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When building a shortlist of HRIS vendors, it's important to know which ones will meet your functional requirements and have experience with companies similar to yours
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If you're starting a new HRIS buying process, often the first step in the process is to figure out which vendors you should shortlist.
Finding the right HRIS vendors to shortlist is challenging because there isn't a perfect HR tools that solves all of a company's needs.
In the absence of a perfect system, we instruct our client to look for three things:
OutSail's free software advisory services help businesses get all this information, including cost estimates, integration capabilities and the biggest pros/cons of each solution. If you're going through a software buying process, reach out and LEARN ABOUT HOW WE CAN HELP OUT.
That being said, some people enjoy going at their research alone. Here is a quick guide to help get you started, detailing each vendors' modules offered, average customer size and biggest strengths:
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Average Customer Size: 25-350 employees
Vendor Snapshot: BambooHR has been a market leader for the past decade in creating easy-to-use HR tools for small to mid-sized companies. The platform can cover a wide breadth of functionality, is offered at a competitive price, is easy to deploy and utilize and is supported by proactive account support.
Average Customer Size: 10-150 employees
Vendor Snapshot: GoCo is a wraparound HRIS that allows companies to stick with their existing payroll provider while providing a modern, easy-to-use HRIS on the front-end. Their platform is great for employee self-service while also creating automated syncs between payroll and benefits carriers to make an admins life easier too.
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Average Customer Size: 25-250 employees
Vendor Snapshot: For companies that are highly focused on developing, engaging and retaining their workforce, Bob can be a great HRIS. The platform puts employees at the center of the experience, by creating a one-stop-shop for employees to request time, view pay stubs, do performance reviews and give recognition.
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Average Customer Size: 10-150 employees
Vendor Snapshot: Flock is also a wraparound system that has deep integrations with ADP and Paylocity for payroll and allows companies to offer a modern, mobile-first HRIS front-end to their employees. The benefits admin module is a standout feature of the Flock platform and is sometimes bought standalone for larger companies due to its quality.
Average Customer Size: 5-100 employees
Vendor Snapshot: Gusto is a modern leader in the small businesses space, delivering a user-friendly payroll and HR experience to modern companies. Gusto's platform can meet the payroll, benefits and HR needs of most small businesses, and they back their product with high quality customer support.
Average Customer Size: 25-250 employees
Vendor Snapshot: Rippling offers some of the most advanced technology in the HRIS space, by offering a platform that can meet all of HR and IT's needs at the same time. Rippling can integrate with just about any of your existing HR tools, while drastically simplifying your employee's onboarding, payroll and ben admin experience
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Average Customer Size: 25-200 employees
Vendor Snapshot: Zenefits offers a sleek, easy-to-use HRIS platform that is used by many growing, modern companies. Zenefits' platform can cover all Core HR needs including payroll, HRIS, onboarding, time and performance. And the only modules they don’t make in-house are an ATS and LMS, where they partner with market leaders instead.
Average Customer Size: 50-300 employees
Vendor Snapshot: Namely is a great choice for companies that want to drive employee self-service, as they provide one of the sleekest, easiest-to-use HRIS platforms on the market. Namely offers functionality to support most businesses' Core HR needs and they offer pre-built integrations for the areas they don't cover themselves.
Average Customer Size: 150-2,000 employees
Vendor Snapshot: SagePeople was originally called Fairsail and was a market leading HRIS in the UK. Their platform is designed for mid-sized, global companies and Sage supports their product with a proactive, dedicated account support team. The SagePeople software is built upon the Salesforce platform, which allows every field to be customizable and makes reports easy to build.
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Average Customer Size: 25-350 employees
Vendor Snapshot: Paycor offers a strong suite of HR tools that can help manage the entire employee lifecycle from hire to retire. Like many HRIS companies, Paycor delivers a strong payroll module, but unlike many of their peers, they also have strong capabilities in performance management and recruiting too
Average Customer Size: 50-500 employees
Vendor Snapshot: Paycom is a true single database solution, which isn’t very common in the HRIS space; this architecture can be a huge benefit to administrators who find the system to be fast, efficient and accurate. Paycom's platform is modern and intuitive for end-users, while also being robust enough to support most HR needs on the back end.
Average Customer Size: 50-350 employees
Vendor Snapshot: iSolved may not be a household name yet, but they’ve filled a big market need by providing a modern end-to-end platform that works for small-to-mid-sized companies. iSolved’s core competencies are around payroll, time and HR, but they’ve recently invested quite a bit in their employee engagement tools too.
Average Customer Size: 50-350 employees
Vendor Snapshot: Paylocity has a large market share in the mid-sized HRIS space thanks to a robust hire-to-retire offering, efficient implementations and competitive price. The Paylocity team has built out quite a few integrations over the years to accommodate a best-of-breed approach as well
Average Customer Size: 200-5,000 employees
Vendor Snapshot: Kronos is famous for their workforce management software (time collection, scheduling, workforce forecasting). They have used this expertise to build a powerful HRIS platform that is highly effective for companies with large hourly workforces. The Kronos platform is often competitively priced an their support teams are broken out by industry, so the support you receive can be knowledgeable to your business.
Average Customer Size: 50-2,500 employees
Vendor Snapshot: ADP rarely needs an introduction. They are the largest payroll provider in the US, with 1 in every 6 Americans being paid by ADP. Their WorkforceNow platform offers buyers every module from hire-to-retire and ADP also provides a host of outsourced services for companies that want to focus on more strategic initiatives.
Average Customer Size: 250-10,000 employees
Vendor Snapshot: Ultimate Software has a long track record of delivering smart automations to complex, global companies. They offer a robust, highly capable and reliable HRIS platform that can scale with any organization's growth. Despite being a full featured system, UltiPro’s user interface is still accessible and intuitive for admins and employees alike.
Average Customer Size: 250-10,000 employees
Vendor Snapshot: Ceridian’s platform offers arguably the most powerful Core HR engine on the market. Their technology has been built on a single database, and the close integration of payroll, time and benefits delivers some of the most real-time data insights and accuracy in the industry.
Average Customer Size: 1,000+ employees
Vendor Snapshot: Workday offers a single database solution that is configurable to any organization’s needs and user friendly for employees. When they do acquire companies, they translate the new code into the existing code base to keep the back-end databases and front-end user experiences uniform. Workday also spends a huge sum on R&D and is on the leading edge with AI and 3rd party integrations
Start by identifying your organization's specific functional requirements and priorities. Consider factors such as company size, industry, budget, and integration needs. Then, research HRIS vendors that offer solutions aligned with your requirements.
Look for vendors that offer the functionality you need, have experience working with companies similar to yours, and share your key values. Consider factors such as module offerings, average customer size, pricing, customer support, and industry reputation.
Modern HRIS vendors like BambooHR, GoCo, Bob, Flock, and Gusto offer user-friendly platforms tailored to small to mid-sized companies. These vendors provide essential HR functionalities and often specialize in areas such as onboarding, performance management, and benefits administration.
Established HRIS vendors like Paycor, Paycom, iSolved, Paylocity, UKG Ready (formerly Kronos), ADP, UKG Pro (formerly UltiPro), Ceridian, and Workday offer comprehensive HR solutions suitable for mid-sized to large organizations. These vendors provide a wide range of modules, robust features, and scalability options.
Schedule demos and consultations with shortlisted vendors to see their platforms in action and discuss your specific needs. Request references from similar organizations and ask about their experiences with the vendors. Consider factors such as ease of use, customization options, integration capabilities, and overall value proposition.
