The hidden cost of a fragmented HR stack, and how Charlie can help consolidate it
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It’s normal to pick up new tools as your business grows, but over time this can lead to overwhelm and frustration, rather than making things easier. Your HR data is in multiple places, your systems don’t sync, and nobody’s sure where to find the information they need.
Your HR tech is fragmented and broken, and it’s impacting the way you work. If your tech stack feels like it’s costing you more than it’s worth, it’s time to look for a way to consolidate all your must-have features in one place.
How Charlie can help you consolidate your tech stack
It’s easy to get into this situation, but it’s also just as easy to bring all your HR needs together in one place. With Charlie, you can find similar features to these popular HR tech tools in one platform with one simple monthly subscription.
Time off replaces Timetastic & WhosOff
One of the first tools small businesses invest in is a way to track time off and annual leave. Many businesses sign up for a dedicated tool like Timetastic or WhosOff to do this.
A single-purpose tool works well at first, but it lacks capability as you grow. Charlie makes managing time off easy, along with plenty of other features too.
- Time-off management
- ✅
- ✅
- Wider range of calendar views
- ✅
- Monitor leave clashes by custom team or location
- ✅
- Flag overlapping team requests
- ✅
- Add custom company holidays
- ✅
- Apply multiple holiday policies
- ✅
- Pricing (for a team of 25)
- £100 per month for all Charlie features
- £30 per month
Why Charlie is the better option:
Charlie can handle all the time-off management that tools like Timetastic can, but with even more customisation and flexibility. Plus, Charlie isn’t just for time-off management — you gain all the other features too.
Team calendar replaces (or integrates with) Google Calendar, Outlook, iCal
A shared calendar is an ideal way to know who’s in the office, who isn’t, and what’s happening across the team and the wider company.
Tools like Google Calendar give you a clear and simple way to do this, but with Charlie you can add some extra functionality — like planning or managing leave requests.
- Shared calendar
- ✅
- ✅
- Easy integration with your HR data
- ✅
- Plan staff holidays directly within the calendar
- ✅
- Pricing (for a team of 25)
- £100 per month for all Charlie features
- £147.50 per month (as part of Google Workspace)
Why Charlie is the better option:
You get more value with Charlie’s staff holiday planner, thanks to the ability to manage time off within the calendar itself. If you’re a lifelong fan of Google Calendar, Outlook, or iCal though don’t panic — you can actually integrate Charlie with any of these tools to get the best of both worlds.
Company hub replaces Notion, Sharepoint, Confluence
HR isn’t just about managing time off and employee data, it’s also about providing information and enabling team members to access it when they need it. For this, you need a company hub — a place to store policies, documents, files, forms, and useful information.
Many teams invest in a tool like Notion, Sharepoint, or Confluence, but you can do similar with Charlie — and for no extra cost.
- Hub for company documents and files
- ✅
- ✅
- Directly integrated with your HR data
- ✅
- One place for all your team members to go for all things HR and company-related
- ✅
- Pricing (for a team of 25)
- £100 per month for all Charlie features
- £250 per month (for Notion Plus)
Why Charlie is the better option:
Notion is a popular tool for creating a company hub, but you can recreate a similar experience within Charlie thanks to its ability to handle files and documents. Plus, it’s in the same location as all your other HR information, making it easier for everyone to find and use.
Reviews replaces 15Five, Leapsome, CultureAmp
If you want to support and develop your team members, performance reviews are an essential part of your business.
While you can invest in standalone tools like 15Five, Leapsome, or CultureAmp, these come at a significant cost and are often designed for larger corporations than small business-friendly Charlie.
- Performance reviews
- ✅
- ✅
- Direct integration with your HR data
- ✅
- Built-in tasks and goals
- ✅
- Pricing (for a team of 25)
- £100 per month for all Charlie features
- £75 per month
Why Charlie is the better option:
For most small businesses, a standalone tool for performance reviews is beyond what you need. Take care of your performance review needs within Charlie and benefit from easy access to all your data, built-in goals and tasks, and a healthy financial saving too.
