Cezanne HR review

Human Resource tasks have long since moved from manual processes to an online platform. With that in mind, Cezanne HR introduced its online, cloud-based HR software platform to market, focused on the UK and international organizations. It counts among the organizations that it supports the ASL Aviation Group, Brook, Triple Point, and Aztec.

Plans and pricing

While Cezanne HR indicates that it has “Remarkable cost-effective” pricing, with an all inclusive subscription model, after that the specifics are lacking as we encounter the all too common opaque pricing situation as the company requests that we “Get in touch” with our business credentials, and then we can be contacted by a salesperson to assess our needs, and provide a quote for the chosen plan. While we can certainly appreciate this approach from Cezanne HR’s perspective, we also wish that potential customers could better assess the pricing, and possible tiers of plans from the website, and be in a better position to comparison shop between providers.

Cezanne HR does indicate that its all inclusive plan does include a pile of features, such as world class hosting on Amazon Web Services (AWS), and boasts an uptime of 99.9%, not including maintenance windows. There are also automatic updates, expert support from UK reps, mobile apps, an ideas forum, and 24/7 monitoring for security and stability.

This all sounds great, but somewhat hard to place into context without an actual specific price.

Features

Cezanne HR targets mid-sized organizations, with an HR solution that covers all the pieces of HR. There are a number of modules that are named:

• People management
• Onboarding and Lifecycle
• Absence Management
• Time Tracking
• Performance Management
• Career and Succession
• Online Recruitment and ATS
• Integrations

Throughout these modules, some features permeate such as this is cloud based, enabling it to have cross platform support to be used from any modern browser. There is also better coordination through centralized reporting, and notifications and alerts to keep people on task. Global capabilities are enabled via language translations for international use. Processes can be enhanced via approval workflows, with configuration tools for the ability to customize workflows. There is also role based security to control which users can see and work with what they need for their job, while keeping other areas secure.

Efforts are made to make the transition to Cezanne HR as smoothly as possible. Included is a “Free core HR data upload” to get onto this new platform. Also available are additional setup services that are a “Low-cost fixed-fee” as an option depending on what the organization needs.

A significant activity of HR is to manage paid time off. This not only includes paid vacation leave, but also sick leave, holidays, and unpaid leave situations. While this all can easily turn into a burdensome math issue, Cezanne HR has this all under control. Rules get defined such as rounding, carryovers, accruals and seniority, and then employee entitlement time gets calculated, and subtracted in light of the hours worked, the rules of the employer, and also the local calendar.

Employees interface with the system via the “Secure online self-service absence management software.” This enables the employee to then check the accruals, and also request time off. There are even team diaries- kept up to date in real time- that can prevent conflicts from everyone requesting the same week off.

Support

Cezanne HR appears to fall short in the direct support department, as it is not indicated that there is a direct phone number or email for a connection. When there is a time critical issue, or a more complicated problem, these can often be the preferred methods to get it addressed- which Cezanne HR does not have.

Rather, Cezanne HR has a 24/7 support portal from which users can post questions, review answers, or access an “Expanding library of product guides and how-to videos.” It is not made clear what the expected turnaround time is for an answer when a query gets posted, nor what the hours and days of operation are, or if it is staffed 24/7.

That being stated, we do like to see that as new features are added to the platform, that release notes get emailed out. This also includes links to the latest product guides and videos to keep users completely up-to-date. Another support feature is the active community that gets accessed via the Support Portal. In this community, users can post suggestions for new features, upvote potential new features that others have suggested, and also get a glimpse into the ideas that are in progress of being worked on. Cezanne HR indicates that many of the new features get driven through this process, and that this community gives a voice to its customers.

Final verdict

Cezanne HR is a well rounded, and mature approach via a SaaS to an HR software solution. We point out such high points as the impressive 99.9% uptime, the included hosting via AWS, the user community to request new functionality, cross platform support, and the well done approach to scheduling time off. We do identify some areas for improvement, such as the way too opaque pricing with potential additional transition costs, and the lack of direct support options with unclear hours of operation of the support portal. Overall, Cezanne HR offers a comprehensive solution for those that can get past the shortcomings. 

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