AI

• Hero AI can now surface happiness survey scores, response rates, trends, and comment themes, helping admins, owners, and permitted managers understand employee sentiment faster while protecting anonymity in low-response surveys and in-progress survey periods. (Released: 16 July 2026, Global, Premium, Platinum, Plus, Unlimited, Engage, Elite)

Automations

• HR admins can now set dynamic audience rules for chat channels using groups, locations, or worksites, so the right employees are added automatically as organisational data changes. (Released: 14 July 2026, Employment Unlimited + Chat add-on customers)

• Users can now ask Hero AI to build custom reports in plain language, with AI recommending the right modules and fields, checking for existing reports first, and pre-populating the report builder in one click. (Released: 13 July 2026, Premium, Platinum, Employment Plus, Employment Unlimited, and HR Elite plans)

• Workflow users can now describe a process in plain English and have AI generate a workflow with triggers, conditions, and actions, making workflow creation much faster for admins who do not know workflow logic in detail. (Released: 14 July 2026, Global workflow users)

Core HR

• Contractor profiles now display assigned policies and their status, making it easier for admins to review contractor compliance information without leaving the file. (Released: 16 July 2026, All plans)

• Admins can now edit uploaded contractor documents and view document details in a way that better matches the employee file experience. (Released: 16 July 2026, All organisations)

• People List search now supports worker code, helping teams find employees more quickly and combine that search with other filters. (Released: 16 July 2026, All regions)

• HR admins can now create and issue documents that only require recipient signatures in Doc Studio, simplifying document workflows where an employer signature is not needed. (Released: 14 July 2026, Global, Doc Studio only, Engage, Elite and Unlimited)

HR Rostering & Timesheets

• Roster managers now see clearer public holiday indicators across roster and timesheet views, helping reduce the risk of scheduling shifts on public holidays by mistake. (Released: 15 July 2026, Organisations using advanced rostering)

• HeroAI chat can now help employees and managers complete common timesheet tasks, such as copying timesheets, checking variances, reviewing overtime, sending reminders, and jumping to approvals or reports without leaving the chat. (Released: 14 July 2026, Employees and managers with Hero AI chat access)

• Hero Time Clock now makes facial recognition enrolment easier by letting employees enrol directly at the kiosk, while giving admins better visibility of enrolment status and tools to send reminder emails. (Released: 15 July 2026, Unlimited, Unlimited Lite, Plus, and organisations with the T&A add-on)

• Rostering Management now updates overnight shift end dates automatically when a shift runs past midnight, and success notifications on roster and timesheet pages can now be dismissed when no longer needed. (Released: 14 July 2026, Organisations using advanced rostering)

ITOps & Security

• Returning users invited to a new organisation can now sign in with their existing credentials and have onboarding details securely prefilled from prior records, reducing friction and preventing accidental password overrides. (Released: 15 July 2026, Existing account holders invited to join an organisation)

• Company feed permissions now support location and worksite scopes, giving admins more precise control over who can post to selected audiences. (Released: 14 July 2026, Demo, Platinum, Unlimited, Elite plans, all regions)

Mid-market / Digital Onboarding

• HR admins and owners can now choose whether onboarding custom fields are completed by the employee, the employer, or both, helping keep sensitive or organisation-managed information in the right hands during onboarding. (Released: 16 July 2026, Global)

Onboarding

• UK demo and free trial organisations now have the legacy Start Guide removed, creating a cleaner and more reliable first experience while better setting expectations between demo and real environments. (Released: 14 July 2026, UK free trial organisations created from 14 July 2026)

OpenAPI & Developer Experience

• OpenAPI now supports approving and declining form responses programmatically, helping teams action response workflows without relying on manual steps in the platform. (Released: 13 July 2026)

• OpenAPI now supports creating, updating, and deleting forms programmatically, giving integration teams end-to-end form management outside the UI. (Released: 15 July 2026)

• OpenAPI now supports publishing draft forms, assigning forms, closing active forms, and archiving forms through lifecycle action endpoints. (Released: 14 July 2026)

