SumTotal vs Kin HR

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Our analysts compared SumTotal vs Kin HR based on data from our 400+ point analysis of HR Management Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

SumTotal Software Tool

Product Basics

SumTotal is a cloud-based HR Management software catering to mid-sized to large organizations. It packs a comprehensive suite of features covering talent acquisition, learning & development, workforce management, and performance management. Users praise its robust reporting & analytics, rich learning library, and mobile-friendly accessibility. However, the extensive customization options and powerful tools come with a steeper learning curve for administrators. Additionally, SumTotal's potential for high integration costs and higher price point compared to basic solutions make it less suitable for smaller companies. While some users struggle with complex content creation tools and limited instructor-led options, SumTotal shines in its ability to scale and adapt to dynamic needs, making it a strong contender for organizations seeking a feature-rich, customizable HR management platform, especially those with substantial training requirements and a dispersed workforce.

Pros
  • Comprehensive learning library
  • Robust reporting & analytics
  • Scalable for large organizations
  • Mobile-friendly learning
  • Customizable user experience
Cons
  • Steep learning curve for admins
  • Limited instructor-led options
  • Complex content creation tools
  • Potentially high integration costs
  • Pricey for smaller companies
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Kin HR manages a mix of business, projects and people. Its modules provide features for employee onboarding, data and file management, time off, employee reviews, feedback and objectives.

Leveraging it lets companies cut down on paperwork, delegate tasks and save time, resulting in improved employee retention, productivity and satisfaction. The platform performs proactively as it puts data to use, making it a useful advisory for users.
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Mobile

