HiBob vs Workday HCM

HiBob

"Core HR system of record" plus "eSign and document management" is a real claim set, more than a flat file with uploads. But nothing evidences org structure, custom fields, effective-dated contract or salary history, or multi-entity/cost-centre support — the evidence never shows the record keeping its past, so I can't call it true.

Workday HCM

The pages show a personnel management module in a full HCM suite, with employee self-service for HR data and a field set of tax, demographic, attendance and compensation data flowing between HR and payroll. We found no public information on the digital personnel file itself — document storage, org structure, custom fields, or dated contract and salary history — so I cannot tell from public pages whether the record keeps its history or overwrites it.

HiBob

Payroll is claimed as a module with "Payroll integrations", "UK payroll, US payroll", which is above a retyped spreadsheet but names no system, no format, no mid-month joiner/leaver handling and no pre-payroll check. For a DACH close into DATEV or a tax adviser there is literally nothing here I could hand over.

Workday HCM

Certified bi-directional integrations with named partners (Strada, Deel, CloudPay, PwC) covering 180+ countries, payroll for Germany, Austria and Switzerland delivered by Strada, and native payroll in five countries plus real-time automatic data flow — this is a real handoff, not a retyped CSV. We found no public information on a documented pre-payroll check, retro-accounting of backdated changes, or the tax adviser getting their own access, so I cannot yet confirm the month closes without me chasing anyone.

HiBob

"Time and attendance tracking" is claimed as a core module, which clears the bar of having any time capture at all. But the evidence is silent on entitlement calculation, carry-over, sickness, holiday calendars and any ArbZG/BAG recording-duty positioning — a timer next to an unmentioned vacation calculation is exactly what I don't buy.

Workday HCM

Requests, balances and accruals sit on one platform together with time tracking, scheduling and payroll, with an absence plan library, automated approvals and reminders, and one-click absence reports — the vacation calculation looks genuinely automated rather than a spreadsheet beside a beautiful org chart. We found no public information on the German working-time recording duty, carry-over, sickness recording, or per-location public-holiday calendars, so the labour-inspection side of the record stays unproven.

HiBob

Both halves exist by name — "Hiring and onboarding", a "Hiring Module", automated onboarding workflows with claimed 2–4 hours saved per hire — and a Recruiter role shows up in the privacy policy. No evidence of careers page, stages, candidate-to-employee carry-over, applicant retention/deletion or e-signed contracts, so the join path is asserted rather than shown.

Workday HCM

Recruiting is evidenced as an integrated product with AI candidate grading, automated sourcing from existing talent pools, and hiring managers guided through Microsoft Teams, backed by customer stats on review speed and recruiter capacity. We found no public information on onboarding itself, careers pages, structured stages, interview scheduling, applicant retention and deletion, or e-signed contracts — only half of the join path from vacancy to a productive day one is visible.

HiBob

The privacy policy is substantive: an appointed DPO (PrivacyTeam Ltd.), SCCs for EU/UK/Switzerland, DPF certification, and a clean controller-vs-processor role split. But retention is only "contact us by e-mail", no published DPA, no field-level permissions or read-audit, and data sits across six regions including the US and Israel with Google Analytics running — I could not walk this into a works council meeting.

Workday HCM

The privacy policy lists full subject rights, SCCs and DPF certification, states data is deleted or anonymized once no business need remains, and a GDPR page mentions configurable user access and monitoring of audit logs. Retention is described only as "as long as necessary" with no periods per data category, and we found no public information on a signable data processing agreement, field-level access with a who-read-what log, or monitoring features that can be switched off for co-determination.

HiBob

US-headquartered vendor (Hi Bob, Inc.), contracting entity non-EU (Hi Bob Limited, with an Israeli database-controller role), hosting disclosed across the US, EU, UK, Australia, Canada and Israel with no EU commitment, and no published subprocessor list — Refinitiv surfaces only incidentally. SCCs and DPF paperwork are the sole safeguard; every substantive sovereignty marker fails.

Workday HCM

The captured privacy policy names Workday Limited in Dublin as controller only for persons in the EEA, UK and Switzerland, with Workday, Inc. in Pleasanton responsible for everyone else; we found no public information on where data is hosted or which subprocessors are involved — service providers are described only by category. An Irish entity plus DPF and SCC language documents the transfer, but it is not a documented EU footprint a works council can lean on.

HiBob

A pricing page is linked in the nav, but the captured page yields only a free-demo offer and the homepage pushes "GET A FREE DEMO" with no numbers. I cannot compute even a rough annual invoice for 400 people from public pages; the ROI dollar figures are marketing, not prices.

Workday HCM

The captured pages give no prices at all: every route ends at "Contact Sales" and a demo, with only a general statement that services are sold by subscription and that user data is not monetized through advertising. I cannot begin to compute an annual invoice for 400 people from anything published.