find that our experience with customer service during the initial installation stages was not as reactive as we would like , but this is easily
navigated through the use online tutorials and plentiful support groups to answer fundamental questions and install issues.

Pros

The customer service is outstanding. We are a small company so implementing a system like this is a big deal for us- we were looking at simplifying operations as we currently use different systems for holiday booking, employee praise and expenses. I therefore had hundreds of questions to ensure that we were making the right decisions. The chat feature is extremely useful as you get a quick response to questions and do not have to leave the system to ask. Special thanks to customer service agent who has been very helpful even when I have been asking multiple questions on a daily basis!

The system is easy to use and has lots of great features which are really good value for money. I have looked at many other systems and this one definitely came out top for value for money, features and customer support.

Cons

Some of the settings are complicated to find and change- would be better if they were all in a centralized location- however once all set up this is a minor inconvenience.

The pulse surveys are a great addition- however it would be good if you could access this from the desktop site and also could have the option of making these anonymous.

The expenses section- we use Expensify currently- would be useful if you could scan receipts for information so the form auto fills as this is how it worked in Expensify but just a minor con.

Finally, we allow our employees to Swap their normal working days- would be good if there was a specific capability for this rather than adding as an event as this allows you to swap out and not guarantee that the employee has swapped out also.