18 Best People Management Software to Manage Talent

Lack of work-life balance, ineffective management, and lack of alignment between interests and assignments are among the major reasons for employee turnover, as per the Work Institute 2024 Retention Report. You can prevent all these and have a more engaged and productive workforce if you use people management tools to track your employee performance and engagement.

People management software is a suite of tools that streamlines HR tasks, such as recruitment, onboarding, performance management, and employee development. Its primary objective is to help organizations effectively manage their human resources across all stages of the employee lifecycle so that they can stay productive and help the company achieve its objectives. 

If your employee turnover rate is high, you should consider using people management software for enhancing employee engagement and fostering a positive work culture. By providing valuable insights, the applications enable you to make data-driven decisions about your employees and take necessary action in time to ensure a positive employee experience.

To help you pick the right software, here is my list of the top people management software I have chosen after reviewing 20 applications.

• 1. Lattice – Best for Talent Management and Engagement
• 2. Zoho People – Free People Management Software
• 3. Rise – Best for Small Business
• 4. Sage People – Best for Global Enterprise
• 5. BambooHR – Best for Growing SMBs
• 6. Leapsome – AI-powered People Platform
• 7. Personio – Trusted by Over 14000 Businesses
• 8. 15Five – Used by 3000+ Companies, Including HubSpot, MongoDB, Udemy
• 9. Connecteam – Best for Deskless Workforce
• Show moreShow less

People Management Software Comparisons

You can take a look at the differentiating criteria of our top picks to make your decision. I’ve included the features available with the starting plan for comparison.

Let’s now look at the features and my review of the people management tools that also function as workforce planning tools.

1. Lattice

More than 5000 HR teams trust Lattice to manage their employees by storing information and gathering their sentiments. It elevates your people operations management experience with its integration with ATS, benefit management, HRIS, payroll, and communication apps. On average, it reduces admin time by 78%.

Lattice empowers managers with goal and risk tracking so they can focus on individual and team OKR. They can have highly productive 1:1 meetings with auto-suggested action items and stay updated with the weekly tasks and sentiment updates of the employees.

Lattice performs engagement surveys for employee performance tracking to utilize the data to improve productivity. US-based companies can leverage its AI-powered workflows to communicate with teams in real time and quickly process team approvals.

I like how it helps you make better decisions based on employee insights. Going through the data, you can understand how the employees feel and work to help them achieve their target. Moreover, its Analytics Explorer lets you visualize and compare employee record metrics so you learn insights that strengthen your business strategy.

Here’s one of the metrics from the Lattice people management software dashboard. It provides insights into manager-employee 1:1 meetings, tracking participation and setup rates over a specific period. It lets HR teams to monitor engagement trends using different data points such as participation percentages. I am impressed with the Lattice benchmarks feature, which provides comparative insights to understand how their engagement metrics stack up against industry standards.

Lattice Features

• Securely store employee data and create reports for sharing.
• Automated onboarding process and payroll.
• Consistent compensation cycle management with budgeting.
• Team analytics to understand employee sentiment.
• Individual career development plans to improve retention.

Lattice Pricing

• Talent Management — $11/seat
• HRIS — $11/seat

Engagement, Grow, and Compensation plans come as add-ons and cost you additional charges per seat.

Explore Lattice

2. Zoho People

Zoho People facilitates effective employee management by simplifying the related operations. From recruitment to employee performance tracking to training employees, you can do these all from one platform.

You can access and share all employee documents without worrying about their security. Quick employee invitations and workforce classification based on location and departments save you time and make HR processes easier.

Zoho People enables you to create a connected ecosystem based on powerful data synchronization and integrity. It helps you have a better flow and visibility into your business information.

Zoho People interface displays an employee profile with multiple management tabs, including career history, attendance, leave, timesheets, and job-related data, allowing HR teams to access critical employee information in one place. The left-side menu lets us navigate to key functions such as onboarding, leave tracking, time tracking, employee engagement, and other reports.

