Zoho is a provider of all sorts of business solutions that are affordable yet on par with the market’s most popular offerings. Zoho People is a great example of this, being a 360° HR solution that’s robust, user-friendly, and affordable.
Ratings
Ease of Use
Best For
Key Differentiator
Price
Free Trial
PROS
- All core HR features in a single dashboard
- Wide array of integrations
- User-friendly UI, constantly updated
- Available in multiple languages
CONS
- Since they offer so many modules, some may be not as robust as other products that have been more specific about covering certain needs. For instance, some teams have found their payroll offering to be quite basic.
- Not all that’s available in the web platform is available in the app
- Some users reported that the platform can be slow to load every now and then.
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Zoho is an Indian software company that makes all kinds of business software, from IT management to bookkeeping tools. Naturally, they also offer a cloud-based Human Resources Management System that we’ve found checks most boxes in most HR manager’s list of requirements.
This entails features like employee onboarding, performance management, time and attendance tracking, employee self service, database management, and much more. Their list of features is quite lengthy, and although it gets longer and longer with every plan, the essentials one is already quite complete. For example, wider plans like Premium ($3/user/month if billed annually) include OKR and goal tracking, a skill set matrix and advanced HR analytics.
Now, if some plans seem a bit basic, one cool thing about Zoho People is that certain modules are available as add-ons. For instance, this is the case of their learning management system, which features targeted learning, feedback, course customization, and a forum-like system for discussions.
It offers several key workflows that we can leverage to enhance our HR operations.
- Employee On-boarding: Zoho People simplifies the onboarding process by automating tasks such as creating employee profiles, collecting necessary documents, and assigning onboarding tasks to relevant stakeholders.
- Time and Attendance Management: It enables accurate tracking of employee attendance, including clock-in/clock-out times, breaks, and leave requests.
- Leave Management: It ensures transparency in leave policies, simplifies the approval process, and maintains accurate leave records.
- Performance Management: It facilitates goal setting, performance evaluations, and feedback mechanisms. Managers can define objectives, track progress, conduct appraisals, etc.
- HR Analytics and Reporting: It allows us to generate reports on various HR metrics, such as employee attendance, leave utilization, performance ratings, and turnover rates. These insights enable data-driven decision-making and help identify areas for improvement.
Pros -
- Comprehensive HR Management: It provides a centralized platform for managing all HR-related tasks, simplifying processes, and increasing efficiency.
- Mobile Accessibility: It offers a mobile app that enables employees and managers to access HR-related information and perform essential tasks on the go.
- Scalable and Customizable: It offers scalability, allowing us to accommodate our growing needs. It's highly customizable, and allows us to tailor the software to our specific HR workflows and requirements.
We majorly use it for attendance & leave management. Zoho People helps in keeping a track record of each & every employee. Other than that it provides Efficient HR Management, Employee Self-Service, seamless collaboration between HR teams and employees, Comprehensive Analysis of key HR metrics, etc. I personally have been using it for the past 1.6yr
- Customer Support Response Time: The support response time is slower. This affects the resolution of critical issues.
- Pricing Structure: The pricing structure is relatively higher compared to other HR management software options in the market.
- Learning Curve: It has certain features, which may require a learning curve for new users. Getting familiar with the platform and understanding its functionalities might take some time, particularly for users who are not familiar with HR management software tools.
I have used Workday HCM in the past and I feel ZOHO People is better as it provides better UI at a very cheaper price. It is not possible for small or mid-size organizations to afford workday
Following things should be kept in mind while deciding on such tools-
- Size of the organization
- Goals of the organization regarding growth & increase in team size in future
- Price of the product
- Number of users it allows to access
Zoho People has evolved in the following ways -
- Continuous Feature Enhancements: Zoho People has consistently improved its feature set based on user feedback and market trends. It has undergone regular updates and enhancements to offer new functionalities and improve the overall user experience.
- Mobile Accessibility: Recognizing the growing importance of mobile devices, Zoho People has expanded its mobile capabilities.
- Integration Capabilities: It has focused on integration with other Zoho applications, such as Zoho CRM, Zoho Recruit, and Zoho Analytics, to provide a comprehensive suite of tools for businesses.
- Automation and Workflow Customization: It has placed an emphasis on automation and workflow customization features. Users can define their own workflows, set up approval processes, and automate routine HR tasks.
- Self-Service Portals: It has expanded its self-service capabilities. The software offers self-service portals where employees can access their personal information, submit leave requests, manage time and attendance, view payslips, and collaborate with their teams.
IT companies
Academic Organizations like schools & colleges
We use it for leaves requests and approvals, document sharing with the whole organisation, time and attendance tracking, as well as location tracking to know which employees are working on site and which are working remotely.
Generally, we use it as a centralised source to manage all data related to employees.
- It's centralised and easy to use, a new user can navigate it easily.
- Leave balance and leave approvals, pending etc makes it very easy and seamless.
- We get the exact working hours of each employee, work anniversary and birthdays too to send our best wishes.
We have been using Zoho People for the past couple of years. We needed a software tool for managing attendance, leaves, announcements, sharing docs etc, and Zoho People was the best option out there. We are happy so far. Recently we started using the check-in and check-out reminder options too.
- Sometimes employees face the issue of not being able to log in and out due to the website being down.
