Employment Hero review
The specialists behind Employment Hero founded the company after seeing poor HR processes at work – and now their platform promises to tackle every HR challenge while making employment easier, more effective, and more valuable for everyone involved.
The business has grown quickly since it was founded in 2014 – it’s reached unicorn status, with 300,000 businesses supported and over two million active users.
The company’s HR software is collected under a platform called EmploymentOS and aims to tackle hiring, payroll, management, learning, engagement, compliance, and more. It’s designed for SMBs facing a wall of employment complexity as they begin to grow, and there’s a strong emphasis within the business on adding AI functionality to enhance operations and improve efficiency for every customer.
The software was originally designed for Australian businesses. It now works globally, and the company especially focuses on Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, and Malaysia.
For more picks, see our guide to the best HR software
Employment Hero: Plans and pricing
Employment Hero is transparent about pricing - a refreshing attitude in a market where many companies won’t give you a price until you talk to sales. A free trial is also available, which is not the case with all HR solutions.
Employment Hero’s Standard package costs £4 (about $5.35) per employee per month and includes basic HR functionality like timesheets, employee record management, entry-level recruitment tools, and options to manage staff performance and leave. There’s also a basic, free payroll plan.
HR Premium costs £7 (about $9.37) and adds functionality including rostering and scheduling, budgeting, advanced recruitment tools, and performance reviews.
The HR Platinum product is only available directly from sales, although it will likely cost around £10 (about $13.38) per employee per month. At this tier, you get every feature from the previous two levels alongside learning and growth modules.
And if you want the maximum functionality from the solution, the Employment Unlimited tier unlocks additional learning tools, enhanced support, managed payroll, HR advisors, a recruitment agent, and a candidate-finding system called SmartMatch. This tier also adds Earned Wage Access and EAP Standard.
If you’d like more functionality and customization, all of those Employment Hero tiers are available with add-ons. Managed Payroll costs £12 ($16) per employee per month, and you can get HR and Employment Law Advisory for £6 ($8) monthly. A Learning Plus module provides development content to staff for £7 ($9.37) per employee per month.
Employment Hero’s full payroll functionality is sold as a separate product, too, that you can add to your HR package while you’re creating your overall solution.
Employment Hero: Features
While functionality depends on the Employment Hero package you choose, the platform is packed with features and focused on providing end-to-end management for SMBs, along with a “single source of truth” for vital data.
You’ll also find a solid amount of customization in Employment Hero’s higher-tier products, including the ability to create your own workflows and automations - a key part of any HR solution, especially one that aims to make life easier and maintain data integrity.
A central employee database, bolstered by ISO 27001:2013 certification, ensures accessibility and security, and an employee management module handles compliance, reporting, and certification to avoid bottlenecks and delays.
The time and attendance module can use optional photo-capture and geolocation features to support attendance tracking. Managers can create and manage schedules, track headcount, and analyze costs. There’s also a full leave management section.
Employees can log their own hours using a dedicated app or use a PIN-protected on-site system, and you can even let employees claim open shifts and create your own approval flows to avoid staffing shortages. On top of this, you’ll find budgeting, compensation, extensive reporting, and real-time alerting to ensure your staffing and spend stay on track.
The learning management system serves up tailored development journeys, industry-specific bundles of learning content, and options for tracking progress and tackling employee 1:1 meetings and reviews. If you’re interested in recruiting, depending on the tier you buy, you’ll get job posting, candidate screening, talent pipelines, recruitment analytics, and DEI tools. Employment Hero also functions as an Employer of Record in over 180 countries.
Sitting above this functionality is AI Hero - the software’s new artificial assistant. It’s designed to answer repetitive employee questions and save HR teams time by writing messages, job descriptions, and more. It can help personalize 1:1 meetings and summarize interviews, too.
Elsewhere, Employment Hero provides an employee management app for Android and iOS to simplify administration. There’s an API for easier integration with other systems, and Employment Hero integrates with third-party payroll tools like Xero and MYOB.
Employment Hero’s feature set is impressively broad, positioning the tool as an SMB-focused all-rounder. This solution combines core HR functionality with time and attendance tracking, recruitment, learning, automation, and now AI assistance – and it’s even better when you consider the features that are included once you go up the pricing tiers.
That said, be careful when checking which features you’ll actually get if you decide to invest in one of the more affordable tiers, because key features like workflows, learning tools, and additional HR and payroll support may not be included. This pricing structure is not unique to Employment Hero, but it’s worth remembering.
Employment Hero: Ease of use
Employment Hero’s developers concentrate on streamlined processes, modern interfaces, and user-friendly design, so it’s no wonder that this is one of the better-looking and more straightforward user interfaces on the market.
It’s an attractive system with clean typography and purple highlights. The dashboard includes a company feed, to-do list, key metrics, and a “launchpad” with quick links to common functions. You can add and remove widgets from the home page, create your own quick links, and click a button along the top of the app to launch Hero AI and see your notifications.
This tool makes a strong first impression, and the design is consistently impressive in other modules.
The People section makes it easy to access your employee database, files, vacancies, and offers, and you can also easily see vacancies, contractors, and an organization chart. Head into your employee database and you’ll find straightforward, sensible filtering options.
Other sections of the app are organized just as well. The design is consistent, which makes it easier for your HR teams to use the tool effectively, even if they’re not very experienced with HR software.
Reports are smart, attractive, and easy to parse, too – a common theme among any graphical elements in the Employment Hero interface.
Employment Hero: Support
The Employment Hero Service Center includes easy access to a knowledge base full of articles, an in-depth FAQ section and a system status page alongside a helpful community forum where you can discuss the software with other Employment Hero users.
If you need to contact support, the Hero AI bot is used as a triage step. If that mechanism hasn’t directed you to an answer, you can file a ticket and talk to a support agent using the chat system, and Unlimited customers get the option of phone support, too.
The primary support team is based in the UK and operates from Monday to Friday in UK business hours, which traditionally means from 9am until 5pm. Additional support teams are on hand to pick up tickets around the world if you file a support query outside of those UK hours.
Employment Hero: Competition
Anyone looking for an SMB-focused HR solution has plenty of options to choose from, even if you’re considering UK-based products.
Sage HR is another frontrunner if you need an all-in-one HR solution designed for SMBs, and IRIS is another comprehensive tool.
If you’d like to evaluate options that excel in specific areas, then you’ve got no shortage of choice, either. BambooHR and HiBob are superb when it comes to employee experience and engagement, and both have more engaging user interfaces than Cintra – although they’re a little weaker when it comes to payroll.
For a product that’s stronger with the financials, RUN Powered by ADP is an SMB-specific alternative, and Workable is excellent for recruitment.
Employment Hero: Final verdict
Employment Hero is a strong choice for SMBs that want a broad, well-balanced HR system that ticks most of the major functionality boxes, especially if you’ve got the budget to invest in one of the higher tiers and pack the product with add-ons.
The clean UI and automation tools make the system easier to use than many other options, and Employment Hero’s pricing transparency is refreshingly welcome in a marketplace that wants to drive potential buyers into conversations with sales teams.
There are drawbacks, though. The entry-level product misses out on expenses functionality, performance reviews, allowances and more features, while even in the HR Premium solution you don’t get workflows, learning tools, and some extra support – they’re only available at Platinum.
If you want to save money while getting some of those features, it pays to shop around – and, similarly, if you need enterprise-level complexity and functionality, you’ll want to look elsewhere too. Overall, Employment Hero is polished, easy to use, and a good all-rounder, but make sure you definitely get the features you need.
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