I am impressed by its case management system that enables employee-facing teams of an organization to answer the questions asked by employees. It lets you customize HR workflows to create foolproof processes. I also like the comprehensive employee profile view, which displays everything from performance data to job roles, making it easy for HR teams and managers to monitor employee progress and engagement in a single dashboard.

Zoho People Features

• Centralized global employee data visualization.
• Employee shift mapping and automatic shift rotation.
• Annual and eNPS surveys for employee engagement.
• Set goals for individuals and track their progress.
• Skill enhancement with self-paced LMS.

Zoho People Pricing

• Essential HR — $1.24/user/month
• Professional — $2/user/ month
• Premium — $3/user/month
• Enterprise — $4.50/user/month
• People Plus — $9/user/month

Explore Zoho People

3. Rise

Stay super organized with your company’s people using Rise. It prioritizes employee growth by showing the interests and talents of the people. You can understand the organizational structures and connections better, which helps you fill the role gaps.

You can create, share, and download reports on headcounts, salaries, and turnover rates using dynamic filters. It allows you to assign onboarding tasks to the new hires so they get a smooth onboarding experience. Moreover, sharing company resources such as HR policies and company vision and mission is easy on this employee lifecycle management tool.

In my opinion, the best feature of this tool is its mobile people management app, available for Android and iOS users. It allows your employees to contact their colleagues via email and phone without needing to search for contact information from HR and admin.

Rise Features

• Easily create and edit custom organizational chart
• Personalized employee profile with important dates and milestones.
• Email employment contracts and other company documents.
• Cloud data center with enterprise-grade encryption.
• Mobile apps that allow employees to contact their colleagues

Rise Pricing

• Start — $8/user/month
• Grow — Custom
• Optimize — Custom

Explore Rise

4. Sage People

Sage People facilitates workforce optimization and flexibility with configurable workflows and improved productivity. It not only automates your HR processes, but also provides powerful insights so that you can make better business decisions.

Sage People empowers managers with flexible tools for leave and absence management. It automates the time-off management process and generates reports, saving you valuable time. You can even group the employees based on categories such as location and function to customize internal communications.

Like other talent acquisition platforms, Sage People’s Talent Acquisition module helps you secure the best talents in the market with its AI candidate matching feature. You can even run payroll for US and UK employees from the same platform using its integrated payroll solution that seamlessly connects with HR. Hence, there is less chance of data error and complete elimination of manual data entry.

Sage People Features

• Hierarchy-based organizational chart with contact details.
• Performance management tools like 360-degree feedback.
• People management workflow automation across the globe.
• Configurable alerts and actions for automation.
• Easy implementation of global policies and local regulations.

Try Sage People

5. BambooHR

If you are looking for a comprehensive platform with payroll and HR solutions, you must try BambooHR. It saves you from double data entry and manual approval processes, making way for accurate payroll.

BambooHR comes with time tracking & attendance systems that enable you to track time spent on different categories, assign multiple pay rates to each employee, and analyze resource distribution.

It also functions as performance evaluation software powered by features like topical reviews and 360-degree feedback tools. BambooHR provides you with insights into employee behavior, their strengths, and weaknesses. You can create custom review cycles for different teams.

BambooHR’s people management dashboard helps organizations track job roles, team assignments, and internal mobility. The candidate and position tracking system allows managers to oversee open roles, monitor team growth, and collaborate on hiring decisions.

I like BambooHR’s emphasis on HR reporting and analytics. It generates detailed workforce analytics reports of 49 types, such as workforce planning, PTO, and employee turnover. BambooHR even saves them on your dashboard for easy future access.

BambooHR Features

• Single software to manage employee data and get valuable insights.
• Recruit the best talent and onboard them hassle-free.
• Integrated payroll facility with time tracking and benefits.
• Manage employee recognition and rewards.
• eNPS survey to measure employee satisfaction.

