BambooHR alternatives for service businesses: HR next to the jobs

Short answer: BambooHR is a well known HR platform for small and midsize companies, with employee records, hiring, onboarding, time off, performance reviews and add-ons for payroll and benefits. If you are looking at BambooHR alternatives because your team's hours, time off and files sit in one tool while jobs and the schedule sit in another, Alori is the all-in-one app for service businesses. Its Employees module keeps each person's file, time off, hiring, onboarding and timesheets in the same app as your customers, jobs and invoices.

Who BambooHR fits well

BambooHR is a strong fit when:

• An HR person or team runs people operations full time, for an office staff that grows every quarter.
• You want performance reviews, goals and employee satisfaction surveys in your HR tool.
• You want payroll, benefits and HR reports from the same vendor, and the business has the budget for it.

For companies where HR is a department, BambooHR is built for the work.

Why service owners look for alternatives

A service business has employees too, but most of them are in a truck, not at a desk:

• The hours come from the jobs. Technicians start and finish jobs all day. Typing those hours again in an HR tool is double work, and it gets skipped.
• Time off has to meet the schedule. Approving a vacation in one tool and moving the jobs in another means someone forgets one of the two.
• A price per employee. HR tools are usually priced per employee, and a seasonal crew makes that bill jump.
• Too much for a team of 12. Performance cycles and surveys are useful for a large office. A small crew needs a file, a contract signed, hours approved and time off answered.

Side by side

What Alori replaces, and what it does not

For a service business, the Employees module replaces the HR tool and the time clock:

• One file per person. Job title, department, supervisor, hourly or salaried, address, birthday and emergency contact. File notes that only managers see, and an org chart of who reports to whom.
• Time off. Employees ask from their phone. You answer under To answer, see who else is off then, and they hear back in the app and by email. Each file shows what is left.
• Hiring. Add an opening and it shows on your website's career page. When someone applies with a phone number, the bot texts them your questions and gives you a fit from 1 to 5. Click Hire and their file starts.
• Onboarding and offboarding. A First day list starts by itself: contract, tax forms, payroll details, app invite, cards, equipment and safety training. Some steps tick themselves. A Last day list starts when someone leaves.
• Documents to sign. Upload a contract and click Ask to sign. They sign in the app with their finger, and you see who signed and when.
• Hours from the jobs. Put a crew on a job: when it starts, their clocks start on it, and when it is finished, they stop. Approve each week under Timesheets, and see the labour cost on the job.
• The rest of a crew's paperwork. Cards and permits with expiry reminders, expenses with a photo of the receipt, and workplace accident reports.
• My space. Each employee sees their clock, their hours, their time off, documents to sign and their own information, and nothing of the business unless you give them a role.
• The work around it: customers, quotes, schedule, jobs and invoices, and Ask Alori for "who is off next week?".

What it does not replace: payroll, benefits administration, performance review cycles and employee surveys, and BambooHR's depth of HR reporting. Alori exports approved hours, with overtime, for your payroll provider, but it does not pay anyone. If you run HR as its own department, or want payroll and benefits from your HR vendor, BambooHR is likely the better fit.

How to switch

1. Describe your business. Alori builds the app with Employees, jobs and the schedule.
2. Add your team. Click Add an employee for each person, or tell Ask Alori "Add Luis Moreno, technician in Service, reporting to Marc". Invite them by email so they get My space.
3. Bring their documents. Upload contracts and policies on each file, and click Ask to sign for the ones that need a new signature.
4. Set your time off types and openings. Check the days a year for each kind of time off, and add your open jobs under Hiring.

Start on the free plan, no card needed. See pricing.