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Customization is a crucial part of any good HR suite – if you can make your solution work for your business, everyone involved will find it easier and more effective to use. It’s no surprise, then, that the software teams at Cezanne have built an HR product that places customization at its core.
You can tailor this system to your workflows, automate key tasks, and simplify and improve efficiency across the entire employee lifecycle.
If you’re an SMB or enterprise that needs to connect HR systems in multiple countries, then Cezanne could be the best HR software for the job, although the UK focus may put off some users.
Cezanne HR: Plans and pricing
As with many HR solutions, Cezanne doesn’t publish pricing details publicly. Instead, pricing is devised on a case-by-case basis. Companies pay for Cezanne on a monthly basis, with the fee adjusted based on the average number of employees in the business during the previous month.
Bespoke pricing means that Cezanne’s customers can choose the modules they need and scale the solution to fit their organization, although a lack of pricing information available publicly can make initial budgeting and research more difficult.
Happily, Cezanne doesn’t charge additional setup or support fees, unlike some other providers. Sadly, no free trial is available.
Cezanne HR: Features
Cezanne’s Core HR functionality begins with an employee database that’s packed with every kind of information you’ll need about your staff – it’s a single source of truth that informs functionality across the rest of your modules.
By combining customizable workflows at every stage with a robust system of alerts and notifications, Cezanne enables HR teams to effectively manage large teams and create systems that work for their organizations.
Employee self-service enables staff to update their own details. Details can be updated in the Cezanne mobile app, too, and employees can submit PTO requests, complete HR forms, and access payslips. Managers can use the app to respond to all of those requests.
Cezanne supports electronic signatures and document-tracking, it offers an HR form builder with plenty of customization options, and integrated SMS messaging provides another avenue of communication.
The app automatically generates and distributes timesheets, and you can configure them with your own working patterns and methods – and employees can clock in and out using the Cezanne system, the mobile app, or tablets installed at your workplaces. Sadly, there’s no mention of the biometric systems you’ll find supported by other HR solutions.
Cezanne’s performance management module is built for continuous and periodic employee reviews, with features to quickly conduct and analyze 1-1 meetings. Managers can build their own goals for employees and those staff members can update progress and upload evidence, and you can use SMART objectives, rate competencies, and generate development recommendations. And for compensation reviews, Cezanne makes it easier with benchmarking, an integrated planning module, and automated notifications.
Cezanne supports 360-degree feedback, too, and includes employee recognition options like peer-to-peer systems, badges, and categories. This recognition can be seen on your company news feed, which mimics social media functionality by providing updates, images, videos, and more. You can also send pulse surveys to gauge your employees’ mood.
When it comes to PTO and absence, Cezanne handles calculations once you’ve defined your organizational rules, and employees can book absence from within Microsoft Teams. There’s support for TOIL and Bradford Factor reporting, too.
Cezanne provides a content library to support employee learning and development. You can integrate your company’s custom training programs, and you can automate learning communications to save your HR team time.
When you’re ready to promote, interactive performance and employee potential charts help you identify candidates and plan succession, and you can evaluate employee readiness and key attributes alongside business needs.
Data visualization makes succession planning simpler, and that’s a theme within Cezanne – because every module includes dashboards and reporting options that present data in graphs and charts that are easier to understand. Reporting across the app is also bolstered by good exporting options, including Power BI support.
It’s a crucial tool for effective decision-making by HR teams, and the graphical dashboards offer complete customization, too, so your HR teams can choose which data is included, pick the best display methods, and generate reports and presentations that can help make a difference.
As with many HR solutions providers, Cezanne has recently begun integrating AI features into its software. Cezanne’s AI integrations can help you build documents and emails, refine your writing, and accelerate workflow creation. In the near future, Cezanne plans to add a knowledge search feature that will pull answers directly from your documents and policies.
Cezanne’s recruitment module, powered by Occupop, delivers end-to-end hiring functionality and can integrate with Cezanne’s HR system or function as a standalone product.
You can build a branded career site, publish vacancies on global job boards, and use a job requisition management system to keep control of your hiring. You can build a talent database, use employee referral incentives, and provide hiring managers with clear overviews of candidates so you can pick the best prospects.
Smart shortlisting tools, candidate evaluation metrics, and workflows keep the hiring process moving at pace, interview scheduling is straightforward, and interview scorecards help you consider candidates.
