8 best employee management software (use cases, key features and pricing)

Human resources teams and business owners need employee management software to streamline repetitive admin, centralize data and scale their operations efficiently.

Different industries and businesses will have specific and sometimes unique employee management requirements. To determine your company’s best software fit, prioritize providers and tools that offer the features you value at the price you can afford.

In this article, you’ll learn what to look for when choosing an employee management tool and discover eight options that could fit your company’s needs.

What should you look for in an employee management system?

The best employee relationship management software helps you support your team and carry out HR activities. You can schedule tasks, manage workloads, automate admin and streamline workflows. The tool should also let you send important documents like contracts, track time and log expenses.

The features you need in your staff management software depend on your organization’s priorities.

According to HR expert Lex Verweij, CEOs and business owners use tools to identify and solve their specific problems:

Different software will fulfill varied functions. While some apps handle a specific branch of employee management, other tools contain multiple useful features and connect with other purpose-built tools for seamless, all-in-one functionality.

Regardless of what tool you need and opt for, there are some must-have features you should look for to ensure you get the right support.

6 essential employee management software features

If you’re looking to digitize your company’s in-house processes, here are six essential features your employment management software should offer (natively or via integrations):

Employee management software must-haves

These key features let you carry out many daily business and HR processes with less effort, leaving you more time to focus on higher-priority tasks.

5 nice-to-have employee management software features

While certain features are crucial for managing your employees, other functions that make life easier are also worth considering.

Here are five nice-to-haves in your chosen employee software:

• Integrated chat. Communicate with your team to optimize collaboration efforts.

• Onboarding and training materials. Streamline the onboarding process and enhance training efficiency for new hires.

• Employee experience tools. Ask for continuous feedback to improve employee satisfaction, engagement and retention.

• A mobile app. Manage your staff on the go with an Android and iOS-friendly mobile platform.

• Top-tier support. Ensure you can get real-time help whenever you need it.

Once you’ve identified the features you want, consider one of these eight top-tier software options for employee management to streamline the day-to-day running of your team.

1. Pipedrive: best for managing sales teams

Pipedrive is ideal for leaders looking for sales team employee management in an intuitive system that connects easily with other tools.

Pipedrive is a customer relationship management (CRM) with advanced people management functionality.

In addition to visualizing sales progress, teams can use Pipedrive’s CRM system to track customer interactions, forecast revenue and more. You can also manage employees and contractors easily with many Pipedrive features and integrations.

For example, Pipedrive’s dashboards help you visualize employee workload, see where their deals stand and get up-to-the-minute performance reports.

Combining sales management and HR software like this means you always have an overview of your most crucial data. You also won’t need to jump between multiple tools to find the information you need.

Here are some of Pipedrive’s key features and benefits for managing teams and progress toward your sales goals:

• Fully customizable dashboards to add your employees, set performance goals and track progress

• Keep track of contract proposals, approvals and deal signings automatically with Smart Docs

• Tag team members in messages so nothing gets missed and connect with your favorite chat channels

• Use recruitment features to attract quality applicants and build stronger candidate relationships

• Map out complex project management simply and intuitively with Kanban-style boards

• Optimize your team’s time and sales productivity with the AI Sales Assistant’s personalized advice and insights

• Access live chat and phone support from your Pipedrive account

On top of all this, Pipedrive integrates with over 400 tools to customize your CRM to your exact needs:

• Time tracking to optimize team productivity (e.g., Taliscape and Timely)

• Payment processing to manage payrolls (e.g., Zelt and Netvisor Connector)

• Request and gather feedback to boost employee engagement (e.g., SurveySparrow and SurveyMonkey)

One Software Advice reviewer praised Pipedrive’s “endless customization possibilities”. They added:

While Pipedrive is primarily designed to manage sales teams, all industries and companies can use the software to manage their business and employees.

Pricing: Pipedrive offers five pricing plans (Essential to Enterprise) ranging from $24 to $129 per user per month in the US, with discounts of up to 42% for annual payments.

2. Quinyx: best for service industries

Quinyx is an AI-powered workforce management solution for service and hospitality businesses. Hotels and restaurants can support, schedule and motivate frontline employees with cloud-based software instead of paper rotas.

Staff can clock in online, swap shifts and highlight their availability with a few clicks.

Some of Quinyx’s key features include:

• Automated staff forecasting for thousands of employees

• Employee time and attendance tracking capabilities to stay in control of staffing costs

• Time-off management features (including absence and leave) to ensure sufficient staffing

• Mobile employee scheduling to make changes on the go

• A user-friendly interface for smooth employer and employee onboarding

A Capterra reviewer recommends the employee manager software particularly for leave requests and payments:

As well as saving time and resources for managing service staff shifts, Quinyx tracks employees’ real-time changes so everyone is on the same page.

Pricing: Quinyx has three plans (two standalone and one add-on) you’ll need to request pricing for.

3. BambooHR: best for SMBs

BambooHR is a human resources information system (HRIS) for managing employee data and performance across your company’s lifecycle. It’s suitable for small businesses that have outgrown spreadsheets and paper filing.

BambooHR’s dashboards include employee information such as birthdays, absences, pay rise data and incomplete training notifications.

In its own words, the company’s management platform has “solutions for everything from hire to retire”.

