Our top picks for the best enterprise human resources (HR) software are:
Looking for more options? Explore our HR Software Guide.
In this article...
What is the best enterprise HR software?
Enterprise-grade HR software targets companies needing agile and robust features to support their increasingly large and segmented employee population. As employee counts grow past 1,000, so does the need for customization to support the organization’s various locations, departments, divisions, and roles.
Most enterprise HR software is full-scale human capital management (HCM) systems that harness employee data to understand bigger-picture concerns, like attrition, succession planning, or compensation trends. Our curated list below can help narrow your choices to the ones that cover your business’s needs most, such as automation or global support.
| Standout feature | Notable customers | ||
| SAP SuccessFactors HXM | Breadth of AI-enhanced add-ons. | Microsoft, MOD Pizza, Coca-Cola | Visit SAP |
| Workday HCM | Ease of report customization. | Target, Southwest, Shutterstock | Visit Workday |
| ADP Vantage HCM | Open API and huge integration marketplace. | Conair, Cisco Systems, Dell | Visit ADP |
| Ceridian Dayforce HCM | Zero-code product integration studio. | Spirit Aerosystems, Danone, Gannett | Visit Ceridian |
| Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM | Personalized employee workflows. | FujiFilm, Xerox, Wendy’s | Visit Oracle |
SAP SuccessFactors HXM: Best for optimizing workflows through AI
SAP SuccessFactors Human Experience Management (HXM) Suite is an HCM platform for enterprises needing products to cover the entire employee life cycle from brand recognition to separation. Its HXM suite also works with its complete line of enterprise resource planning (ERP) products, facilitating employee data flow among various business units, such as accounting.
More recently, SAP has expanded its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities by acquiring companies like Qualtrics. For example, SAP Qualtrics Employee Engagement bundle, included in the HXM suite, uses AI to analyze engagement surveys to identify the key areas driving employee satisfaction and prevent unwanted attrition.
Despite this, one of the biggest criticisms of SAP is that much of its software is a product of partnerships and acquisitions. By bolting on new capabilities from other software vendors to its core products, SAP’s software can be slower and less intuitive compared to competitors that build new modules or features from the ground up.
However, this strategy also means that SAP customers may access new capabilities faster, such as AI-powered digital assistants to personalize workflows for greater productivity.
Also read: Top 6 SAP ERP Alternatives
Pros
Cons
Performance review writing assistant
People managers have access to a writing assistant during performance review cycles to help organize their thoughts and provide constructive feedback to employees. SAP’s AI also scans managers’ evaluations for inappropriate or discriminatory language and suggests different terminology.
These features can help speed up a manager’s efficiency during performance review cycles while ensuring feedback remains relevant, helpful, and culturally sensitive.
AI-suggested learning paths
Employees can access a library of curated content based on their roles, skill sets, goals, and interests. Beyond assigning employees mandatory training or courses, this gives them control over their professional development and growth. In turn, your company benefits as employees upskill, advance their industry knowledge, and speed up their productivity.
SAP SuccessFactors does not disclose pricing for its HXM suite. However, SAP does list starting prices for several of the standalone products that compose its HXM suite. Below is a chart with a list of products included in the suite.
| HR Function | SAP Product | Starting Price |
| Payroll | SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll | $8.15/user/mo. |
| Benefits administration | SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central | $6.30/user/mo. |
| Workforce management | SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking | Quote-based |
| SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding | $1.18/user/mo. | |
| SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting | $2.66/user/mo. | |
| SAP SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics | $2.79/user/mo. | |
| Performance management | SAP SuccessFactors Performance and Goals | $3.72/user/mo. |
| SAP SuccessFactors Learning | $1.85/user/mo. | |
| SAP SuccessFactors Compensation | $1.95/user/mo. | |
| SAP SuccessFactors Succession & Development | $1.91/user/mo. | |
| SAP SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace | Undisclosed | |
| SAP Qualtrics Employee Engagement | Undisclosed | |
| Employee document management and self-service | SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Service Center | Quote-based |
| SAP SuccessFactors Management by DocuSign | $940/100 transactions/yr. | |
| SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone | Undisclosed | |
| SAP SuccessFactors Document Management by OpenText | Undisclosed |
SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite is great for enterprises needing to connect their different departmental activities into one system of record. In particular, SAP’s AI interface can make suggestions to optimize your workflows and provide insights into areas slowing down productivity that you may not notice otherwise.
And, despite your increased size, SAP’s AI makes your employee’s experience unique to them, including personalized home pages, digital assistants for faster task completion, and help with HR inquiries. As a result, employees get the help and service they need, so your HR departments can focus on more value-added projects or initiatives.
