40+ Ways to Customize BambooHR for Manufacturing

For HR in manufacturing, choosing the right tech stack is like assembling a well-engineered production line. You need something strong, flexible, and capable of handling every operational detail. As a lean team facing unique industry challenges—like managing shift schedules, safety compliance, and rapid onboarding—you need more than a generic HRIS.

With that in mind, BambooHR® offers extensive options for customization to ensure you’re getting a truly complete HR toolkit that can support all your team’s needs. Read on to learn more about how manufacturing pros just like you use BambooHR to craft their perfect HR solution.

Key takeaways

  • Use custom fields and tables to centralize detailed compliance data like machine licenses, OSHA records, and driver certifications.
  • Accurately track shift workers across multiple sites using geolocation on the BambooHR® Mobile app and physical time clock.
  • Personalize your recruitment workflow with custom candidate statuses and application questions to assess specialized manufacturing skills.
  • Simplify complex, multi-rate payroll and stay compliant by tracking different shift types, tasks, or site-based pay structures.
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Data and reporting

BambooHR makes it easy to gather all the data you need and manage it exactly how you want. With extensive data field options and custom reporting, BambooHR empowers you to create a centralized, comprehensive HR database for everything your production team needs, from streamlined recordkeeping to automatic multilingual translation services.

Standard fields and tables

With BambooHR, adding custom data fields and tables is simple. Start with the Standard Fields Library, which lists dozens of pre-made fields and tables you can add or remove in your account.

The Standard Fields Library houses a wide range of information relevant to HR, including options for driver’s licenses, professional certifications, and more—so you don’t waste time building out fields to meet your basic data needs.

Custom fields

Manufacturing involves a lot of detailed recordkeeping, with many of the required data varying from product to product. Luckily, BambooHR makes it easy to add any custom fields you might need by going through the Employee Profile or Settings.

From tracking equipment to documenting employee certifications, custom fields can collect any data point you want.

Here are some examples of custom fields used by our manufacturing customers:

Options for field types include:

Custom calculations

In addition to regular custom fields, you can also personalize your account with custom calculations. This turns time-consuming tasks—like tracking certification renewal deadlines or adding up bonuses—into a simple automated process.

BambooHR can create the following calculation fields:

Custom field translation

Manufacturing workplaces often include teams with diverse language backgrounds. Spanish, in particular, is widely spoken—about 1 in 6 manufacturing workers in the US identify as Hispanic. Facilitating effective communication across languages is essential to maintaining productivity, safety, and team cohesion.

To make sure everyone on your team has equitable and easy access to their essential HR information, you can translate any of the custom fields you create into your employees’ preferred languages.

BambooHR currently supports:

Required and optional fields

While you love getting to know your people, not every data field needs to be mandatory. BambooHR lets you be more hands-on with the employee user experience and control which fields are required or optional to fill out.

"The ability to configure and customize BambooHR to fit our needs is the simplest method of any I have experienced. It's just so logical in terms of where you go to find something.”

Rob Scott | Chief Operating Officer | Smart WFM

Custom data tables

Like fields, you can customize tables to display the key data you need. When creating a custom data table, you have two types to choose from:

Here are some examples of custom tables used by our manufacturing customers:

Custom table
Data collected
CDL information
  • License number
  • State
  • Expiration date
  • Active/inactive status
Contract details
  • Start date
  • End date
  • Notes
Incident Tracker
  • Incident date
  • Treatment
  • Status
  • Workers comp claim number
  • Incident notes
Job Skills
  • Skill
  • Skill grade
  • Notes
Uniforms
  • Uniform allowance amount
  • Uniform size
  • Uniform reimbursement

Add a custom tab

While BambooHR comes with a large selection of tabs you can add directly to your account, if you have a more individualized need, you can request custom tabs. For instance, if you issue a lot of uniforms and PPE to employees, you can create a personal equipment tab to keep relevant records in one place.

Email alerts

Custom email alerts make it easy to send employees reminders to update information or follow up on time-sensitive tasks. For example, you can set up automatic reminder emails for certification renewals or training deadlines.

With a custom email alert, you’re able to name the event, set the time and date, write the subject line and message, and choose the recipients. You can create custom email alerts based on a few different field types.

Customize and manage file folders

Maintaining an organized system for documents is essential to managing all the paperwork that goes into HR for manufacturing. Whether you’re looking for employee training records or company policies, BambooHR keeps things simple with easy-to-manage folders you can quickly create, rename, and rearrange based on your current filing needs.

Custom reports

In BambooHR, you have access to over 40 standard reports. But if you need to get even more specific, generating a custom report is quick and simple. You can choose all the fields you want to include, as well as select specially calculated fields that pull partial information or combine data from multiple fields (such as employee age or length of service).

Design your custom report to present the key HR metrics you need by filtering, sorting, and grouping the results.

“BambooHR is our source of truth—it's great for keeping employee reporting and data up to date.”

Ally Herman | HR Generalist | GeoSpectrum Technologies Inc.

Approvals

Overseeing approval processes is an important day-to-day responsibility for your HR team. Custom approval forms and advanced workflows ensure that every approval process is seamlessly managed through BambooHR.