- It's a bit expensive.
- We can not have calls through it.
- They should check out all the services provided if it covers all of their needs.
- The budget should also be considered as the platform can be a bit expensive but it is worth it.
- I would suggest having a go at the free trial to be sure.
Yes it keeps adding new features and the user interface has become seamless over the years. Great work.
Companies with a hybrid work mode; you can track the log-in and log-out locations if needed.
I think it is a good product and will work with most organisations.
All of my team members are on Zoho. It starts with onboarding a candidate to our organization with the help of Zoho People, keeping the important documents, daily attendance, leave trackers, etc.
- I like the integration among the Zoho applications which makes life way easier.
- It also provides me with a wide range of features apart from attendance, leave, etc. so I keep trying new things.
- It was easy to set up; I didn't need to wait for an expert to set it up.
I just started my organization and wanted to keep records of their attendance, leaves, employee records, etc. I was using Zoho Books and was happy with that so I thought of trying Zoho People for HRMS. It has been nearly 3 years since I'm using Zoho People.
- There should be a few more integration options with other external software.
- The UI can be improved so interaction over the platform becomes easier.
- Sometimes changing the policies is difficult as quite a lot of things are interconnected.
I have used GreytHR and I found Zoho is quite advanced with a lot more features.
I think it all depends on someone's requirement but I think for startups and small-medium companies, keeping operations simple is key, we should not be wasting our time in dealing with bulky software. In this regard, Zoho People comes handy with the level of integration available within Zoho applications that can fulfill most of your organization's needs.
I have not seen Zoho People change a lot in the last 3 years since I started. There were some minor changes to the UI and some of the features which I found useful.
I think it is good for startups and organizations with remote teams etc. Also, if someone is using some of the other Zoho applications then I think it completely makes sense to use Zoho People.
I can’t think of an organization it wouldn’t be suitable for, but for a large organization, it might be difficult to align with Zoho People's predefined policies/structure.
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Some of the companies that use Zoho people are ZPE Systems, Cloudfronts Technologies, Zomato, SpiceJet, and Foresight CFO.
- Time Off Management: This is where the one HR admin can set up time off policies, manage requests, offer compensatory time off, keep track of each employee’s holidays, and automate certain tasks.
- Employee Files: Coupled with the Employee Database, this basic document management tool allows the HR admin to store and organize all the relevant files for each employee.
- HR Process Automation: You can intuitively set up workflows for tasks like sending out paperwork, creating reports, and updating data fields.
- Employee Database Management: Tracking employee data and records is all made easier with a centralized HRIS. Zoho People syncs employee information across multiple systems.
Also included in most plans are:
- Employee onboarding
- Performance management
- Biometric integrations
- Time and attendance tracking
- Shift scheduling
- Billing and invoicing integration
- E-signature app integrations
- Reports
- Webhooks
- Mobile Apps for iOS & Android
Zoho's integrations vary according to the pricing plan. Their free plan, for instance, allows only for a Zapier connection so you may integrate with the rest of your tech stack. Their API functionality is available from the HR Essentials plan forward. This includes 250 calls per user license with a max of 5000 calls each day.
As we mentioned before, we find Zoho to be very straightforward and flexible about their pricing. You can upgrade at any time if your team size grows, or even downgrade to the free version if you’ve got the user count and find that you prefer it.
Zoho People is free for up to 5 users. After that, it has 4 plans that are priced as follows:
- Essential HR: $1.25/user/month billed annually
- Professional: $2/user/month billed annually
- Premium: $3/user/month billed annually
- Enterprise: $4.5/user/month billed annually
Zoho People has plans for many sorts of organizations, even offering custom pricing for those with more than 500 employees. The product is affordable enough to be used by small businesses and robust enough to handle the complex and scalable needs of large companies. Even the more expensive Zoho People plans can check all the HRMS boxes without breaking the bank.
Zoho People is cloud-based which makes it fairly easy to implement. To get started, head to Zoho People’s page and click the GET STARTED button at the top right-hand corner. This will take you to a page where you can create a trial account to test the platform’s features and offerings.
Whether it’s to ensure proper adoption, handle requests, or provide customer support, the team at Zoho has created many resources for customer success. These include a setup guide, welcome guide, blogs, webinars, a help center with articles and tutorials, and partner training. While this is all on the self-service side, customers can also submit a support request if further help is needed.
The Zoho story goes back to 1996, with the founding of AdventNet Inc. Back then, the company made a network management tool that was popular internationally, but mainly in the Japanese market. Then, in 2001, they launched Zoho CRM, which quickly became one of their best-selling apps.
Then, in 2005, the company caught up with the times and started offering cloud-based applications. They began with the Writer app, then Show (a presentation tool), creator (custom application builder), and Zoho Sheets. It wasn’t long until they realized that there could be a Zoho tool for just about every kind of business app. If you’re curious, the Zoho ‘about page’ actually has an interactive timeline where you can see the evolution of the company year to year. Nowadays, Zoho has over 75 million users worldwide, several offices across the globe, and more than 50 products for marketing, finance, customer and tech support, team collaboration, and of course, HR and recruitment.
Company HQ
Austin, Texas and Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Number of Employees
13,000+
Year Founded
1996
Amount Raised
FAQ
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