Employment Hero vs BrightHR: Why customers choose us

One system. Everything employment.

If you’re steering a UK business where everyone wears a few different hats, you know how challenging it can be to stay on top of people operations. From hiring and onboarding, to payroll as well as keeping your team happy, it can be a real handful. Especially when there aren’t a lot of dedicated resources for each of them.

With so many jobs, and so little time it can often feel like you’re trying to squeeze these vital jobs in around everything else on your to-do list. And it doesn’t help that you’re relying on clunky old systems or a jumble of spreadsheets. This can eat up a ton of time and make it tough to actually focus on growing your business or thinking about the bigger picture for your team.

Finding a solution isn’t easy. What you really need is a platform that brings all your essential people tasks together in one easy-to-use spot,  also intelligently automating daily tasks and adapting as your business expands. A solution like this can make your life so much simpler, significantly cut down on admin, and give you back precious time. 

So, if you’ve been searching for a more efficient way to consolidate all your people operations into one place, we’re here to help. To give you a better idea of what platforms are on the market, we have compared key aspects of BrightHR and Employment Hero highlighting strengths and gaps—to give you the information you need to make the best decision for your growing business.

How do BrightHR and Employment Hero empower businesses when finding candidates and hiring at scale?

As your company grows, your hiring needs change dramatically. Growth means more vacancies to fill, often across a wider range of specialisms. You’re not just hiring one or two people a year anymore; it could be several a month, each with unique skill requirements and reporting lines. 

In a competitive talent market, speed becomes essential. Managing this increased volume and diversity with spreadsheets or basic tools quickly becomes chaotic and prone to errors. When looking for a new HRIS solution that scales with your business, you may consider BrightHR and Employment Hero. So, how do they stack up when it comes to hiring and recruitment?

Employment Hero

Employment Hero’s SmartMatch technology uses AI to help you polish job descriptions, identify top candidates from a built-in talent pool, and even benchmark salary budgets. 

From advertising roles and managing active candidates to scheduling interviews, sending automated communications, and tracking progress; it’s all centralised.

Employment Hero allows you to connect to a wide range of UK and global job boards, including major ones like Indeed, LinkedIn and Reed.

Beyond just posting, the built-in Applicant Tracking System actively sources pre-qualified candidates for live talent shortlists based on your HRIS data, proactively presenting candidates so you never have long employment gaps again. This can help you reduce hiring times by an average of two weeks.

BrightHR

On the other hand, BrightHR offers its ’Turbo Talent Navigator’ to help businesses manage their recruitment process, focusing on centralising applications and providing helpful templates. This hub allows businesses to create job roles, manage applications, and build a database of roles for future hiring. It includes tools for shortlisting candidates.

However, it lacks direct integrations with job boards to scale reach from one place. It also does not offer strong AI technology to help polish, pre-screen and proactively offer candidates most suitable for vacancies. 

BrightHR can support infrequent hiring processes that require simple talent sourcing, screening and assessment. 

If you have more ambitious plans now or in the future, inherently driving complexity through volume or high-spec job requirements, Employment Hero is likely the best choice for you.

How do BrightHR and Employment Hero compare in automating HR tasks, and what level of customisation do they offer?

When it comes to streamlining HR processes and tailoring them to your unique business needs, the right HR software can be a game-changer. 

While both Employment Hero and BrightHR offer automation features, a closer look reveals significant differences in the depth, breadth, and flexibility of these capabilities, with Employment Hero leading the pack for businesses that demand comprehensive and adaptable solutions.

What tasks can be automated?

BrightHR provides tools to help SMEs manage HR tasks and maintain compliance, offering standard automation for core HR functions, including:

• Core HR functions: BrightHR automates tasks such as holiday and absence management, staff rota planning and secure HR document storage.
• Automated HR document template updates: Like Employment Hero, it offers ready-to-use HR document templates that are kept up-to-date with UK employment law changes.
• Basic reporting: BrightHR claims to offer automated and customisable reports but the lack of further information on their website about how many pre-built templates are available or what areas of reporting are customisable suggests that the offering is likely to be limited.

