BambooHR Pricing Guide and Review

With over 13,000 client organizations in operation today and more than one million employees using it, BambooHR’s software has a pretty big footprint in the HR and performance management industries. While BambooHR’s main focus is HR management software, it also includes performance management software as an add-on within its suite of services.

BambooHR’s software program allows employees to communicate with team leads and executives. This well-reviewed service comes in two tiers – Essentials and Advantage – but its performance management tools are available as an add-on module rather than through the two main plans.

This review looks primarily at BambooHR’s performance management features and pricing options. These allow businesses to track the performance of employees, teams, and their entire organization, using specific metrics that are clearly communicated to all employees and supervisors.

Here, we’ll cover BambooHR’s core features, as well as its broad range of support options. We’ll then explain more about its pricing structure, before delivering our final verdict on how useful a service it offers.

BambooHR: Core Performance Management Features

BambooHR’s Performance Management add-on lets employees create goals, document feedback for themselves, their managers and their peers, and fill out regular assessments. Using this information, managers can generate reports for employees, or the entire company. Here’s a bit more detail about the main features that let all this happen.

In this guide:

• BambooHR: Core Performance Management Features
• Set Up and Customer Support
• BambooHR Plans and Pricing
• BambooHR Alternatives
• The Verdict
• Frequently Asked Questions

User Profiles

When logged in, users will see a left-hand sidebar featuring information about their position. This includes their hire date, their department, their location, their manager, and their direct reports. A menu bar across the top of their screen divides the software into its main categories: Personal, Job, Benefits, Documents, Training, and Assets. It’s an intuitively designed interface that lets users keep track of their goals, data, and relationships to others within the company.

Performance Reviews

Employee performance reviews are never fun, especially when they take the form of an hours-long flop-sweaty annual event. Like many performance management services, this is one essential chore that BambooHR streamlines and smooths out. Instead of a yearly review, employees can receive regular, frequent feedback throughout the year – a practice that lets rewards be delivered after successes, rather than at the end of the year.

Employees can log into BambooHR to answer questions about their work and their managers at set intervals across the year (every three months is a popular option). These set, specific questions leave less room for subjectivity, making the process more transparent and fair. The entire timeline can be reviewed quickly within the software. In addition, employees and managers can collaborate on goals, which come complete with due dates, a bar that tracks percentage of completion, and a commenting function.

Talent Management

Spring-boarding off the performance reviews, BambooHR’s performance appraisal software helps managers know what to do with the information they’re tracking. Greater accuracy leads to smarter decisions: Managers can easily figure out the next action needed for each employee, from bonuses or promotions to disciplinary actions. Custom email alerts can also be created to ensure no employee milestones are missed.

Employees will feel like they are being heard, and will stay engaged with the company as a result. And, since talent management all happens slowly and clearly, no one feels ambushed or surprised by the result.

Employee Performance Reports

Finally, managers can generate visually rich reports in order to get a full picture of the entire company’s performance, and where each employee stands in relation to other individuals and teams. Employees can be displayed on a chart, with engagement levels tied to an X axis and performance levels tied to a Y axis. This chart automatically locates the rock stars who may feel under-valued, and the low-performers who might need better incentives.

Video Highlight: Customer Reviews

Here’s one video showcasing how BambooHR’s Customer Reviews feature helped a company trim down their laborious hours-long review process, and turn it into a simple, useful part of their performance management process. A few of the keys to their success? Getting specific and keeping supervisors on the same page as employees. Watch the rest of this six-minute video for more.

Set Up and Customer Support

BambooHR offers a phone support line which is open 12 hours a day for its customers, as well as email support that can be accessed through a support request form on BambooHR’s website.

In addition, a number of online resources are available 24/7 to anyone with an internet connection, including a help center, blog, content library, webinar library, HR Glossary, and a series of tutorial videos hosted on YouTube.

Customers can also share feedback though a Product Feedback form on the service’s website.

Support & Training

BambooHR Plans and Pricing

BambooHR offers two different pricing plans: Essentials and Advantage.

The Essentials package starts at around $6 per employee per month, and offers basic HR functionality, like employee records and benefit tracking, along with some employee self-service features, like time-off management and company calendar.

The Advantage plan starts at around $8 per employee per month. This plan adds hiring features, like onboarding and training tracking, along with some advanced components, like high-level reporting and company branding.

Live demos of the software can be scheduled, while a 7-day free trial is also available. The Performance Management add-on is available on both plans for an additional undisclosed price. You’ll need to contact BambooHR’s sales team to find out the exact cost for your business.

BambooHR Alternatives

While BambooHR certainly represents one of the better performance management and HR software providers on the market, it obviously isn’t the only option. For example, if you’re looking for an affordable solution, our best bet would be PeformYard, or if it’s compensation and performance management software you’re after, Performance Pro would be our best bet.

There are many great choices when it comes to performance management, however, and we’ve collected data on a lot of them to help you decide for yourself. Take a look at this in-depth table to see what these providers offer, as well as their pros, cons, and core benefits to keep your team working effectively and efficiently.

Frequently Asked Questions