The HR department is one of the most essential cogs in the corporate world.
In today’s virtual and remote employment scenario, organizations have a greater need to make their HR departments’ workloads easier with highly efficient management techniques and applications. One of the most widely used tools for such purposes is HR management software.
Efficiency, compliance, and insights – human resource management systems deliver it all! The software allows you to manage high-priority HR functionalities like recruitment, performance reviews, employee onboarding, and training. They are essentially modular in nature, allowing organizations to scale up and customize as they grow.
So if you're looking to include an efficient but free HR management software in your tech stack, we've got the best ones listed down for you!
*These are the leading free HR management systems at G2 as of October 2023.
The list below contains real user reviews from the best free HR management software in the market. It’s important to note that in the context of this list, vendors that offer a free trial are also considered free. To be included in this category, a solution must:
* This list is based on G2 data collected in October 2023. Some reviews may have been edited for clarity.
BambooHR provides small and medium-sized businesses with an affordable cloud-based system to track and manage essential employee information in a personalized human resource information system. It provides an affordable way for efficient HR functionalities with a mobile application option as well. The software offers a free trial to access all features for new users.
"Right from onboarding BambooHR right through to day-to-day usage, the system has been a breath of fresh air, especially compared to systems used in the past (including some of the top-most rated systems with all the bells and whistles). The support team is fantastic, and the regular updates that are added to the system keep it exciting."
- BambooHR Review, Pulak T.
“The performance module is not ideal for us. We are a municipal government organization and using it only for our City Manager and City Attorney, who both report to our 7-member City Commission. It is not flexible enough to use it for their actual evaluations, but we use it for them to keep track of their own performance factors."
- BambooHR Review, Jennifer L.
Personio is an all-in-one HR management software platform that upgrades HR tasks like payroll, benefits, talent, and workforce management. It's built for small and medium-sized companies with 10 to 2,000 employees and makes HR processes transparent and efficient. New users can try Personio for 14 days for free.
"Our employees enjoy using Personio as it is intuitive and modern, with a pleasant look and feel. As Head of People, I use the platform for all things HR and Recruitment, which has worked well for us as a company of around 45-50 employees. The ability to create multiple workflows and automate emails and processes saves a huge amount of manual time. Customer support is also very responsive and helpful."
- Personio Review, Jules F.
"Difficulties in adding bulk data from multiple resources is the only bottleneck of Personio and needed to be quickly addressed for improved functionality of the product in this regard."
- Personio Review, Olivia T.
Breathe is the go-to HR management solution for UK and Australian SMEs for moving their HR processes online. It offers an easy-to-use online system that allows HR professionals to save time and manage all operations on one platform. New users can sign up for a 14-day free trial to access all features.
“I like that it's extremely easy to use and clear. The notifications are very helpful. For example, when an employee is leaving, it emails you with key information, such as annual leave remaining. You can save a whole host of information about employees, and it's brilliant value for money for a small business like ours! (5 employees!) It also has an app that can manage employee absence on the go if needed. It was really easy to set employees up and roll out across the company. The help section is great, and I get a reply from customer support very quickly if I ever have a question."
- Breathe Review, Sonia C.
"There's no way of automating notifications to non-HR users of other staff absences. It would be great if line managers could be notified in advance and on the day of their staff absences. We're a small company, so it's not too difficult to email and let staff know, but it wastes time when it could be an automated process."
- Breathe Review, Gaby C.
GoCo is an easy-to-use, modern management system that can be used to automate HR processes like payroll delivery, employee onboarding, PTO, and benefits administration. It’s also a highly secure platform used to store and send confidential HR documents. New users can enjoy a 30-day free trial.
“GoCo is a user-friendly platform with clear instructions for onboarding. I really like the onboarding workflow that it provides for our new employees. In addition, GoCo has many partners they can recommend to you for benefits and other lines of coverage. It's a versatile tool without becoming too robust or confusing to navigate and administer, making it a perfect fit for our small team. The cost compared to other HRIS is not as risky, allowing you to see if it is indeed a good fit for your organization. GoCo also provides great resources outside of the HRIS platform itself with HR-focused webinars and a blog that stays relevant to the times.”
- GoCo Review, Michelle L.O.
“Some of the advanced features are complicated and take a decent amount of time and effort to learn and become comfortable enough to be useful. We have had several issues with API integrations with benefit carriers. There were a decent amount of set-up parameters that were not discussed in detail during implementation, which created some headaches later down the line. Not all the features work as pristinely as marketed, but well enough for the cost of GoCo.”
- GoCo Review , Angie H.
Odoo ERP is an all-in-one customizable solution for different business applications. The software is modular and integrated seamlessly to reduce manual effort and processes by automating input methodologies. Regardless of the company size and budget, Odoo helps keep all business functions in one place for better collaboration between teams.
"Odoo has a variety of modules that effectively make it a powerful tool in managing your small business from end to end. From HR to Accounting, to Sales and even Purchasing, Logistics, EDM—you name it. Odoo probably has it."