• OpenAPI now supports creating, updating, deleting goals, and uploading attachments, helping teams manage OKR workflows from external strategy and planning tools. (Released: 13 July 2026)

• OpenAPI now supports creating, updating, and deleting key results under goals, helping integration teams manage OKR milestones programmatically. (Released: 13 July 2026)

• OpenAPI now supports key result archive management and status updates, enabling programmatic progress check-ins and lifecycle control. (Released: 16 July 2026)

• OpenAPI now supports real-time webhook events for goals and key results, allowing integrations to react immediately when records are created, updated, or deleted. (Released: 15 July 2026)

• OAuth 2.0 authorisation code flows are now more secure with PKCE support, updated documentation, and stronger credential handling rules for token requests. (Released: 16 July 2026)

OpenAPI & Developer Experience

• Integration partners can now write employee custom field values through the public API, helping complete onboarding end-to-end without manual UI data entry. (Released: 14 July 2026, Global)

• Integration partners can now assign, update, and remove employee benefits through the public API, helping keep entitlements in sync with connected HR systems without manual entry. (Released: 14 July 2026, AU, NZ and UK)

Payroll

• Payroll admins can now filter pay run employee lists by one or more tags, reducing manual cross-checking during pay run review. (Released: 15 July 2026, Payroll Admins, Restricted Access Users)

• UK mileage reimbursement defaults and existing standard rates have been updated to the latest HMRC rate for cars and vans, while preserving the original reimbursement rate on already submitted claims. (Released: 16 July 2026, All UK organisations)

Performance Management

• Review period statuses on the web now correctly show as Ended when a review can no longer be actioned, with ended reviews opening in view-only mode for clearer status parity with mobile. (Released: 13 July 2026, Global, Premium, Platinum, Plus, Unlimited, Engage, Elite)

Platform Experience

• Timesheets Management and Expenses Management now show the most common row actions directly in each table row, with remaining actions grouped in an overflow menu to reduce clutter and make frequent actions easier to reach. (Released: 16 July 2026, Starting with Timesheets Management and Expenses Management)

Platform Experience / Mobile

• Employees can now long-press a colleague’s avatar or name in chat to open a compact profile preview showing details like job title, location, and local time, making it easier to understand who they are messaging without leaving the conversation. (Released: 13 July 2026, HR users)

Recruitment

• Recruiters and hiring managers can now send candidates a self-scheduling interview link with real-time attendee availability, helping interviews get booked faster with fewer scheduling conflicts. (Released: 13 July 2026, Recruiters and hiring managers)

• Hiring managers can now see contextual pipeline banners highlighting qualified Employment Hero candidates and quickly invite them to AI video interviews using free monthly credits. (Released: 16 July 2026, Recruiters and Hiring Managers)

United Kingdom-specific updates

• Non-admin users in UK organisations can now be granted access to the Celebrations widget through a dedicated permission, making birthdays and work anniversaries visible on their dashboard within defined employee scopes. (Released: 14 July 2026, UK only)

• Partial specified time off requests now display more accurately in external calendars for UK employees and managers, and half-day leave for standard-hours employees now shows standard AM and PM time ranges. (Released: 13 July 2026, UK only)

• Admins can now change an employee from a fixed-term contract to a permanent contract in a single edit, with the contract end date automatically removed to keep workforce records accurate. (Released: 13 July 2026, UK only)

• Fixed review periods now support extensions for specific employees and reviewers, allowing teams to recover missed deadlines without changing the deadlines for everyone else in the review cycle. (Released: 13 July 2026, UK only)

• A new Incidents tab on the employee profile now gives authorised users a read-only view of workplace incidents for that employee, helping teams review incident history without leaving the employee file. (Released: 14 July 2026, UK only)

• A new Time Off Settings Management permission now allows UK organisations to delegate management of time off types, advanced settings, rules, and return-to-work settings beyond Admin and Owner users. (Released: 13 July 2026, UK only)

• Recruiters and admins can now see when a background check needs action directly in Employment Hero, with clear guidance and the ability to confirm action completion without switching to Zinc. (Released: 15 July 2026, UK only)