Try BambooHR

6. Leapsome

Being an AI-driven platform, Leapsome makes you manage your people with seamless onboarding and training. Whether you are worried about remote workforce management or streamlining team performance, it plays a crucial role in resolving your problems, providing 14% higher ROI than its competitors.

Leapsome supports integration with popular ATS, SSO, and HR tools that only take a few clicks to get connected and simplify employee lifecycle processes. This GDPR-compliant platform is highly scalable and follows the best practices in the industries.

It lets you set flexible goals for your company and track them, cutting on admin time. You can customize the goal visibility to maintain security. Leapsome’s goal analytics increases accountability among the teammates.

My favorite feature of Leapsome is its AI capabilities. Its AI features are optional, so organizations can enable or disable this feature according to their preference. Leapsome AI analyzes key themes of employee surveys so that you do not have to go through them manually and get actionable insights from them. It even empowers teams by setting up goals and making learning-oriented recommendations.

Leapsome offers granular access controls for performance reviews, allowing organizations to enable, restrict, or disable access for employees based on role or need. The role-based administration settings let companies assign specific users as review admins, ensuring controlled management of evaluations.

Leapsome Features

• Centralized employee data storage with role-based access.
• Customizable workflows and multilevel approvals in HR processes.
• 1:1 and team meetings with internal and external attendees.
• Transparent time-tracking for accurate payroll and compensation.
• On-demand leadership courses and personalized development plans.

Try Leapsome

7. Personio

Personio is a workforce management platform with features such as HR workflow automation, payroll & benefits administration, and compensation management. It accelerates manual tasks, reducing errors and increasing efficiency.

Its time-tracking feature smoothly integrates with HR data to offer compliance across the border. It offers payroll automation that lets you run payroll for your company in just 2 steps. Personio allows you to communicate directly with the social insurance provider,s avoiding a time-consuming process.

It enables you to consolidate salary data and handle complex compensation. I was intrigued by its built-in exchange rate feature that handles multi-currency scenarios. It helps you to be more transparent with employee salary and reduce bias.

Personio stores and maintains all employee data and documents in one location, adhering to HR policy compliance so you can find any data easily. It creates a clear, central database, saving you time that you can invest in growing employee satisfaction.

Personio Features

• Manage digital employee files and documents in the same place.
• Automated workflows with templates or no-code workflow builder.
• Onboarding tasks for the new employees with automatic reminders.
• Templates and customizable reports for people insights.
• Customizable employee review cycle and feedback sharing.

Try Personio

8. 15Five

As an employee engagement software, 15Five focuses on maximizing employee preferences and reducing employee turnover rates for your company. It assists you in retaining the best talents by showing them clear career paths at your organization. With required competencies, it helps them discover roles that will bring out their best performance.

In my opinion, 15Five is worth trying because of its HR outcome dashboard. It functions as a strategic command center, providing AI-powered recommendations to improve employee performance and organizational success.

Its advanced filters let you visualize organizational trends and generate reports, helping with better decision-making. You can assign action plans to managers and team leads and ensure accountability by tracking the progress.

15Five Features

• Actionable surveys on onboarding, performance, and experience.
• Real-time visibility into employee engagement and performance.
• Sync and async conversations between managers and employees.
• Create hyper-focused action plans and track them.
• Predictive Impact Model for survey analysis and prediction.

15Five Pricing

• Engage — $4/user/month
• Perform — $10/user/month
• Total Platform — $16/user/month

Try 15Five

9. Connecteam

Reduce 26% compliance violations using Connecteam. It makes everyday task management easy by keeping you connected with the employees and letting you focus on your business growth.

Managers and admins leverage its mobile checklists, form templates, and conditional forms to perform their daily operations while staying on track with live reports. It offers multiple tools for internal communication so you can stay connected with every employee and provide them with the necessary information.

Connecteam is suitable for a variety of industries, such as retail, construction, hospitality, manufacturing, food and beverage, and field services. This much-needed flexibility eliminates the need for using multiple solutions and allows you to scale up without any worries.

