16 Best Employee Engagement Software Tools in 2023
The best employee engagement software reviewed and rated by our HR tool experts. You’ll find pros & cons, user reviews, expert insight, pricing details & more below.
Browsing for excellent employee engagement software? You've come to the right place.
All too often, we find that companies don’t realize they need an employee engagement tool until it’s too late. Although this is a multi-faceted and complex topic, we have found the right employee engagement platform is critical to support your company’s efforts to keep productivity high and attrition low.
In this guide, we cover the entire landscape of employee engagement solutions. We start with a brief history to provide context, then we share the results of our research and experience. We hope to give you an end-to-end understanding so you can make a confident and informed decision on what to buy. But first, we share a list of some of our favorites and few words about how we decide who's the best among the best.
Employee Engagement Tools
To select the best employee engagement software, we combine insights from product demos with user feedback, the knowledge of industry experts, and the experience of our in-house team. We think the features distinguishing great engagement software from good ones are ease and anonymity of use, reporting and analytics, and automation.
- Ease and anonymity of use: The best employee engagement platforms make it easy for employees to take surveys and share their feedback regularly from different devices. Tools that integrate with Slack, MS Teams, and email scored particularly high in our selection process. We’ve also spent extra time looking for tools with anonymity settings, which ensure you’re getting the most honest and actionable feedback from your employees.
- Reporting and analytics: The most effective employee engagement software allows you to track engagement metrics, identify trends, and gain insights into employee sentiment. Reports can be generated to measure progress, spot areas of concern, and inform decision-making.
- Automation: We only select employee engagement tools that support a scheduled cadence for collecting employee feedback and seamless automation processes that disseminate that information to HR teams and execs through email and/or dashboards.
Our selection criteria prioritize what we believe is best for our readers. For an in-depth look at how we do that, read this article about our editorial guidelines.
WorkTango
Deel
SurveySparrow
Bonusly
Motivosity
Empuls
Assembly
Leapsome
Reward Gateway
Culture Amp
Kudos
Officevibe
Quantum Workplace
Mo
WorkTango
WorkTango helps you measure engagement and collect actionable feedback easily and confidentially. You can leverage its real-time dashboards and analytics to understand employee sentiment, empower managers to act and drive positive organizational change.
PROS
- Unlimited surveys available in over 20 languages including: English, Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Korean.
- You can use WorkTango’s research-backed and statistically validated assessments, or create your own.
- Anonymous Conversations enable managers to acknowledge and respond to open-text survey comments while protecting employee anonymity.
- You can compare your engagement survey results to internal and external benchmarks.
- Open text responses can be summarized with Natural Language Processing (NLP). It can also bring the most used terms front and center in a word cloud.
- Unlimited surveys available in English, Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Korean.
- You can add modules as you go and these will be charged on a prorated basis.
CONS
- Billing is only done annually and all plans require a minimum agreement of 12-month subscription (see our FAQs for more and their pricing page for full details).
- Free trials aren't available at this time.
- Billing is only done annually and all plans require a minimum agreement for a 24-month subscription (see our FAQs for more and their pricing page for full details).
- Several users have complained about the rewards redeeming process being not very intuitive.
Surveys & Insights from WorkTango is packed full of features that enable organizations to not only collect employee feedback and sentiment, but turn those insights into action across the entire employee lifecycle. Functionality such as giving managers access to their team’s results makes it easy to drive positive organizational change through their product.
Kia Motors, HUB International, Rexall, Accruent
WorkTango has three modules:
- Employee Surveys & Insights: Pricing starts from $8,000 billed annually.
- Recognition & Rewards: Pricing starts from $8,000 billed annually.
- Full Employee Experience Platform: Pricing starts from $10,000 billed annually.
Best For
Although WorkTango can be used by any company size, from SMBs to Fortune 100 enterprises, their 600+ clients are predominantly mid-sized to small enterprises in knowledge worker industries, such as software & tech, FSI, healthcare, and business services.
We used it for all employees to recognize each other for a job well done, birthdays, and anniversaries. HR would send birthday and anniversary recognition and other employees would comment wishing them well.
I liked that employees can recognize each other for accomplishments and a job well done. I like that employees can be recognized for their birthdays. I like that employees can be recognized for their anniversary each year.
We purchased WorkTango to build employee morale and encourage team building and recognition amongst peers. This is another way to provide positive reinforcement to our employees and encourage them to work hard and love what they do! I used it for 2 years.