Workday HCM: Best for its detailed reporting and analytics
Workday HCM a cloud-native HR suite, unlike SAP and Oracle, which often adapt their cloud solutions from prior on-premise platforms. This makes it easier for IT departments to configure Workday to meet the specific cadences of their business, such as an open application programming interface (API) to extend functionality and streamline data via third-party integrations.
Workday is also well known for its robust reporting and analytics capabilities that make employee data easier to understand. These features range from standardized payroll and EEO-1 reports to analytics that measure and interpret attrition, employee sentiment, and pay equity data points.
In addition, Workday leverages customer benchmarking data to compare your employee satisfaction and compensation metrics against competitors. With this data, you can understand where you excel and fall short and take strategic measures to engage and retain your talent.
Pros
Cons
Workday consists of the following modules:
- Talent acquisition.
- Payroll and benefits administration.
- Workforce planning.
- Analytics and reporting.
- Employee self-service and help management.
- Learning and performance management.
Anomaly identification
Workday surfaces reports in key areas such as retention, talent and performance, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). You can even make your reports granular enough to pinpoint anomalies driving changes.
For example, if you notice a 2% increase in females in management positions, you can see the employees you promoted or hired into those roles. You can then see their specific career journeys to promote similar decisions going forward.
Descriptive natural language analyses
Workday uses AI and machine learning to monitor workplace reports or trends to generate “stories” that analyze and describe the data. By writing what the data is showing in an easy-to-understand format, your HR staff no longer have to be data analyst experts to understand key insights to plan and execute company-wide initiatives.
Like many enterprise-grade HR solutions, Workday does not disclose its price. However, most outlets indicate Workday is on the high end, costing as much as $300,000 annually or between $40 and $60 per employee, per month (PEPM).
This does not include Workday’s one-time implementation fee, which can be one to two times more than your annual subscription fee.
Workday’s reporting and analytics help measure your workforce’s impact as your HR departments evolve from purely operational to strategic functions. This is especially important if your enterprise needs to address challenges like skills gaps and workplace diversity.
Workday is a great choice if you need a flexible platform with data-rich reports to support your company’s expansion efforts and an easy-to-use interface for end-users.
ADP Vantage HCM: Best for growing, U.S.-based enterprises
Vantage HCM is ADP’s solution for U.S.-based, multinational enterprises that need additional support to keep up with their growth rate. The platform covers all of the typical HR capabilities with extra features that give your HR team a boost, like automated processes, broad integrations, and managed services.
Compared to others on our shortlist, ADP’s solution is the most scalable. If you are already using an ADP product, it is easy to stay within ADP’s product catalog and graduate to its more robust solutions as you grow. In turn, your company can avoid potential data loss and training headaches that would come with switching to a product outside the ADP family.
Learn more about changing HR systems in our HRIS Implementation Guide: The Steps for Success.
Pros
Cons
Vantage HCM includes the following capabilities:
- Recruiting.
- Onboarding.
- Performance management.
- Learning management.
- Succession planning.
- Benefits administration.
- Workforce management.
- Payroll.
- Managed services.
Enterprises without an international presence can also leverage Vantage HCM’s U.S. compliance features, including automatic tax filing, advisory services, and ACA and FMLA tracking.
Extensive HCM services
With ADP Vantage HCM, you can opt in for additional services, including:
- Business payroll outsourcing (BPO): Ensures you maintain domestic and international payroll compliance.
- Benefits outsourcing: Provides best practices for your open enrollment cadences.
- Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO): Uses public information to find the most qualified candidates for your open roles worldwide.
ADP also provides a third-party service through their partnership with The Hackett Group to guide you through HCM best practices, such as measuring the software’s implementation and performance success.
If you are a growing enterprise using HCM software for the first time, these services can help uncover how to get the most out of your software. It also helps prepare your HR staff to understand the complexities and strategies involved in managing your larger, global workforce.
Strategic HR analytics
ADP Vantage HCM comes standard with ADP DataCloud, an extensive reporting and analytics tool. DataCloud uses internal employee data and external benchmarking to provide insights into areas like turnover cost, compensation, overtime rates, and industry-specific recruitment metrics.
Besides ensuring your business remains competitive, Vantage HCM shows how your business is doing compared to historical data. That way, you can constantly adjust your processes for better productivity and efficiency while making your workforce happy.
ADP does not disclose its ADP Vantage HCM prices. You must call for a customized quote. Price typically depends on your employee count and whether you opt for ADP add-ons or services.
ADP Vantage HCM is best for enterprises needing extra support adjusting to enterprise-grade software and managing their large, diverse workforce. ADP’s services can provide you with the extra assistance you need to comply with global regulations.