Custom approval forms

You can set up custom approval processes to go along with any of your custom fields or tables. For example, if you need to approve mileage reimbursements, you can create an approval form for employees to submit, along with uploading a copy of their receipt in their profile’s documents tab.

Here are some ways you can customize your approval forms:

Advanced approvals

Between managers, deskworkers, and skilled laborers, not everyone in your workforce has the same responsibilities, and they don’t all follow the same workflows and approval processes. To accommodate the needs of all your team members, you can divert employees’ approval paths based on several factors, including:

With each approval path, you can define who makes requests and who has the power to approve them, allowing for workflows that reflect everyone’s particular team operations.

Access levels

An HRIS holds a lot of sensitive data, which makes controlling access for users a compliance issue. Access levels ensure all your employees can navigate BambooHR efficiently, accessing everything they need—and nothing they shouldn’t.

You can make custom access levels highly specific, narrowing access down to discrete functions within BambooHR. For instance, a custom access level might enable select users to add or terminate employees, but not allow them to perform any other employee profile actions.

Employees

Control how much access a user has to employee profiles. You can create a custom access level with permission to perform some or all of the following actions:

Hiring

Decide what someone can do within the Applicant Tracking System. These settings are especially useful when creating a custom access level for hiring managers, so they can stay on top of fast-paced hiring cycles. Options for hiring actions include:

Time tracking

Are your managers responsible for timesheets? Create a custom access level with the ability to perform time-tracking actions. Options for time-tracking permissions include:

Reports

Give select users extra flexibility with creating custom reports. Employees with this access level setting will be able to generate new custom reports based on any of the fields and employee information they are allowed to view.

Custom report and records access is especially useful when working with vendors and subcontractors—they can generate the reports they need without hassle, and your internal company data stays secure.

Company files

Empower employees with administrative responsibilities by giving them direct access to managing files. Decide whether or not a custom access level can do the following:

Settings

To create an access level that gives users greater administrative control without making them full admins, you can adjust access levels for account settings. Custom access options for settings include:

Viewing permissions

Each custom Access Level can have its own viewing permissions. Control what user groups can see on their own profiles, other employee profiles, and the BambooHR homepage.

Display

Customizing displays within BambooHR is easy. Whether you’re adjusting the color and design for the whole company or arranging widgets on your individual account, you can make BambooHR truly your own.

Logo and color

Make your BambooHR account feel like home by uploading your manufacturing company logo and choosing from over 40 color scheme options. Your logo will appear next to the administrative tabs within your BambooHR account and on your external-facing careers website.

Color code and add icons to time off categories

Keep your Who’s Out calendar and Time Off Schedule report organized exactly how you like them by choosing color codes and icons for each time off category. Customizing the color codes and icons for time off ensures your internal brand stays consistent and gives your people a coherent shorthand for time-off planning.

Insights dashboard

Individuals with administrative access can customize their Insights Dashboard to include the information and reports they care about most, such as benefit enrollments, time off requests, or employee age distribution.

Hiring, onboarding, and offboarding

Hiring in manufacturing comes with its unique challenges. With high turnover and a diverse talent pool, you need a streamlined system that can keep up. BambooHR allows you to effortlessly manage all your hiring, onboarding, and offboarding processes in one connected platform.

Custom candidate statuses

When you hire for a manufacturing role, the application process can look a little different than a desk job. With BambooHR, you can create custom candidate statuses to maintain an organized hiring system that accurately reflects your workflow, adding specific interview steps like certification checks or skill assessments. These custom steps will appear in the status dropdown list, allowing hiring managers to have an accurate record of where candidates are in the process.

Custom candidate sources

Keep track of your recruiting strategies and referral incentive programs by adding a custom field for candidate sources. For each candidate, you’ll have a record of exactly how they came to apply for the position, whether it was through a job board, job fair, employee referral, or other recruiting source.

Custom application questions

Job application questions don’t have to be generic. With BambooHR® Applicant Tracking, you can write custom questions for job applications. Choose from several question-and-answer formats, including:

BambooHR saves your custom questions, so when it’s time to post a new job opening, you can immediately add your go-to custom questions without any extra effort.

Applicant tracking system integrations

If you already have an applicant tracking system you’d like to keep using, BambooHR has your back. Get the best of both worlds by syncing BambooHR with your favorite ATS—you’ll use all the systems you love without having to juggle data between them.

Here are some of the popular ATS options available through BambooHR® Marketplace:

Background check integrations

Don’t let complicated background check processes slow down your hiring process. With several leading background check programs available in the BambooHR Marketplace, your potential hires can navigate the process with efficiency and confidence.

Popular choices for background checks include:

New-hire welcome packets

Save time during onboarding and avoid common mistakes by creating your own packet template for new hires. When creating a new hire packet template in BambooHR, you can add in any important first-day information and a set of “get to know you” questions.

To further personalize the onboarding experience, you can use the answers in the new hire packets to automatically send out an introduction email to employees, so they can welcome their new team member.

