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It feels like there’s an endless number of cloud-based HR management and HRIS you could choose to use for your small business. How do you figure out which one is right for you?
Today we wanted to lift the lid on two popular HR software platforms — HiBob vs Employment Hero — and see how they compare for UK-based small businesses. We’ve done the research into the features, identified what makes them great contenders, and evaluated why they might not be the right fit for some users.
Let’s take a closer look at HiBob vs Employment Hero to see whether they’re a match for you or not.
HiBob (sometimes known simply as Bob) describes itself as “modern HR for modern businesses” and has a brand style and user experience to match. The platform’s focus is on helping businesses deliver HR experiences that are engaging and culture-rich, to drive productivity and retention.
Like any established HR platform, HiBob comes with a range of features including:
With a solid range of features, HiBob is a useful option for teams that only want to invest in one platform. You can easily manage onboarding, core HR tasks, and performance management from one place — without having to subscribe to individual, specialised tools (with the exception of payroll).
HiBob’s main attraction isn’t simply that it’s full of features, though. What stands out most is the focus on culture and engagement that exists not just within one feature, but throughout the platform itself.
HiBob can help your team introduce, nurture, and celebrate your company culture, mission, and values through features and options like:
With a range of solid, must-have HR operations tools and plenty of ways to engage your employees, HiBob stands as a great potential contender for a business looking for a new all-in-one HR system.
HiBob might sound like it has everything you need, but it’s always worth considering any cons alongside that list of pros. Throughout our research, these are the points that stood out the most as reasons why HiBob may not be the right HR software platform for your business.
When you look at the list of businesses that already use HiBob, it becomes clear that these aren’t your average small businesses. Big names like Huel, what3words, and fiverr have hundreds of employees, while you might have less than 50, and your needs are likely to be very different.
With so many features designed for big, global teams, small UK businesses can easily end up overwhelmed. Many of the features feel redundant, too detailed, or even a distraction — especially when it comes to culture and engagement.
Getting started with HiBob can be more complex than it needs to be for small businesses, too. Some of our customers that have made the switch from HiBob to Charlie reported that setup was time-consuming and required a lot of assistance from the customer support team.
It’s clear that HiBob is a tempting choice for any HR team that’s looking for high levels of engagement, with a rich focus on company culture and driving productivity and growth through togetherness — but that might not be relevant to you. Maybe you already have ways of nurturing culture that you want to keep, or it’s simply not a focus for you right now.
For teams that don’t need their HR system to focus on employee experience and engagement, HiBob might not be the best match. You won’t get the most value from the tools and features, and they may conflict with what you’re already doing.
While you don’t have to use every culture-focused feature, there’s likely to be a platform out there that’s better suited to the way you want to run HR operations than HiBob.
Trying to compare software without easily available, transparent pricing can make the process unnecessarily difficult. Unfortunately, HiBob doesn’t publicly display pricing on their website — but we hear from customers that have switched that
HiBob’s pricing isn’t always small business-friendly.
Some ex-customers mentioned that they used to pay around £10 per employee per month, and that’s for a company size of less than 50 employees. You might find volume discounts for larger, scaling businesses, but that doesn’t help if your business is new or intentionally small.
Employment Hero is an all-in-one platform that brings HR, recruitment, payroll, and benefits management together. That’s very appealing if you’re looking to replace multiple systems with one subscription, or if you’re just starting out and want a HR tech tool that can grow with your team.
With a wide range of functions, it’s no surprise that Employment Hero is packed with key features. Some of the main highlights when it comes to HR include:
Employment Hero doesn’t just handle core HR tasks, though. If you’re looking for a tool that does more, you might be interested in these bonus features and benefits:
Employment Hero’s wide scope of functions and features makes it appealing to businesses that want everything in one place. And unlike HiBob, Employment Hero can handle payroll functions within the software itself — with no need to integrate with another payroll platform.
Like HiBob, Employment Hero works for some teams and not others. If you’re looking for a platform that does it all, it could be the right match. But if not, you might find that there’s another tool that can offer you more. Here’s what to keep in mind as you consider Employment Hero as your HR solution of choice.
Employment Hero is a tool that covers a lot of bases, which is great for some businesses but off putting for others. If you don’t need support with payroll, global hiring, or benefits management, then a lot of what the platform has to offer can feel unnecessary and overwhelming.
You can limit your exposure to unnecessary features by selecting a HR-only plan, but within these there are still features you may not need — like recruitment reporting, employee recognition, and an employee app. For a small business with only a handful of employees, the range of features could easily become unmanageable.
You can create your own custom bundle from Employment Hero’s various
HR and payroll plans, which is ideal for some users. However, the range of different subscription plans and options is too complex for others.
From talking to our customers, we’ve discovered that many small businesses want subscriptions and pricing plans that are clear and simple. That’s why at Charlie there’s one plan that includes everything, for an affordable monthly price.
Like HiBob, Employment Hero wasn’t designed with small businesses in mind. While you can use their software in the same way a larger business would, many of the features, functions, and details might not feel relevant.
If you’re only hiring within the UK, you won’t benefit from the platform’s Employer of Record feature. Other extras, like the built-in learning management system and applicant tracking system, may also be beyond your requirements at this stage.
It’s difficult to crown any outright winner when comparing HiBob vs Employment Hero, as both HR platforms have their strengths and weaknesses. Let’s recap some of the pros and cons of both:
HiBob and Employment Hero are both popular HR software tools with all the core HR features you need and positive user reviews. But they’re both built with larger, scaling businesses in mind — with tools, features, and a setup process to match. If you’re looking for a HR tool that’s designed with UK small businesses in mind, check out Charlie.
Charlie gives you access to everything you need to streamline your HR operations and make HR feel effortless. Automate HR tasks like onboarding and time off management, run performance reviews, distribute benefits, and engage your employees with user-friendly surveys — all from within one platform designed with you in mind.
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.