When you’re hired, you can built customized onboarding portals with embedded videos, data, and welcome messages, create task lists for new hires and managers, and personalize the entire experience for specific candidates and positions.
Cezanne offers two payroll options. If you want to handle it in-house, Cezanne’s system delivers configurable dashboards, payslip generation, deduction reviews, and fast payroll processing – alongside seamless, real-time data management, payment calculations, pension reports, and pension auto-enrollment assessment.
This system is fully compliant with UK regulations, including HMRC and GDPR, and the software is ISO 27001-compliant. It’s a great slate of features but, sadly, the downside is that Cezanne’s payroll module only functions in the UK, even though the company’s HR system functions globally.
If you’re an international business, then your payroll options are simple: use a third-party tool or use Cezanne’s managed payroll services, which come at an additional cost. Once you’ve signed up, just make sure the pay-related details in your system are correct, and Cezanne’s team will handle the rest.
Cezanne offers an open API, which makes it relatively easy for your tech teams to connect this tool with third-party systems, and the company also offers plenty of pre-built third-party integrations.
This HR solution integrates with the full suite of Google and Microsoft products, as well as tools from Greenhouse, Workable, and Slack. That’s helpful, but at the time of writing the Cezanne website only included a couple of dozen integrations – other HR solutions offer hundreds.
As with most HR suites, the features you get with Cezanne depend on which modules you buy – and, in turn, that can increase costs to your organization. Also bear in mind that native payroll is a UK-only offering, so international businesses will need to look elsewhere or pay more for Cezanne’s managed payroll services.
Cezanne HR: Ease of use
Cezanne HR is an easy system to start using, with a gentle learning curve and loads of configuration – you can build the solution to work with your organization’s existing processes and tools, and it can be as complex or as straightforward as you like.
Navigation follows a conventional blueprint with modules opened from a menu on the left-hand side of the page and content displayed in the main window. It’s a modern, good-looking system that effectively balances complexity and usability.
Straightforward visuals and modern fonts make the system’s information easy to understand, color-coded calendars make planning and tracking simpler, and windows pop up with additional data in smart, helpful locations. You can drag-and-drop candidates based on visual data when recruiting, customize graphs in the insights module, and choose different permissions for various user groups throughout your business.
There’s plenty of customization available on Cezanne’s dashboard, too – it’s one of the most editable options we’ve seen anywhere. You can drag and drop widgets, adjust their size, alter colors and backgrounds, and build a home screen that works for you.
Indeed, customization is baked into Cezanne at every opportunity, which is great news for managers and administrators – and the reporting is versatile and robust, too, with plenty of chances to build outputs around your needs.
Cezanne HR: Support
Cezanne’s customer support starts with a knowledge base that’s packed with guides, resources, news, and videos on using the product. There’s also an AI chatbot that can help answer common questions and triage customer issues.
If you do need to get in touch, Cezanne offers an online ticket-based support system and phone support, with lines open from 9am to 5.30pm UK time on weekdays. There are no higher tiers of support and no additional charges.
It’s a reasonable support offering, but the UK-based office hours put Cezanne slightly behind rivals.
Cezanne HR: Competition
Cezanne’s customer support starts with a knowledge base that’s packed with guides, resources, news, and videos on using the product. There’s also an AI chatbot that can help answer common questions and triage customer issues.
If you do need to get in touch, Cezanne offers an online ticket-based support system and phone support, with lines open from 9am to 5.30pm UK time on weekdays. There are no higher tiers of support and no additional charges.
It’s a reasonable support offering, but the UK-based office hours put Cezanne slightly behind rivals.
Cezanne HR: Final verdict
Cezanne is a good option for any organization that needs flexibility throughout its HR processes – customization is a highlight throughout Cezanne’s various modules, the workflows are excellent, and the product offers a broad set of modules and features that cover the entire employee lifecycle.
Reporting is good, too, and Cezanne offers a reasonably accommodating learning curve, even for beginners.
Negatively, you can only use native payroll here if you’re based in the UK, and Cezanne’s library of integrations isn’t as deep as you’ll find elsewhere. Pricing transparency is lacking, and other products will have more accommodating support options – even if you have to pay for them.
Cezanne is an HR solution that you can build around a growing business, but we’d consider the payroll and integrations situations carefully before investing.
