Kenjo

Kenjo is a modern HR software platform headquartered in Berlin, Germany, designed specifically for small and medium-sized businesses operating in the European market. Founded in 2017 by a team of Spanish entrepreneurs who chose Berlin as their base for its thriving tech ecosystem and proximity to European enterprise clients, Kenjo has carved out a distinctive niche by combining the user-friendly design sensibility of a startup with the regulatory awareness and compliance features that European businesses require. The platform serves companies typically ranging from 20 to 500 employees, offering a comprehensive suite of HR tools that automates administrative tasks and frees people teams to focus on strategic workforce development.

What distinguishes Kenjo from larger HR platforms like Personio, BambooHR, or Workday is its deliberate focus on usability and the European mid-market. While enterprise HR systems often overwhelm smaller organizations with complexity, and lightweight tools lack essential compliance features, Kenjo strikes a balance: it is powerful enough to handle the full employee lifecycle from recruitment through performance management, yet intuitive enough that HR generalists without technical backgrounds can configure and operate it independently. This positioning has earned Kenjo strong user satisfaction ratings, with reviewers consistently praising the platform's clean interface and responsive support team.

Time Tracking and Working Time Compliance

Kenjo's time tracking module goes beyond simple clock-in/clock-out functionality to address the specific requirements of European labor law. The platform supports multiple time tracking methods including manual entry, timer-based tracking, and geolocation-based check-ins for field workers. Employees can log hours via the web interface or mobile app, with automatic calculation of overtime, break compliance, and weekly hour totals.

For German businesses, Kenjo's time tracking is particularly valuable because it helps comply with the Arbeitszeitgesetz (Working Time Act) and the landmark 2022 German Federal Labour Court ruling requiring employers to systematically record working hours. The platform can enforce maximum daily working hours, minimum rest periods, and break requirements, generating audit-ready reports that demonstrate compliance to works councils and regulatory authorities.

Absence and Leave Management

Managing employee absences across European markets is notoriously complex due to varying national holiday calendars, statutory leave entitlements, and local regulations around sick leave, parental leave, and special leave categories. Kenjo's absence management module handles this complexity with configurable leave types, country-specific holiday calendars, and automated approval workflows. Employees submit leave requests through the self-service portal, managers approve or decline with a single click, and the system automatically updates team calendars and capacity planning views.

The platform supports Bradford Factor calculation for monitoring absence patterns, automated notifications when leave balances are running low, and carryover rules for unused vacation days. For companies operating across multiple European countries, the ability to configure different leave policies per office or employment contract type is a significant operational advantage.

Recruitment and Applicant Tracking

Kenjo's recruitment module streamlines the entire hiring process from job posting to offer acceptance. HR teams can create and publish job listings to multiple job boards, manage incoming applications in a kanban-style pipeline, coordinate interview schedules with hiring managers, and communicate with candidates through templates and automated emails. The system tracks each candidate's journey through customizable hiring stages, providing visibility into recruitment metrics like time-to-hire and source effectiveness.

While Kenjo's recruitment functionality is competent for SMBs with moderate hiring volumes, companies with high-volume recruiting needs or complex multi-stage assessment processes may find the module less feature-rich than dedicated applicant tracking systems like Greenhouse or Lever. However, for most small and medium businesses, the advantage of having recruitment integrated into the same platform as onboarding, employee management, and performance tracking outweighs the limitations.

Onboarding Workflows

The onboarding module allows HR teams to create structured onboarding plans with task checklists, document collection workflows, and automated reminders. New hires receive a self-service portal where they can complete required paperwork, upload identification documents, review company policies, and familiarize themselves with their team before their first day. Managers receive task lists for their part of the onboarding process, ensuring that equipment provisioning, system access setup, and team introductions happen on schedule.

Well-structured onboarding has a measurable impact on employee retention and time-to-productivity, and Kenjo's approach ensures that no steps are missed regardless of how busy the HR team is on any given day. The system is particularly useful for remote onboarding scenarios, where the absence of physical office orientation makes structured digital workflows essential.

Performance Management and Feedback

Kenjo provides a performance management framework that includes goal setting, continuous feedback, and structured performance reviews. Managers and employees can set OKRs or other goal frameworks, track progress throughout the review period, and conduct formal evaluations using customizable review templates. The platform supports 360-degree feedback, self-assessments, and manager evaluations, providing a multi-perspective view of employee performance.

The continuous feedback feature encourages regular recognition and constructive input between formal review cycles, fostering a feedback culture that improves engagement and reduces the anxiety associated with annual performance reviews. Pulse surveys complement the performance module by giving HR teams real-time insight into employee sentiment and engagement levels across the organization.

Payroll Preparation

While Kenjo does not process payroll directly, the platform provides comprehensive payroll preparation tools that aggregate all the data needed for payroll processing: working hours, overtime, absences, bonuses, and salary changes. This data can be exported in formats compatible with major European payroll providers, significantly reducing the manual data entry and error-prone spreadsheet work that typically precedes each payroll run.

For German companies, Kenjo integrates with DATEV, the dominant payroll processing system in Germany. This integration allows seamless transfer of HR data to payroll, eliminating duplicate data entry and ensuring consistency between HR records and payroll calculations.

Employee Database and Document Management

Kenjo serves as a centralized employee database where all personnel information, employment contracts, certifications, and HR documents are stored securely. The platform supports digital employee files with configurable access permissions, ensuring that sensitive information is only visible to authorized personnel. Document expiration tracking alerts HR teams when certifications, work permits, or probation periods are approaching their end dates.

European Data Protection and Compliance

As a Berlin-based company, Kenjo operates under the strict data protection framework of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation and Germany's Federal Data Protection Act. All employee data is stored in EU data centers, and the platform includes built-in GDPR compliance features including consent management, configurable data retention policies, and tools for handling data subject access requests. Employee self-service portals allow individuals to view and download their personal data, supporting the right of access under GDPR Article 15.

For European businesses handling sensitive employee data, Kenjo's compliance-first approach eliminates the regulatory risk associated with using US-hosted HR platforms that are subject to the CLOUD Act. The company provides data processing agreements and maintains transparent documentation about data handling practices.

Pricing and Plans

Kenjo offers three pricing tiers: the Starter plan at EUR 6 per employee per month, the Growth plan at EUR 10 per employee per month with additional features like performance management and advanced analytics, and the Connect plan with custom pricing for larger organizations requiring integrations and premium support. All plans include a free trial period, allowing businesses to evaluate the platform before committing. The per-employee pricing model means costs scale predictably with team size, making it budget-friendly for growing SMBs.

Limitations and Considerations

Kenjo is optimized for European SMBs, which means it may not suit organizations with complex global HR needs across multiple continents. Some users report occasional interface bugs and slower loading times during peak usage. The reporting capabilities, while adequate for most SMB needs, lack the depth of enterprise BI tools. Integration options beyond DATEV and standard calendar tools are limited compared to larger platforms like Personio. However, for its target market of 20-to-500-employee European companies, Kenjo delivers a well-balanced combination of features, usability, and compliance at a competitive price point.

Who Should Use Kenjo

Kenjo is ideal for small and medium-sized European businesses that need a modern, user-friendly HR platform with strong compliance credentials. It is particularly well-suited for German companies needing DATEV integration and Arbeitszeitgesetz compliance, multi-country European teams that require configurable leave and labor law settings, growing startups that need scalable HR processes without enterprise complexity, and any European organization that wants to keep employee data within EU jurisdiction under GDPR protection.