Here are six of BambooHR’s key features for SMBs:

• Automated approval workflows for faster decision-making

• Performance management capabilities (e.g., goal-setting and progress monitoring)

• Well-being tools to gauge employee sentiment

• A centralized database with self-service options for employees

• A dedicated offboarding module

• Walkthroughs for a potentially overwhelming number of features

According to one G2 reviewer, the platform serves solo HR teams well:

BambooHR has enough features for smaller businesses to scale up. Larger teams with a high hiring volume or those who want to manage their sales and marketing in one place may need a more robust tool.

Pricing: BambooHR has two requestable plans with add-ons based on price per employee.

4. Connecteam: best for time tracking

Specifically designed for remote team management, Connecteam’s employee management app lets you control your employee database to streamline workflows and increase productivity.

Its time-tracking capabilities help you build and share schedules quickly.

The app oversees daily shifts, absences and paid time off (PTO) requests. It also sends notifications to alert you to discrepancies, such as double bookings and exceeded overtime limits.

Connecteam’s time management software includes critical features and benefits like:

• Digital timesheets to track working hours accurately

• Faster schedule creation with templates, duplications and recurring shifts

• An in-app time clock and on-site kiosk app

• Virtual geofences for global teams

• The ability to add shift notes and tasks

A G2 review said the time-tracking capabilities make life easier for both employers and employees:

The app also has learning management (e.g., quizzes and interactive courses) and communication (e.g., employee feedback polls and secure chat) features to keep your team engaged.

Pricing: Connecteam has four plans for three types of teams (operations, communications and HR) ranging from free to $99.

5. Workday: best for enterprise teams

Workday is cloud-based software that helps enterprise companies meet their HR and business needs. With built-in artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, the platform acts as a unified data hub that personalizes each user’s experience.

For example, Workday handles talent management and employee performance reviews for thousands of team members.

The platform’s Career Hub connects employees to mentorship and learning opportunities.

Large companies looking for staff management software may benefit from:

• A unified platform for finance, HR and planning

• Access to apps and functionalities in a single tool

• Security and compliance features

• Built-in AI capabilities to optimize insights and predictions

• Mobile accessibility

• Continuous software updates with minimal disruption

One G2 reviewer uses Workday’s range of tools for the entire employee cycle:

While Workday’s complex software takes longer to learn, it could be worth the effort if you have to check in regularly on a larger team.

Pricing: Workday has a 30-day free trial and then offers variable pricing for two plans you can request.

6. Rippling: best for HR automation

Rippling helps companies manage payroll, HR, IT and finances with automated workflows and apps.

Rippling’s dashboard centralizes employee management processes and administrative tasks so you can review third-party tool information alongside internal HR data in one place.

You can also use your employee data to build custom triggers (e.g., emails, meeting invites and Slack messages) without code to automate company workflows.

Team leaders and business owners can use Rippling to:

• Automate all employee life events

• Onboard new staff more efficiently

• Flag compliance breaches and create an action plan automatically

• Centralize and localize documents, fields and currencies

• Run codeless workforce reports

• Connect to HR systems to run all processes from one platform

A Capterra review highlights that while Rippling can be complicated, having a centralized system seems worth it in the long run:

Pricing: Rippling bases its prices on custom quotes starting from $8 per user per month.

7. Gusto: best for payroll processing

Gusto is an HR and online payroll solution for leaders looking to automate team hiring, payment and management.

You can use Gusto to run unlimited payrolls at no extra charge. The platform also helps you process taxes, stay compliant and spot tax credits you could qualify for.

While the employer interface organizes important metrics, Gusto’s employee-facing side shows paycheck breakdowns and pre-tax savings.

Gusto helps companies:

• Pay employees in a few clicks

• Automatically calculate and file taxes

• Create team-specific employee benefit packages

• Sync time-tracking tools with payroll

• Use the same platform for hiring and onboarding

• Access customizable reports and anonymous surveys to make data-driven decisions

One Capterra reviewer also highlights the benefits of Gusto’s device accessibility and security:

Gusto’s higher-tier plans also have built-in applicant tracking systems for job candidates. After that, new employees can onboard with automated background checks and benefits administration.

Pricing: Gusto has three plans starting from $40 per month with custom pricing for the highest tier.

8. Slack: best for real-time and async communication

Slack is a team messaging app and collaboration hub for remote teams. It has communication features for companies that prefer back-and-forth direct messages (DMs), voice clips, video conferencing and more.

Slack channels organize your conversations into designated spaces that help the right people connect. For example, you may set up a channel for your entire team, each department or individual clients.

You can also connect one-on-one through DMs and use these private conversations to share documents, schedule meetings and communicate feedback.

Some of Slack’s key features include:

• Instant audio, video or screen-sharing chats with internal or external teams

• File sharing capabilities (e.g., PDFs, images, clips, etc.)

• Workflow automation builders for routine actions, like weekly reminders and employee check-in surveys

• AI capabilities to summarize conversations and search more efficiently

• Integrations with thousands of apps

According to one Capterra reviewer, Slack helps you share ideas through video just as well as text:

While Slack isn’t the cheapest software, it’s one of the most popular for standalone communication thanks to its organizational features.

Pricing: Slack has four plans ranging from the free limited tier to a custom option.

Final thoughts

The right employee management software for your team depends on your company size, required features, budget and more.

While one business may simply seek to automate staff task management, another may want to control most company-wide processes from a single platform.

Pipedrive’s all-in-one CRM comes with proprietary features, advanced customizability and vast integration possibilities that can combine to meet unique staff management software needs.