Product Assistance

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Live Online
Videos
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Email
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FAQ
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Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
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24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Employee Retention: Provide tools for employee development, management and learning practices that encourage employee retention. 
  • Enhanced Productivity: Talent managers can continuously onboarding to speed up overall productivity. 
  • Organizational Stability: Learning-centered employee development builds an agile workforce that is adaptable to changing business environments. 
  • Learning Ecosystem: Invest in research and development on the latest learning trends, which managers can leverage to enhance employees' learning experience. 
  • Talent Engagement: Engage top talent while moving through the recruitment process, understand the workforce, identify the best talent and build a seamless experience for candidates as well as hiring teams. 
  • Enhanced Candidate Experience: Offer smartphone-optimized sites with intelligent and automated interview tools, candidate matching, and an easy-to-use mobile app interface. Keep applicants informed about upcoming interview details via a user dashboard. 
  • Accelerated Time-to-Performance: Seamless onboarding training helps new hires get up to speed quickly. Provide unique company policies and work culture for them to become familiar with the company. 
  • Smooth Role Switch: Access onboarding plans for new roles that include defined goals, new teams and KPI’s that ensure a more seamless transition to new responsibilities. 
  • Robust Manager and Admin Capabilities: Managers and administrators can easily view, schedule, filter, mark up and share reports from a mobile dashboard. Leverage reporting tools, advanced reports and dashboards at a single click. 
  • Informed Compensation Plans: Create smart, data-driven compensation plans according to preset or custom parameters. Real-time performance insights and budget modeling make compensation informed, fair and cost-effective. 
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  • Employee Retention: Kin HR helps provide a smooth onboarding experience, sets the right expectations, promotes transparency among coworkers and prepares new hires to succeed in their roles. Together, these factors improve employee retention. 
  • Organized Employee Date: The solution collects, organizes and maintains standard data for all employees such as addresses and new hire documents. It centralizes this information for quick access and offers custom tabs to capture team-specific information. 
  • Improved Profitability: Quick and ongoing employee feedback helps align efforts to boost organizations’ overall profitability. 
  • Enhanced Productivity: Employees can more easily stay aligned with and dedicated to individual and team goals, achieving objectives with tools like a calendar. 
  • Cuts Paperwork: Users can write digital signatures, store and access employee information online, and more, resulting in less paperwork. 
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  • Talent Development: Provides combined functionality of talent onboarding, talent management and learning management solutions to cater to talent development requirements. 
  • Talent Acquisition: Helps create a streamlined hiring cycle, hire the right talent, engage fresh recruits and drive productivity from day one. 
  • Learning Management:  
    •  Helps provide a customized, personalized and engaging learning experience tailored to the skill and competency of individuals rather than the whole team. 
    •  Ease of access on all devices, along with an offline mode, ensures seamless and consistent access to content and courses. 
  • Talent Management: Personalized and intuitive tools help employees pursue career growth and development. Capabilities include performance management, 360-degree feedback, succession planning and compensation management. 
  • Performance Management: Provides comprehensive feedback and tools that make feedback actionable, constructive and insightful. Measures workforce productivity, progress and priorities in real time. 
  • Succession Planning: Enables talent managers to identify and assess skill gaps, build agile talent pools, and align employee success with business goals and objectives. 
  • Compensation Management: Simplifies and streamline compensation plans, and helps build competitive packages to attract and retain top recruits. Workflow automation and compensation management tools aid compliance with complex global policies. 
  • Workforce Management: Bundled payroll, benefits and expense management minimize time, cost and efforts while maximizing accuracy. Features include automated scheduling, time and attendance, absence management, and compliance. 
  • Applicant Tracking System: Includes real-time alerts and notifications for offer approvals, a unique dashboard and reports widgets, customizable requisitions, and a consolidated requisition workspace. 
  • Mobility: Provides access to tools and reporting capabilities at all times and from any location. The dashboard can be operated using a tablet, desktop, mobile app or a phone browser. 
  • Growth Edition: Caters to the needs of fast-growing small and medium-sized businesses. Includes webinars, instructor-led training, approvals, and additional learning resources that users can access and configure anytime. 
  • Extended Enterprise: Helps build a brand image, accelerate growth and drive new sources of potential revenue. Facilitates an enriched and optimized learning experience for distributors, partners and customers. 
  • Gamified and Collaborative Learning: Helps: 
    •  Assess and accelerate learning with gamification capabilities that include leaderboards, points, levels and badges. 
    •  Enhance employee engagement by identifying and rewarding the right learning behaviors. 
    •  Enrich the knowledge of new hires with collaborative learning, up-to-date content, feedback and social ratings. 
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  • New Hire Onboarding Page: The solution creates personalized welcome pages for all new hires, with dedicated tasks, paperwork and workplace details such as location, team member bios, start time and more. 
  • Organized Hiring: Users can simplify onboarding processes by using the employee onboarding task manager to facilitate the involvement of all team members. 
  • Digital Signature: Users can create, sign, store and complete all paperwork digitally. The module also provides integration with e-document services providers like DocuSign for maximized user convenience. 
  • Team Calendar: This feature offers a central place where employees can view all important company events, company holidays and employee leaves. It also offers integration with Google and acts as the primary guide for employees while requesting time off. 
  • Data Import and Export: The module provides tools for data import and export. It also integrates with executive and payroll reports so users can access the information they need. 
  • Policies: The software assists HR with several kinds of leave and time off policies that range from leave accruals to bank all at once. 
  • Delegate Approvals: Approvals can be delegated to managers for time off or leave requests, without providing access to any sensitive employee information. 
  • Leave Balances and Requests: Employees can access complete time off information such as available balances, history of previous PTO and time off requests. 
  • Employee Reviews: The solution enables users to schedule and delegate employee reviews within all levels of the organization. 
  • Three-Way Feedback Channel: The employee review feature curates feedback of employees, company and managers, promoting better transparency and honesty in user feedback. 
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Product Ranking

#23

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#108

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User Sentiment Summary

Fair User Sentiment 132 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 26 reviews
69%
of users recommend this product

SumTotal has a 'fair' User Satisfaction Rating of 69% when considering 132 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

92%
of users recommend this product

Kin HR has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 92% when considering 26 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

3.2 (39)
n/a
2.7 (7)
4.62 (13)
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4.6 (13)
4.0 (56)
n/a
2.9 (30)
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Awards