Some employees would complain about the shop and being hard to navigate. We would receive feedback that employees didn't think it was super user-friendly. We had technical issues occasionally that would take a little while to resolve.
WorkTango is very similar to other programs out there. Not a lot of difference between the different ones I've used.
This is a great way to build morale and recognize employees. Employees love to be able to use their points towards items in the shop.
They have added unique features that make the overall experience more enjoyable.
WorkTango is good for companies that are looking for ways to recognize employees and build morale.
I think WorkTango is good for all companies that are interested in building morale.
Deel
While Deel is best known for global payroll, they have expanded into a comprehensive system enabling HR teams to manage and engage international employees and contractors.
PROS
- You can offer employee benefits through Deel, as well as other perks such as discounts at known service providers.
- The Slack integration allows the creation and deployment of pulse surveys to increase engagement.
- Getting paid through Deel is fast and easy. Payments arrive on time without delays.
- Deel's interface has a modern design and is fairly easy to navigate.
- Users praised Deel's customer support for being responsive and quick to resolve issues.
- It’s completely free to get started with Deel’s HR offering.
- One of the best features of Deel is its customer service. They offer 24/7 in-app support and the fastest-in-class onboarding speed of 2-3 days. Users get access to local payroll experts in each jurisdiction, and support is available for contractors facing challenges setting themselves up as an LLC.
- Integrates seamlessly with common platforms like Quickbooks, Bamboo, Greenhouse, and more. They also offer custom integrations to automate and sync processes.
- Self-service approach; tech-enabled features so customers can jump in quickly and easily. Our user researchers found it quite easy to set up: the identity verification process consistently took less than 24 hours, and in some cases, it took mere minutes.
- Automated invoices, which are a breeze to do as long as they’re in English, both on the company and the contractor or employee’s side.
CONS
- Pulse surveys are offered through the Slack plug-in, and aren’t built into Deel.
- The HR offering isn’t as developed as specialized HRIS/HCM solutions.
- Deel's fees and exchange rates are high compared to other platforms.
- The 30-day withdrawal deadline is inconvenient; many users would prefer for Deel to function as a wallet.
- There currently isn’t a mobile app for Deel; users can only access it through the web version.
- Despite being a global platform, Deel’s debit card feature is only available in a few countries.
- You can’t edit some of Deel’s contract clauses.
- Some of Deel’s best and most powerful services, like onboarding automation, appear to be add-ons, which might be too costly for some companies
- There is little to no flexibility when it comes to altering their contracts or service agreements, so many changes would require an addendum.
- There is a $5 fee per payout
- As far as we’ve seen, it’s not possible to generate invoices in another language.
Deel was designed with distributed teams in mind, which is evident in its flagship global payroll offering, but also in their continuous rollout of features that foster connections and engagement among remote employees. The "Connections'' tool enables 1:1 and group interactions to build relationships like those formed organically in an office.
Integrations like Slack make employee engagement initiatives accessible right within familiar workflows. Pulse surveys delivered via Slack see higher response rates. Surveys can also create interest-based Slack groups to connect employees around shared hobbies/topics beyond work projects.
It's impressive to see the employee experience capabilities Deel has built out, considering the company started by solving a different need - global payroll. The focus on relationships, networking, and engagement really caters to the needs of distributed, remote-first teams.
Over 15k businesses use Deel including Nike, Shopify, Redbull, and Zapier.
Deel’s pricing varies according to the tools you need. It is structured as follows:
- Contractors: Starts at $49/contractor/month covering payroll and compliance in 150+ countries.
- EOR: Starts at $599/month for hiring employees without local entities in new countries
- Global Payroll: Multi-country payroll for existing entities in 100+ countries. Contact sales.
- Deel HR: The plan packs features for you to automate HR admin and reporting for any worker with a global HR system. Pricing starts from $0. That’s right, it’s completely free to start using this plan.
- Immigration: Visa sponsorship in 25+ countries. Contact Sales for a customized quote.
Best For
Companies of all sizes can use Deel’s solutions to pay employees on time, offer benefits and engage them, wherever they may be.
SurveySparrow
SurveySparrow can help you boost employee engagement through pulse surveys, assessments, and automated feedback workflows that provide actionable insights from pre-hire to offboarding.
PROS
- SurveySparrow has an intuitive and user-friendly interface.
- Users like the ability to customize survey questions, design, flow, and logic per their needs.
- Integration with CRMs, marketing platforms, and collaboration tools allows for more process automation, seamless data syncing, and workflows.