Moreover, ADP’s popularity means it’s easy to switch over to its more robust Vantage HCM if you already use one of its products. This reduces the ramp-up time for staff to learn the new system and increases the likelihood they will use it daily.
Ceridian Dayforce HCM: Best for customization and extensibility
Ceridian Dayforce HCM most closely rivals ADP Vantage HCM in terms of features and functionality, especially global payroll capabilities. Dayforce boasts its platform supports 160 countries for payroll, compared to ADP’s 140. Both also offer on-demand payroll schedules through their employee payroll apps — ADP’s Wisely and Dayforce Wallet.
However, Dayforce stands out for its learning and career development modules. For instance, Dayforce uses AI to help identify skill gaps in your organization while recommending internal opportunities to existing employees with matching skills, experience, or interests.
Meanwhile, employees can leverage the same AI to suggest and explore internal opportunities and create their own career paths. In fact, the software facilitates collaboration between managers and direct reports on development plans that align with employees’ professional goals and the future needs of the business.
Also read: A Guide to Creating a Global Compensation Strategy
Pros
Cons
Dayforce includes the following modules:
- Core HR, including employee database, payroll, benefits, and time management.
- Recruitment.
- Onboarding.
- Scheduling.
- Absence management.
- Learning.
- Performance management.
Open API and integration studio
Ceridian Dayforce includes a public API to connect your favorite third-party programs. Even more unique is Ceridian’s Integration Studio, which gives customers the ability to build, manage, and own integrations, even with limited IT departments.
As a result, you can integrate the niche tools of your industry and facilitate employee data transfer across your entire enterprise system.
AI assistant
Dayforce Assistant is an AI-powered program that allows employees to complete self-service functions through either chat or voice commands. Dayforce’s AI uses natural language processing to understand the requests, access your company’s knowledge base, and provide answers compliant with your company’s policies and procedures.
For example, Dayforce Assistant can help employees make paid time off requests. Meanwhile, managers can use the assistant to review, approve, or deny requests quickly.
Like the others on our shortlist, Ceridian Dayforce does not disclose its prices. The overall cost depends on the modules you need and your employee headcount. Third-party sources indicate costs range from $21–$29 PEPM, plus a one-time implementation of 40-60% of your annual subscription.
Ceridian Dayforce makes adding the features you need easy, even if they do not offer a native solution. Moreover, Dayforce’s extensive payroll support in over 160 countries can help extend your company’s reach into promising global markets.
As a result, Dayforce is a great choice if your company plans to expand but still wants to provide a local or personalized experience for your employees in the process.
Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM: Best HCM for a streamlined tech stack
Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM combines global talent and workforce management capabilities with next-generation AI tools to support every stage of the employee life cycle.
In addition to Fusion Cloud HCM, Oracle’s portfolio includes cloud applications for marketing, customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), enterprise performance management (EPM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP). Integrating Fusion Cloud HCM with these other products helps consolidate your company’s tech stack and creates a single source of truth for end-to-end business processes.
It’s worth noting that Oracle does not natively offer the same level of international payroll support as ADP, SAP, or Ceridian, which may create complications for some multinational corporations. However, Oracle’s Payroll Connect lets you embed third-party payroll platforms in the Fusion HCM interface, so there are workarounds to extend Oracle’s global coverage if needed.
Pros
Cons
Enterprise HR software FAQ
How to choose the best enterprise HR software
Reaching enterprise status requires software that automates tasks at scale, supports international workforces, and provides in-depth analytics for informed decision-making. All of the products on our shortlist hit these components, but some shine in particular areas over others.
But if none of the vendors on our shortlist sound like the right fit, browse our HR Software Guide for other all-in-one HR platforms.
About the author
Featured HR software partners
1 Rippling
Rippling is the first way for businesses to manage all of their HR, IT, and Finance — payroll, benefits, computers, apps, corporate cards, expenses, and more — in one unified workforce platform. By connecting every business system to one source of truth for employee data, businesses can automate all of the manual work they normally need to do to make employee changes.
2 Paycor
Paycor’s HR software modernizes every aspect of people management, which saves leaders time and gives them the powerful analytics they need to build winning teams. Paycor provides a full suite of HCM solutions with a single source of truth for employee data, so users never have to switch platforms, log-in to multiple systems, re-key data or open multiple spreadsheets. Everyday processes become simplified, allowing organizations to focus on their most important work.
3 BambooHR
BambooHR is an award-winning HR platform that helps your growing organizations automate, centralize, and connect your people data all in one place. It gives you a one stop shop to manage data, hire talent, run payroll, and help employees grow.
