10 Of The Best Free HR Software Tools You Should Be Using

HR has gone through a massive transformation over the last few years and companies are still playing catch-up in the transition from traditional methods. From remote working and recruitment to managing employees online, digital technologies are playing a vital role in HR teams, more than ever before.

Companies must adapt, but change can be intimidating – especially when traditional systems and processes have worked well for so long. Where to start?

To help, we've put together this list of the 10 best free HR software tools you should consider. These could save your HR teams time and money.

If you are hesitating about committing to a transition to new tools or have a limited budget, exploring these free options makes for a good first step.

Why Should You Be Using HR Software?

Quite simply, HR software helps you to streamline your processes and improve efficiency in your team. As a result, you will see productivity increase and help free up your team to focus on other priorities, such as employee welfare.

5 Key Advantages of HR Software

1. Automation: automating tasks can help save you time through the use of skill gap analysis.
2. AI: Augmented intelligence can help you shortlist candidates quicker, by using data-driven metrics.
3. Software: you can streamline your processes to ensure data is pulled into one place.
4. You can remove unconscious bias: through tools like blind hiring and pre-employment testing.
5. Video interview software: remote interviews allow you to hire and onboard from anywhere in the world.

10 Of The Best Free HR Software Tools

The list that follows is a snippet of the many free HR software tools available on the market. We encourage you to do your own research and understand your user requirements thoroughly before committing to any platform.

1. Homebase

Overview: Homebase supplies HR software that helps businesses organize and manage employees and everyday HR tasks. There are great free options and it is used by over 100,000 businesses for employee management.

Key features: Post new jobs, track your applicants, and onboard new employees easily.

Why you'll love it: It takes the hassle out of hiring and is extremely easy to use.

2. FreshTeam

Overview: Fresh team is an online platform that allows you to manage your recruitment, candidate experience, vacation calendar, employees, and HR in one place.

Key features: You can manage your hiring, onboarding, holidays, employee data, and HR workflows efficiently.

Why you'll love it: It's an all-in-one platform: everything HR-related is organised into one place, which keeps things simple and convenient.

3. Bitrix24

Overview: Bitrix24 offers a free HR system to all users including an intranet, workflow, employee portal, and time management tools.

Key features: Employee directory, time and attendance, and collaboration tools improve efficiency.

Why you'll love it: It's open-source, which means anyone can contribute to its development.

4. HR Locker

Overview: HR Locker is cloud-based software that helps automate timesheets, leave tracking, onboarding, performance, and people management.

Key features: Digital signatures, diversity monitoring, people management, and CPD tools.

Why you'll love it: It's a powerful HR option for small- to medium-sized businesses with an all-in-one approach.

5. Fluida

Overview: Fluida is an attendance and absence management cloud platform.

Key features: Holiday leave sheets, time tracking, and attendance monitoring.

Why you'll love it: It helps simplify the relationship between companies and employees.

6. Quikhiring

Overview: Quikhiring (as the name suggests) is a mobile job app for job-seekers and recruiters looking to make quick hires.

Key features: Post jobs, watch video interviews, check out video profiles.

Why you'll love it: At its core, Quikhiring is a video interviewing platform that helps to make remote interviews easy.

7. HRnest

Overview: HRnest is a great platform to manage HR company workflows, from holiday requests and holiday allowances to employee files and data.

Key features: Manage employee absences, work schedules, and employee files via one online system.

Why you'll love it: Save time and energy with these useful work features – particularly storing employee files such as CVs and contracts.

8. Zoho

Overview: Zoho is a suite of products that can be tailored to your requirements, for those who want to transform the way they work.

Key features: It offers a fully customizable content management system (CRM) that can be personalised to your company's needs.

Why you'll love it: You can run your entire business with Zoho, which offers products beyond just HR functions.

9. Sentrifugo

Overview: Sentrifugo is a free and open-source HR management software that hosts a suite of useful features to meet the needs of both employees and managers.

Key features: Performance appraisal, talent acquisition, expenses, and time management.

Why you'll love it: You won't be disappointed if you're looking for a platform that covers a huge range of tools and features within HR.

10. Odoo

Overview: Odoo is an open-source CRM and Enterprise Resource Planning tool with integrated apps. It's easy to use and highly popular.

Key features: Timesheets, help desk, recruitment, referrals, and appraisals.

Why you'll love it: In addition to all the great HR features, it supports marketing, finance and even web development.

Which HR Software Is Best?

To state which of these is the best HR software is a difficult thing to do. The 'best software' really depends on your users' and teams' needs.

Our advice is to do your homework and do lots of research on the different products available. Try building out a set of user requirements and employ use-case scenarios to score each software against your needs.