Zoho People Review – Features, Pricing, Alternatives (2024)

Zoho People – Main Features

Zoho People is an HR management platform, and it has a lot of functionalities that are useful for managing many of the HR needs of small to medium-sized businesses. The list of Zoho People features include:

• Employee database management
• Quality hires
• Straightforward onboarding
• Attendance tracker
• Leave tracker
• Time tracker
• Shift schedules
• Employee self-service portal
• Documents management
• Automation of various processes
• Advanced analytics
• Integrations with other platforms

All in all, Zoho People is an all-inclusive HR management platform with many features and tools to simplify every aspect of human resource management. The features are well-rounded; for example, the employee database management is impressive. In addition, the platform uses a centralized HRIS, meaning the employee data will always sync across all critical systems.

The other features are all good, but I liked the customization and automation of many processes. For example, Zoho People allows the automation of all the daily HR processes, mail alerts, tasks, approvals, schedules, and creating custom workflows to improve productivity within the organization.

The employee onboarding process is simple: the employee self-service portal allows each employee to input their data and prevent mistakes. The Zoho People platform is built to be compliant and seamlessly integrate with all the other Zoho apps, but it also supports many other third-party integrations.

Zoho People is available as a mobile app, and it comes for iOS and Android users. The app provides access to all the vital features like attendance, leave, tasks, and cases. The app can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play, and the users can log in with their company credentials and use it to stay in tune with every important thing.

Pricing Plans

When we talk about price, Zoho People takes the prime position with the most affordable pricing plans. The platform offers its services for free to all small businesses with less than five employees. The free plan requires only registration and comes with only the essential HR functions like employee database and time off management. The rest of the pricing plans are as follows:

Essential HR: $1/user/month – the Essential HR plan by Zoho People comes with employee onboarding, employee database management, HR files management, employee self-service, time-off management, multi-level approvals, module-based reports, workflow management, ZIA AI bot, and the Office readiness solution.

Professional: $2/user/month – this plan offers everything the Essential HR has, plus attendance marking via the web, mobile, facial recognition, and biometric integration. The plan also has shift scheduling, shift rotation, IP and Geo tracking, overtime calculation, time tracking, timesheet management, timesheet scheduler, and billing and invoicing integration.

Premium: $3/user/month – the Premium plan has all the functionalities from the Professional plan, plus job scheduling, performance appraisals, KRA, and Goals tracking. The other features in this plan are Skil set matrix, 360-degree feedback, self-appraisal, multi-rater review, and advanced HR analytics.

Enterprise: $5/user/month – it has everything from the premium plan, plus cases (employee query management), cases SLA tracking, LMS with learner portal, blended learning, course management, course feedback, discussion forums, and assessments.

People Plus: $10/user/month – this is the priciest Zoho People plan, and it comes with all the features from the Enterprise plan, with access to Zoho Recruit, Zoho Payroll (for India clients), Zoho Expense, Zoho Connect, Zoho Cliq, and Zoho Vault.

On top of all of the price plans, Zoho People has several add-ons to suit your needs better. These are Employee profiles, Zoho Recruit, and the Learning Management System. Additionally, Zoho People is available as a 15-day free trial for anyone interested in seeing how this platform works. However, you can also watch the demo on the official website and see how this HR management platform operates.

I’ve made the table below comparing the basic price plans offerings of Zoho People and some of its competitors:

How Zoho People Fares to Other HR Services

To see how Zoho People fares against its competition, I’ve selected to compare its features with those of BambooHR, GoCo, and Gusto. These are among the top HR management platforms, and all have a well-rounded set of features.

Zoho People has the most pricing options, as it has a free plan and five other tiers. The rest of these HR management platforms have two to three different pricing plans. I like all of these because the essential plans of all four HR management platforms come with an employee self-service portal, which significantly eases the workload of the HR managers.

The Zoho People features are scalable, as are BambooHR’s features, and many of the processes can be automated to aid in better daily operations. In addition, the onboarding process of all of these platforms is good: Zoho People has organized it in three steps to ease the new hires into the business and ensure a better employee induction in your business.

The table here displays the comparison between the features of these platforms:

Zoho People User Experience

To offer an impressive user experience to its clients, Zoho People has a clean interface with all the functionalities within easy reach. The main dashboard has intuitive navigation, with the menu on the left side of the page. Each menu item is easily accessible, and there is no need for excessive scrolling or unnecessary clicking.

Once you log into your account, you’ll see the main dashboard with shortcuts and important notifications. For example, the platform will always remind you of the upcoming birthdays of your team members. In addition, it will display the new hires, favorites, quick links, requests for approval, attendance, announcements, leave reports, upcoming holidays, and more.

The main menu is on the left side, and many menu entries have sub-menus that group together similar features. You can start using the platform immediately after creating your account, as everything is well-made and the navigation is intuitive.

Zoho People provides plenty of reports about employee information, leave tracker, attendance, and time tracker. To better serve its clients, the Zoho People user interface is customizable, and you can select which features you need and which features you don’t use and turn them off.

When I talk about the user experience, I need to mention the onboarding process. Again, Zoho People has really gotten into details. The onboarding process begins with the candidates and continues with onboarding flows and reports. This kind of onboarding is thorough and ensures the newly hired employee is up-to-date with all pertinent company details.

Zoho People Customer Service

An essential aspect of every SaaS platform is the customer service they provide their clients. Zoho People has a built-in FAQ section within the platform accessible by clicking the question mark in the upper right corner of the screen. In addition, a chatbot function within the platform can answer some more basic queries; you’ll be directed to a live chat support agent for the more complex questions.

The website has one general contact page that covers all the Zoho services. This option should be used if you don’t find answers to your questions within the FAQ section or the live chat; then, you can message the email support from within the app and attach any screenshots or other important documents.

To help its clients, Zoho People also offers access to educational resources like setup guide, welcome guide, blog posts, live and recorded webinars, and other forms of help.

Zoho People Online Security

Since Zoho People is a cloud-based HR management platform, the question about online security is a legitimate one. The platform states that they store their servers in secure facilities with 24/7/365 monitoring and biometric access only to authorized personnel.

The Zoho online network is encrypted and has intrusion detection and prevention technologies in place. The platform also prompts each user to create a strong password and stay away from weak or generic passwords. They also urge you to enable 2-factor authentication and change your password often, usually every 60 days.

Conclusion

Zoho People is a cloud-based HR management platform that suits different-sized companies. The features are well-balanced and offer attendance and leave management, time tracker, employee self-service, and plenty of customizations.

They have great functionalities but could use improvement in some aspects. Overall, Zoho People is a good option for an HR platform for businesses of all sizes, as their pricing plans are among the most affordable on the market now. In addition, I’ve found that their employee onboarding is excellent and optimized to make a new employee feel welcome in their new work environment, which is the point of any HR management system.