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Kin HR stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Robust Tools: All reviews on this feature suggest that SumTotal provides a robust set of talent development and management, payroll, and workforce management solutions.
Effective Tracking: According to 80% of reviews on tracking, the software optimizes talent management by tracking development and career growth.
Self-Service: Managers and employees can access and complete training courses at their convenience, according to all reviews on self-service.
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Simple Interface: Many users find Kin's interface to be intuitive and easy to navigate, even for those without extensive HR experience. The platform's clean design and straightforward menus make it simple to find the information and tools needed to manage employee data, payroll, benefits, and other HR tasks.
Employee Self-Service: Kin empowers employees to take ownership of their information and HR-related needs. Through the self-service portal, employees can easily access and update their personal details, view pay stubs, request time off, and manage benefits enrollment, reducing the administrative burden on HR teams.
Time-Saving Automation: Kin automates many routine HR tasks, such as payroll processing, benefits administration, and time-off tracking. This automation not only saves time but also reduces the risk of errors, ensuring accuracy and compliance.
Comprehensive Reporting: Kin provides robust reporting capabilities, allowing HR professionals to gain valuable insights into workforce data. Users can generate reports on various HR metrics, such as employee turnover, headcount, and payroll costs, to make data-driven decisions and track progress toward HR goals.
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Outdated Course Content: About 70% of reviews on course content reported that some modules aren’t frequently updated, resulting in an outdated learning experience.
Non-Intuitive Functions: Most features and functions aren’t intuitive, making it difficult to navigate, according to all reviews on this aspect.
Access to Reports: Accessing and pulling reports is extremely tedious and slow, according to 100% of reviews on reporting.
Customer Service: All reviews on customer support suggest that customer service is very slow and unresponsive.
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Limited Customization: The platform's rigidity can be frustrating for companies with unique or complex workflows, as it may not accommodate their specific needs.
Payroll Integration Issues: Several users have reported challenges and inaccuracies when integrating Kin HR with their payroll systems, leading to potential compliance issues and frustration for HR teams.
Mobile App Functionality: The mobile app's limited features and occasional performance issues can hinder accessibility and convenience for both employees and HR professionals who are on-the-go.
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SumTotal users paint a mixed picture, praising its robust functionality and mobile accessibility while critiquing its clunky interface and steep learning curve. Many laud its comprehensive suite, encompassing everything from onboarding to performance management, finding it a one-stop shop for HR needs. One user gushes, "It's like having a whole HR department in the cloud!" However, ease of use seems to be a major sticking point. Comments like "The interface feels outdated and unintuitive" and "Learning curve is a mountain, not a hill" pop up frequently. This is often contrasted with praise for competitors like Workday, lauded for its sleek design and user-friendliness. One user sums it up: "SumTotal has the depth, Workday has the polish." Mobile accessibility shines as a bright spot, with users appreciating the ability to manage tasks on the go. This stands out compared to some competitors, making SumTotal a good fit for companies with a mobile workforce. Ultimately, SumTotal seems to be a powerful tool for organizations willing to invest the time and effort in mastering its complexities. As one user puts it, "It's not perfect, but it's incredibly versatile. If you can handle the initial climb, the view from the top is pretty good."

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Kin HR, a comprehensive HR software solution, has attracted considerable attention for its user-friendly interface and robust features. Users frequently praise the platform's intuitive design, highlighting its ease of navigation and straightforward workflows. This is particularly beneficial for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with limited HR resources, as it allows them to efficiently manage employee data, payroll, benefits, and other HR-related tasks without requiring extensive training or technical expertise. While Kin HR offers a wide range of features, some users note that its reporting capabilities could be more extensive. Compared to competitors like BambooHR and Gusto, Kin HR's reporting options are perceived as somewhat limited, particularly for generating complex or customized reports. Additionally, while the platform integrates with several popular payroll providers, some users express a desire for broader integration options to streamline their HR processes further. Despite these limitations, Kin HR's core strengths lie in its ease of use, affordability, and comprehensive feature set, making it an attractive option for SMBs seeking a reliable and efficient HR management solution. Its intuitive interface and focus on essential HR functions make it particularly well-suited for businesses with straightforward HR needs and limited IT resources.

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