Employment Hero is designed as an all-in-one Employment Operating System, engineered to automate and simplify the entire employee lifecycle. This means robust automation isn’t just an add-on, it’s a core philosophy. This includes:

• End-to-end lifecycle management: Employment Hero excels in automating a vast range of HR tasks, from recruitment and AI-assisted candidate matching with our proprietary SmartMatch technology, seamless digital onboarding including contract generation and policy acknowledgement, automated timesheets, right through to payroll processing and off-boarding.
• Policy management & compliance: automated distribution and policy acknowledgement reminders, ensuring compliance without the manual chase.  
• Leave management: employees can self-serve, and approvals can be automated based on predefined rules, flowing directly into payroll.  
• Performance management: automate reminders for performance reviews and track progress against goals.

How customisable are automated workflows?

This is where the difference becomes stark. While BrightHR streamlines standard processes, its ability to allow deep customisation of these automated workflows is significantly constrained.

• Reliance on third-party integrations: for more advanced or customised workflow automation that goes beyond its native capabilities, businesses using BrightHR might need to rely on third-party integration platforms like Zapier or airSlate. While these can extend functionality, they can also introduce additional complexity, potential points of failure, and may not offer the seamless, integrated experience of a native workflow builder.

BrightHR offers a standardised set of tools that work well for common HR needs, but this can be a drawback for businesses requiring more bespoke automated processes.

On the other hand, Employment Hero offers a powerful and intuitive Workflows feature. This isn’t just about simple task automation; it allows you to build, customise, and automate complex, multi-step HR processes tailored precisely to your organisation’s specific operational needs.

• Pre-built & custom-built: choose from a library of pre-built workflow templates for common HR processes (like onboarding, leave requests, employee file changes, expense claims, and offboarding) or create entirely new custom workflows from scratch.
• Granular control: within these workflows, you can assign specific tasks to different team members, set rules and conditions, establish dependencies, and monitor progress in real-time. This ensures consistency and accountability.

What learning and development resources are integrated with BrightHR and Employment Hero? How extensive are the course offerings?

BrightHR offers “BrightLearn,” an LMS integrated into its HR software, primarily focused on delivering essential training and ensuring compliance. 

• BrightLearn provides CPD-accredited e-learning courses, covering key HR topics, health & safety, and essential business skills like time management and equality at work. 
• Basic LMS functionality: users can assign courses, track progress, and use built-in tests and quizzes. 
• Focus on Health & Safety: a significant part of BrightHR’s learning offering is integrated with their “BrightSafe” product, emphasising health & safety e-learning courses.

Employment Hero is committed to helping you upskill, engage, and retain your talent through a flexible and feature-rich LMS.

• Versatile content creation & delivery: you’re not limited to basic courses. Employment Hero allows you to create and assign longer, multi-media courses, short quizzes, or even host materials for in-person training follow-ups. This flexibility caters to diverse learning styles and training needs.
• Custom-built learning bundle: users dipping their toes into learning and development strategies can start by choosing 10 courses to equip their employee with soft and hard skills. Industries supported include retail, hospitality, manufacturing and professional services.
• Extensive learning library (via Go1 integration): users wanting to take a step further into people development can take advantage of Employment Hero’s LMS integration with Go1, one of the world’s largest corporate education content hubs. This partnership gives employees access to thousands of pre-existing courses across a multitude of disciplines, far beyond basic compliance.
• Upload your own content: easily upload and manage your company-specific training materials, ensuring all learning resources are centralised.
• Detailed tracking & reporting: monitor employee progress, track completion rates, and report on all learning activities to measure the impact of your training initiatives. This helps you better manage your professional development strategy and investment.

While BrightHR provides a solid offering for compliance and essential skills training, Employment Hero’s LMS is significantly more comprehensive and flexible. The ability to create diverse custom content, coupled with access to a vast library through the Go1 integration, offers a far richer environment for holistic employee development, catering to a wider range of learning needs beyond just the basics.

Does BrightHR offer expert payroll services?

BrightHR provides traditional payroll software and a managed payroll service designed to meet the core payroll needs of UK SMEs.

Businesses have the option to fully manage payroll with BrightHr’s Payroll add-on or outsource their payroll needs to BrightHR’s team who handle payroll calculations, deductions, and HMRC compliance on behalf of the business.

How does it compare to Employment Hero’s built-in automation and compliance features?

Employment Hero offers a unique combination of payroll technology with human support and expertise. Employment Hero’s Payroll is a core component of our all-in-one Employment OS, designed for seamless data flow and powerful automation. How is that possible?