According to me, the best feature of Connecteam is its employee Timeline. It contains all the crucial events of an employee’s lifetime, such as annual reviews, salary raises, and personal requests. It works as a transparent way to stay updated with the license and training status of the employees.

Connecteam Features

• Simplified onboarding with document and certificate upload.
• Issue and manage digital employee ID cards.
• Create quizzes and courses and track team progress.
• Submit time-off and absence requests.
• Employee recognition with gift cards or private recognition.

Connecteam Pricing

• Basic — $29/month for first 30 users with $0.5/mo/additional user
• Advanced — $49/month for first 30 users with $1.5/mo/additional user
• Expert — $99/month for first 30 users with $3/mo/additional user
• Enterprise — Custom

Try Connecteam

More People Management Solutions for you

Here are some more noteworthy people management tools that deserve honorable mentions.

10. OneAdvanced: Helps with talent acquisition, shift management, development, and payroll.
11. Rippling: Automates manual tasks across the complete employee lifecycle. 
12. Workday: Manages global workforce with embedded AI insights.
13. Namely: Offers tools for HR, employee engagement, payroll, benefits, and compliance.
14. UKG: AI-powered Human Capital Management (HCM) tool for better talent management and better employee experience.
15. ADP Workforce Now: An HR management system (HRMS) with HR, payroll, attendance, benefits, and benefits.
16. Paychex: Manages workforce by tracking time, scheduing, and managing attendance.
17. Factorial: A centralized hub for talents, payroll, finances, and time tracking.
18. HiBob: Provides core HR functionalities with onboarding, performance management, and compensation.

What Is People Management Software?

People management software is a suite of tools that automate tasks HRs perform to manage their employees. It includes talent acquisition, onboarding, performance management, training and development, compensation and benefits administration, and employee communication. 

It automates routine processes and stores employee data in one place so that you can easily find them when needed. These tools often provide features to promote a positive work environment. The ultimate goal of people management software is to support the overall growth and development of both individuals and the organization as a whole.

Benefits of Using People Management Software

The top 5 benefits people management software offer to companies are given below. 

1. Improved HR Efficiency And Automation

People management software automates core HR processes so you do not have to perform them manually. It frees up HR professionals and allows them to focus on strategic tasks such as talent development and employee engagement. This software performs automated onboarding, leave management, and payroll processing to reduce administrative burden and increase the overall efficiency of your organization.

2. Enhanced Employee Experience

This software comes with self-service portals that empower employees to manage their information, access company resources, and complete tasks without being dependent on HR executives. Additionally, by tracking employee behaviors, such as work patterns and engagement levels, organizations can tailor HR strategies to enhance productivity and workplace satisfaction.

3. Data-driven Decision-making

The people management platform centralizes employee data and helps you make better decisions by providing valuable insights into workforce trends and metrics. It also has robust reporting and analytics tools that let you track KPIs and identify areas for improvement. 

4. Increased Employee Engagement and Retention

People management software includes tools for employee engagement, feedback, and internal communication. With these, you can improve employee morale, increase retention rates, and build a positive work environment.

5. Better Talent Acquisition and Management

People management solution supports the entire talent lifecycle, from recruitment through performance management to succession planning. Its tools enable you to acquire the right talents, continuously work on employee development, and plan for successful offboarding.

Key Takeaways

1. People management software automates key workforce processes, with Lattice supporting goal tracking, BambooHR simplifying performance reviews, and Zoho People streamlining onboarding.
2. These tools provide workforce insights for better decision-making, as BambooHR generates in-depth HR reports and Leapsome’s AI-powered analytics extract key themes from employee survey data.
3. Customizable workflows and access controls improve operational efficiency, with Sage People offering configurable processes and Leapsome enabling permission-based role management.
4. Integrations with HR and business tools enhance productivity, as platforms like Personio support payroll automation and Sage People connects HR functions across global teams.
5. Employee engagement and retention improve through structured feedback, with 15Five enabling continuous performance tracking and BambooHR facilitating employee sentiment analysis through surveys.

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