If there’s one thing we’ve learnt working with small businesses over the past 6 years, it’s that time is never enough.
The lack of time is the number-one obstacle to achieving People goals, and manual HR tasks are usually the cause — boring, repetitive processes that suck up all of your time and attention, distracting you from taking care of your team and your business.
That’s why we founded Charlie: to help HR managers automate their HR tasks and get the time, headspace and tools they need to build high-performing teams.
In this guide, we list our favourite HR automation software by taking into account different company sizes, budgets and the specific HR processes you may wish to automate — hope you find it useful!
Having worked in the HR automation software space for almost 7 years, we know what people love about CharlieHR — but we’ve also learnt that our product it’s not the right fit for everyone.
Our experience has taught us to look at these 2 decision factors when it comes to choosing the right HR automation software:
All the information you need about our favourite HR tools — all in one handy guide.
Compare features, prices and customer review scores.
As a small business or startup, you need your HR automation system to help you make your core HR processes more efficient — so you can stop wasting time on manual admin and focus on actually growing your company.
Your chosen tool also needs to be good value for money, and it’s important for its features to be scalable as you grow.
Let's have a look at the HR automation solutions we've researched - along with ours - as having been designed for small businesses.
CharlieHR is an all-inclusive HR software for small businesses and startups. It helps People teams by automating their HR tasks and giving them the tools they need to build engaged and high performing teams.
£4 per employee per month regardless of the size of the company, including all features and with no hidden fee. Cancel anytime.
Teamtailor is a modern and simple-to-use ATS (applicant tracking system) that helps small companies attract and hire top talent. Thanks to its automation features, Teamtailor drastically reduces your HR team’s time-to-hire.
Available on request.
Pento is a payroll automation solution that combines advice with tools to streamline your payroll processes and reduce manual tasks. They’re best suited for fast-growing startups and small companies in the UK.
Available on request.
Once you reach the 200 people mark, your HR needs will start to become more complex:
BambooHR is a comprehensive HR automation software ideal for businesses with more than 200 employees and based in the United States.
Two packages available (Essentials and Advantage) with add-ons at an extra cost. Exact pricing only available on request.
SageHR automation software offers five different packages, all tailored to the needs of medium-size companies, covering everything from core HR to annual leave management and shift-scheduling. They’re particularly strong at performance management.
£4 per employee per month for the Core HR package (including employee database, onboarding, time off management, analytics and reports). Performance management, shift scheduling, time sheets, expenses and recruitment come at additional costs.
Zoho is one of the best choices for teams working shifts, part-time or irregular hours. Companies can also create and automate timesheets online to track attendance and hours worked.
Multiple packages available, starting from £1 per user per month to £7 per user per month.
People HR is a good choice for midsize businesses that need to automate their recruitment processes. On top of onboarding, data storage and performance management, this platform offers an easy-to-use Applicant Tracking System to streamline hiring tasks.
Three different packages respectively at £5, £7 and £9 per employee per month.
Big corporations with thousands of employees distributed across multiple offices around the world have different needs when it comes to HR automation software.
They will need all-inclusive platforms that integrate with their finance and reporting databases. Also, whatever tool they use, they need it to be able to ensure consistency and compliance across their various locations.
Workday integrates HR, finance and operations data from all parts of your company, helping People teams and leadership make the right decisions and keep everything under control.
On quote — depending on the package and the industry
With Oracle Cloud HCM, you can migrate all of your current HR automation solutions to their cloud. Their comprehensive package covers document storage, analytics, employee self service and many other ways to automate your HR processes.
On quote, it depends on the package chosen by the company.
Personio is one of the most popular HRMS software for UK and European companies with over 200 employees.
It covers all your HR automation needs, with a particular focus on reporting.
Multiple packages available, starting from £1 per user per month to £7 per user per month.
Workable is a recruitment software chosen by many large businesses focused on scaling and automating their hiring. It streamlines time-consuming recruitment tasks for large companies.
Three different packages:
HR automation software is used to carry on tasks that would otherwise be performed manually.
One key characteristic is that hr automation software makes employee self service possible by allowing team members to carry on their own HR admin, without having to pass through the People team. In this case, you can also refer to it as HR self service portals.
Repetitive tasks that involve record keeping, calculations and data entry are the most common to be automated via HR automation tools.
But how you decide to automate your HR processes ultimately depends on what type of business you are and your business needs:
Check out these real life HR automation examples for some ideas on how you can supercharge your processes with the right tool.
With Charlie, you have everything you need to manage your team and craft your culture – no HR experience required.