- Odoo ERP Review, Ranee Beatrix B.
"Because it is open source, Odoo is supposed to be easier to modify. Despite this, it is complicated to find accurate information for programmers on how to do it. There is a lot of data. However, it is not well organized. Some of the landing pages within the system are not manipulable/changeable by the user."
- Odoo ERP Review, Gerardo H.
Cinode provides a modular solution for companies of all sizes. It offers features like recruitment and onboarding support, employee profiles with skill tracking, performance management, training and development management, etc. Cinode allows customization to meet unique HR needs, making it a valuable resource for ensuring employees have the skills required for project success.
“What I appreciate most about Cinode is its seamless ability to streamline documenting project experiences documentation and skill presentation. As a BI Consultant, I rely on its user-friendly interface to effortlessly create personalized CVs, allowing me to make strong impressions on potential clients. Moreover, its collaborative features provide a unique platform for my consultancy team to explore each other's skills and experiences, fostering a culture of knowledge sharing and growth."
- OrangeHRM Review, Max P.
“The platform provides a solid foundation for managing professional information, but it could go a step further by offering more in-depth analytics and insights into career progression trends and opportunities."
- OrangeHRM Review, Anders N.
Factorial offers state-of-the-art automation tools that allow HR departments to focus on people and not paperwork. It helps to simplify key tasks like PTO, Time off, Document manager, HR Reports, etc., and create new workflows through user configuration. The platform is free for 14 days for all new users.
"Easy to use! Covers everything in an employee lifecycle. The Factorial team is ever helpful regarding us navigating around it. Almost biweekly additions to what it offers."
- Factorial Review, Jay C.
“The system is relatively new and always evolving. Whilst this is very exciting, it does also mean that the help guides are not always up to date."
- Factorial Review, Kathryn M.
Access People HR is designed for small and medium-sized businesses as a platform for various HR functionalities like applicant tracking, personnel tracking, and performance review. It eases managing new job profiles and creating custom pages for job descriptions matching the company’s branding. Start exploring its use cases today with the free trial!
"It's an effective HRIS that can be integrated with a number of their other platforms, so we hope to find new efficiencies over the coming year (integrating with payroll, LMS, etc). PeopleHR has a really straightforward interface that was quick to roll out across the organization. We're pleased that they've recently improved their customer support, with lots of guides available (eg for creating custom reports, workflows) and with quick response times to any inquiries that need further investigation."
- Access People HR Review, Graham H.
"The user experience is not engaging or intuitive; if you need documents signed, they aren't where users think they should be. For example, they aren't in the 'tasks' tab but in the 'about me' tab, which is counterintuitive"
- Access People HR Review, Peter E.
PeopleForce helps streamline the employee performance management process. It offers a centralized solution to enhance all HR processes at every stage of the employee life cycle. It enables companies to plan, review, and develop goals and competencies for optimum results. New users can start using it at no cost, as PeopleForce comes with a free trial.
"Peopleforce is easy to use, easy to set up, and extremely accessible for the users. It can easily serve as a backbone to all the HR processes within the organization. The number of features is very good, and the speed with which new ones are coming is even better. Customer Support is of the top quality. Very responsive."
- PeopleForce Review, Wojtek W.
“I do think that there are a couple of features that could be improved. It is the need to have several days blocked out to request PTO. We'd really appreciate if that could be added."
- PeopleForce Review, Maria Catalina M.
OrangeHRM is a free and open-source HR management software that offers a world-class experience to millions of HR professionals. It doesn't let companies settle for a one-size-fits-all policy and provides great tools to manage culture, talent, people, and compensation.
"After using it for around 6-7 months, I really like OrangeHRM, and what I appreciate about OrangeHRM is its user-friendliness and versatility. It offers a range of helpful features for HR tasks. The way it streams the employee management process is praiseworthy. However, occasionally, navigating through some modules can be a bit confusing. Overall, OrangeHRM is a valuable tool for our HR management."
- OrangeHRM Review, Vijay M.
"Need to add some plugins to connect with other software like Odoo or some kind of other ERP software that handles almost all the large amount of data. It will help the software to get more reach in the world of software."
- OrangeHRM Review, Abdul A.
With these highly scalable and modular free HR management software solutions at your disposal, managing and streamlining common HR processes should be easy and straightforward. You can schedule manual and repetitive tasks, store and manage confidential employee information, and have your entire employee database within reach.
In addition, factoHR has identified that among the global HR executives, about ⅔ believe in experiencing a massive digital transformation in the field, of which only 40% possess any actionable planning at hand. Moreover, investments are expected to increase in the next two years, especially in the areas of HR analytics, AI, and process automation.
As we move ahead in a unique corporate environment, human resource management has been amped up to a completely different level of importance to manage remote employees and reform organizational policies.
Learn more about the essential functions of human resource management.
Transform your HR operations with the best free HR management software solutions today!
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