BambooHR Review: Flight Media’s Own HR Guru Shares Her Feedback

It’s important that all things HR are managed efficiently or chaos will reign.

As your company’s HR guru (or maybe you wear HR as a “hat”), it’s your job to find the best software to “run” the business.

At Flight Media, we have a Queen of Human Resources and she swears by BambooHR.

Kelsey was nice enough to sit down and chat about why she likes it and how it helps her keep everything under control.

Because when things are running smoothly behind the scenes, your business can more effectively and efficiently serve your clients.

But before we get into Kelsey’s insights, let’s get an overview of what BambooHR is.

What Is BambooHR?

BambooHR is cloud-based human resources software that’s specifically designed for small to midsize businesses.

The cost is subscription-based and depends on the number of employees you have in your company, plus a one-time implementation fee.

It starts at $6.19 per employee for each month for the “Essentials” package, while the “Advantage” package will run you $8.25.

The more people you have, the lower your cost will be per employee, per month.

BambooHR Software Review

Bamboo gets a big thumb’s up from Kelsey.

Especially since her previous method of keeping track of everything was a lot more labor intensive.

She kept a spreadsheet for team members’ days off, and the birthday and anniversary list was a simple Google doc.

As the team grew, it became confusing and difficult to manage all the data.

Kelsey knew at this point that some sort of tool was necessary.

When asked how BambooHR helped her overcome the issues she was having, Kelsey replied:

“So many ways!

• It allowed us to have more kinds of paid time off (PTO), because we didn't have to keep track of it manually.

• I created workflow reminders for anniversaries and birthdays.

• I can easily run reports to see who's out for the month and can break it down by time off.

• The app is really helpful, especially if I'm not in the office. I can still approve requests on the go.

• We also use the Hiring capabilities of Bamboo to get resumes and applications and go through our hiring process.”

BambooHR hiring portal

Kelsey lists her top three features of BambooHR as:

1. The ease of approving/requesting time off.
2. The hiring portal.
3. Automated emails for birthdays/anniversaries.

BambooHR applicant information

BambooHR Pros

Here’s what our own Ruler of the HR Kingdom had to share about the advantages she sees with using BambooHR.

Kelsey likes that it:

1. Centralizes everyone’s time off. Having everyone’s info in one place makes it easier to manage who’s out, how long they’re out, etc. 

BambooHR Dashboard

1. Gives her the ability to run reports on an individual employee, which is especially helpful for the employees who are paid hourly.

BambooHR reporting

1. Centralizes holidays. With an international team, it’s important to be able to see all the various holidays each one celebrates at a glance.
2. Keeps track of birthdays, anniversaries, etc. BambooHR can be automated to send reminder email workflows. For example, Kelsey can receive a few emails, beginning two weeks ahead of time, to remember to get a birthday cake for a team member.

Kelsey says her favorite thing about Bamboo is that she has the ability to approve time off from her phone. It’s easy to do and allows her to take care of those requests even when she’s not at her computer.

BambooHR Cons

There’s really only one downside that Kelsey sees with BambooHR’s functionality.

American holidays don’t show up on the dashboard for our international employees and vice-versa. 

This required her to set up a separate Google calendar so everyone can be in the loop. 

Final Thoughts

If you’re struggling to find human resources software that does it all for your small or midsize business, give BambooHR a look.

You’ll love the ability to keep employee information close at hand, manage holidays, quickly and easily approve time-off requests and generally rule your HR kingdom with the skill and efficiency that our Kelsey does.

A business that runs on a well-organized structure is set up for success.