Polls replaces Typeform, Google Forms
It’s smart to monitor employee happiness and collect feedback, and employee engagement surveys allow you to do just that.
While you might start out with a tool like Typeform, you’ll soon realise that it doesn’t offer the same HR-specific functionality that a dedicated platform like Charlie does.
- Ability to run engagement surveys and custom polls
- ✅
- ✅
- Designed for small business HR needs
- ✅
- Integrated with your HR platform
- ✅
- Built-in engagement survey templates designed by People experts
- ✅
- One-touch responses
- ✅
- Integrated with your HR platform
- ✅
- Clear, simple reporting within your HR platform dashboard
- ✅
- Pricing (for a team of 25)
- £100 per month for all Charlie features
- Starting at £21 per month
Why Charlie is the better option:
Tools like Google Forms and Typeform are great for casual feedback forms or surveys, but when it comes to employee engagement surveys they lack the nuance and People expertise that a platform like Charlie offers.
Integrations bridge the gap between other must-have tools
Charlie specialises in offering small businesses the HR functions they need all in one place, but we recognise that there’s more to running a business than HR.
We want you to have easy access to best-in-class tools, which is why we have direct integrations with software including:
- Bonusly
- CultureBot
- Papershift
- PayCaptain
- Workable
- Xero
With our integrations, you can enjoy the Charlie experience and stick with your preferred tools for payroll, benchmarking, and more.
Ian Cartwright, COO of Mahabis
"My focus is all about scaling our business in the most efficient way and the more time I can free up from admin to do this, the better. CharlieHR makes time and employee management so easy. I love how it integrates with our Slack & weekly automated emails so everyone knows in advance who is where. Be it on holiday, working from home, sick or their birthday, so we never miss an important event.”
Simplify your HR tech stack with Charlie
We’re all too familiar with the issues caused by fragmented and overcomplicated HR tech stacks. Luckily, most of these tools let you cancel just as easily as you signed up, so you can make the switch to Charlie when you’re ready.
Curious? Book a demo and our expert sales team will walk you through the platform, showing you all the features you’re interested in and exploring how they can work together to simplify your HR tech stack. After that, there’s a no-commitment free trial, followed by a simple signup form when you’re ready to go.
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Written by:
Jenny Tattum
Jenny is a Senior Product Manager at CharlieHR. She has years of experience with product planning and development, and user research too – she put together this guide by collecting data and information on competitors so we could improve our product and tailor it to small business owners.
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FAQ for HR tool consolidation at Charlie
Explore some of the most commonly asked questions and answers about consolidating your HR tools with Charlie.
Fragmented HR stacks introduce delays, inefficiencies, and confusion. Team members don’t know where to find information, whether it’s still relevant, or how to contact someone for help. Data is stored in silos, leading to mistakes.
Managing multiple HR systems can be time-consuming and overwhelming, especially if there is overlap between the systems. With data in multiple places and different processes and workflows, it takes more time, energy, and financial cost to manage your HR operations — and can introduce the potential for risks, miscalculations, and human error.
A fragmented HR stack can expose you to more compliance risks than an all-in-one system. Tools have their own compliance capabilities, and some are more suitable for UK-based businesses than others. Managing access permissions across different tools can introduce compliance challenges, and it’s much harder to identify risks and maintain compliance across more than one system.
Charlie is a safe and secure HR system. At Charlie, we take security seriously, and are both Cyber Essentials certified and ISO 27001:2013 certified. Learn more about our approach to security.
Signing up for Charlie takes minutes, and you can get started as soon as you’re ready. When it comes to working alongside your existing systems, this depends on the individual tools, but we offer a range of integrations for popular HR-related software.
Charlie’s pricing is simple, with all our core features included in one monthly subscription. The pricing tiers increase along with the size of your team, offering you value for money as you grow your team. Charlie starts at just £20 per month for a team of 1-4 people.
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