Time tracking

In BambooHR, you can manage pay rates and timesheets exactly how you need. With easy pay rate customizations and ample time tracking integrations, BambooHR serves as your personalized time tracking hub.

Multiple project pay rates

If your employees work at several different pay rates, you need an HRIS that can handle multiple rates. With BambooHR, managing pay rates is a breeze, allowing you to add all the pay rates you need to employee records and time tracking.

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Physical time clock integrations

Prefer to manage time with a physical clock-in system? With BambooHR, you can—without adding complexity to your workflow. BambooHR integrates with several leading time clock systems, allowing your team to clock in and out at the start and end of their shifts. All time data flows directly into BambooHR—no manual entry, no extra steps.

This is especially valuable in high-volume manufacturing environments where precise clock-ins and streamlined shift tracking are essential for productivity, payroll accuracy, and labor law compliance.

Some integrated time clock services include:

Time off policies

In BambooHR, you can create as many accrual time-off policies as you need. Under Time Off Settings, create customized time off policies, add new time off categories, define tenure milestones, and assign employees to particular policies.

As your time off policies evolve, you can review the policy edit history, giving insight into how policies have changed and how it may have affected employees.

Payroll

Manufacturing payroll has a lot of moving parts, and to get it done, you need a payroll solution that works for you. From managing multiple project pay rates to easy file feeds, BambooHR ensures your payroll process is simple and accurate.

Multiple pay rates in payroll

BambooHRⓇ Payroll makes it easy to handle multiple rates per employee, so you can accurately compensate team members based on shift type, task, or site. Whether it’s a night shift premium or role-based pay, you can simplify payroll and stay compliant—without extra spreadsheets or manual calculations.

Custom payroll cycle data reports

Streamline vendor communication by using custom payroll cycle data reports—perfect for sharing accurate information with key external partners. Especially helpful in manufacturing environments where headcounts are high and roles vary, these reports help ensure compliance and reduce manual reporting errors.

Custom pay cycle file feeds

BambooHR Payroll also makes it easy to get your data directly to your vendors. With custom pay cycle file feeds, BambooHR will automatically and securely send your payroll data to 401(k), workers’ compensation, HSA, and FSA vendors—helping manufacturing teams reduce admin time and stay on top of compliance across multiple roles and locations.

Performance management and development

BambooHR empowers you to create consistent growth and development opportunities for everyone at your company. With personalized, flexible review processes, you can give your employees the feedback and support they need to succeed.

Performance review cycles

Ditch the standardized annual review, and start personalizing your performance review cycles to match the pace of production cycles and manufacturing milestones for your company. Choose the review cadence, which employees should be included, and whether to use feedback or assessments.

Custom feedback and assessment questions

Get the precise performance feedback you want with custom questions for both feedback and assessment forms. You can write your own questions and have the option to remove default questions. On assessments, you can also add questions with custom rating scales.

Note: Removing default questions in BambooHR® Performance Management disables certain standard reports that track employee-manager alignment.

Learning and training integrations

Level up your training and employee enrichment by connecting your learning programs to BambooHR, allowing your data to update automatically. Popular preferred apps include:

"Thanks to BambooHR, I can now analyze my performance results. The results are plotted on a chart that is great for presentations."

Joanne Britt | HR Manager | Apex Graphics

Engagement and culture

Engagement strategy is personal to your company culture, and your engagement tools should be, too.

AI-powered employee satisfaction analysis

Through powerful AI analysis, Employee Satisfaction survey responses are instantly analyzed, tracking the unique trends within your workforce. Using AI, all employee comments are automatically sorted into three categories: likes, dislikes, and suggestions. From there, feedback gets broken down into deeper analysis, identifying specific sentiments and topics within your survey results.

Engagement integrations

Use BambooHR to fully capitalize on your favorite engagement tools. Sync your employee data, keep your systems running cohesively, and build your company culture. Preferred engagement apps in the BambooHR Marketplace include:

Recognition and rewards integrations

Make sure your employees feel recognized with a rewards program. Rewards programs show your appreciation to employees and can help field workers feel more engaged with your company culture. Introduce a new rewards system or build engagement in your current program by automatically syncing it with your BambooHR account. Below are a few popular rewards apps in the BambooHR Marketplace.

"The integration from BambooHR to Gifted couldn't be simpler. It's honestly set it and forget it! Employees are added and removed seamlessly and I never have to give it a second thought."

Emily Hanson | Director, People and Culture | Lovegreen Industrial Services

Additional integrations

Integration platforms

Can’t find the integration you’re looking for? Don’t sweat it! BambooHR Marketplace features several integration platforms that enable you to connect BambooHR with any app you need.

Here are some preferred integration apps:

Identity management

Keep employee logins secure and simple with identity management apps. Below are some popular apps you can integrate with BambooHR.

Communication with Slack

The BambooHR app for Slack makes it even easier for employees to stay connected, cross-posting information like time off requests, See Who’s Out calendar, manager approvals, and Employee Community announcements.

Travel management

If you have employees that travel for work, simplify the travel planning and expense process by integrating a travel app with BambooHR. Sync employee data, coordinate travel, and track expenses. Travel integrations in the BambooHR Marketplace include:

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