• Automated pre-payroll: with Employment Unlimited, pay run is automatically generated using various data sources within the system. Reviewing details, approving or declining pending requests, uploading adjustments, and addressing any outstanding items are all conveniently managed in a single interface. When everything looks good, a simple click finalises the process.
• Human-powered payroll processing: Employment Hero automatically handles the review, calculation and processing of your payroll. When it’s prepared, you’ll receive an alert to do a final review via an intuitive dashboard highlighting crucial data and flagging any potential issues. Make any corrections or approve the pay run with a quick, single-click action.
• Effortless post-payroll: pension payments are automatically calculated and updated, employee payslips are created and shared and salary journals are sent directly to your ledger.

While BrightHR provides access to professionals, especially for its managed service, Employment Hero’s Payroll solution combines tech with an “allocated payroll partner” for a more personalised, in-depth, and ongoing expert relationship focused specifically on optimising and managing your payroll setup and complex scenarios within the platform.

How does BrightHR foster employee experience, engagement and rewards? How does it compare to Employment Hero?

Creating an environment where employees feel valued, connected and empowered to do their best work is crucial to business success. Having a powerful employment platform at your disposal can supercharge employee experience. So what’s on offer with BrightHR and Employment Hero?

BrightHR contributes to the employee experience primarily through a functional approach to HR management, wellbeing support and perk offerings.

• Wellbeing support: BrightHR provides access to an employee assistance programme and an online wellbeing portal with their “My Healthy Advantage” app, offering counselling and support.
• Engagement through Perks: The “BrightExchange” platform provides employees with access to discounts and perks from a multitude of high-street brands.
• Recognition module: BrightHR has a dedicated “PRAISE” module for employee recognition. It allows for peer-to-peer praise, the use of customisable tags aligned with company values, a live leaderboard, and the awarding of praise points and recognition badges. 

Employment Hero provides a multi-faceted approach to engagement and recognition that is directly accessible to employees. Besides also offering access to an inclusive employee assistance programme in partnership with Symbio by HealthHero, a perks platform with discounted access to a range of gift cards, and a peer-to-peers recognition; Employment Hero champions employee experience and engagement in many more ways:

• Employee satisfaction pulse surveys: Employment Hero enables monthly employee happiness surveys for anonymous feedback, allowing you to continuously gauge and improve morale.
• Reward employees with Hero Points: Hero Points are designed to encourage you to acknowledge and reward employees for their performance, achievements, work anniversaries or behaviours that align with your company’s values. These can be redeemed by employees on their EH Work app’s perks section.
• Empower financial flexibility with Earned Wage Access (EWA): allow employees to access a portion of their already earned wages before their scheduled payday at no cost or tax implications to you as the employer. This isn’t a loan, so there’s no credit involved, it’s simply a responsible way for employees to manage unexpected expenses and reduce financial stress.
• EH Work as an experience hub: It’s where employees access EWA, manage their work admin, view payslips, engage with company news, pursue career development and tap into a wide range of benefits.
• Tools for individual and company-wide alignment: Employment Hero’s Objective and Key Results (OKRs) tool allows businesses to set transparent company, team, and individual goals, ensuring everyone is aligned and contributing effectively to the bigger picture. You can track progress and report on this alignment, directly linking daily tasks to strategic outcomes and increasing productive output.

The good news is that both tools encourage a positive atmosphere. But Employment Hero’s broader suite of engagement and recognition tools can contribute more significantly to an overall positive and productive company culture.

BrightHR vs Employment Hero Reviews

	Employment Hero	BrightHR
G2	4.4 (445)	4.3 (95)
Software Advice	4.4 (240)	4.6 (83)
TrustRadius	7.1 out of 10	6.1 out of 10
Data last reviewed on 12 May 2025

Why clients choose Employment Hero

Employment Hero’s Employment OS is a more complete, future-proofed system that manages everything across the employment life cycle from start to finish. It connects all of your different HR tasks smoothly, automates the routine work, and helps you make smarter decisions about your people. For a growing UK business, this isn’t just about making HR admin easier, it’s about staying ahead of your competitors.

While BrightHR is a good, easy-to-use choice for many smaller businesses that need core HR support and help staying on top of regulations, Employment Hero is more flexible if you want to elevate the way you find, hire and manage people.

So, if you’re looking for a system where all your HR and payroll tasks work together seamlessly, that uses modern tech to not only manage the basics efficiently but also helps improve your hiring, keep your team engaged, help everyone be more productive, and ensure everyone is pulling in the same direction, Employment Hero is the more complete, modern option.