- Responsive customer support.
- You can translate surveys in over 50 languages.
- There’s a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
CONS
- Starting at $19 per user per month, SurveySparrow's pricing is on the expensive side, making it out of reach for startups and small businesses. That said, you can try their newly released employee engagement and recognition solution, ThriveSparrow, for just $3 per user per month.
- The extensive features make the initial learning curve steep, especially for beginners.
- The reporting feature could use some improvement, with users reporting issues with extracting, analyzing, and compiling survey data like text responses into reports.
- A few users reported experiencing technical issues like surveys crashing or not loading properly. There were also spam filtering limitations that allowed fake responses.
SurveySparrow’s employee engagement solution helps you gather and act on employee feedback, from even before they’re hired and throughout their journey with your company. Right from the start, SurveySparrow helps attract top talent through engaging video survey forms that simultaneously collect the information you need and showcase your company culture. Once new hires join, you can ensure their onboarding goes smoothly by sending feedback surveys and providing the resources they need.
One of the things we were impressed with is SurveySprarrow’s ability to auto-send pulse surveys regularly. These short, routine surveys give real-time data on how satisfied employees feel regarding their work, benefits, company culture, and more. You can then dig into SurveySparrow's reports to glean actionable insights and make data-driven improvements.
When it's time for an employee to move on, SurveySparrow's exit surveys provide closure by uncovering the reasons behind their departure. This valuable feedback lets you address any issues to boost retention company-wide.
With its focus on actionable data, automated workflows, and integrated recruiting-to-offboarding feedback features, SurveySparrow is definitely worth checking out if you’re in the market for a suite with a host of employee engagement features. They’ve also recently launched a dedicated employee engagement and peer recognition product called ThriveSparrow, with affordable pricing plans businesses of all sizes can use and derive value.
SurveySparrow has over 100,000 customers, including Xerox, Godrej, Honda, Opera, and Grand Thornton.
For individuals
- Basic: $19 per month (billed annually) for a single user and 2,500 responses per year.
- Starter: $39 per month (billed annually) for a single user and 15,000 responses per year.
For teams:
- Business: $79 per month (billed annually) for up to 3 users and 50,000 responses per year.
- Professional: $249 per month (billed annually) for up to 5 users and 100,000 responses per year.
Best For
SurveySparrow’s engagement solution is best suited for growing companies and enterprises.
Bonusly
Bonusly helps you engage employees, celebrate their wins, and hear their thoughts on improving company culture. It does this through peer recognition, integration with team communication tools, analytics, and more.
PROS
- Modern, easy-to-use UI that’s available in multiple languages.
- Employees can recognize one another with GIFs, points, and more.
- Its social-media-style spreads recognition across teams/departments.
- Employees can redeem points for gift cards and other tangible rewards.
- There’s a 14-day free trial you can use to test the waters.
- Intuitive user interface.
- Available in German, English, French, and Spanish.
- Supports Android and iOS.
- Discounts for nonprofit and education organizations.
- 14-day, full-featured free trial.
CONS
- The analytics and reporting functionality is limited in customization and scope.
- The rewards catalog lacks experiential options and is focused on gift cards instead.
- Employees outside the U.S. have reward caps and fewer options.
- Some technical issues like downtime, user imports, and redemption bugs may be experienced from time to time.
- The starter plan is for small businesses that cap out at 50 users.
- Analytics and reporting features are relatively underdeveloped.
- The reward catalog lacks in-person experience and physical goods, and options and focuses on gift cards, cash, or donations.
- Unused bonus funds don’t roll over: users use it or lose it.
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Bonusly aims to improve employee engagement through frequent, meaningful peer-to-peer recognition and rewards. Employees can choose from over 1,200 gift cards across popular vendors, redeemable in over 200 countries. There are abundant options for apparel, food and beverage, travel, and more to match individual preferences. Bonusly also enables companies to offer unique branded swag using an AXOMO integration. Employees can browse and order items right from the Bonusly platform.
For those who prefer cash rewards, Bonusly points are redeemable for PayPal, Visa gift cards, and prepaid Mastercards. You can also create customized experiential rewards like lunch with the CEO, tickets to local sports games, additional PTO, and more. For employees passionate about certain causes, rewards can be redeemed as donations to over 50 integrated charities.
Beyond rewards redemption, Bonusly helps you put appreciation on auto-pilot through features like automated awards for milestones and integrations with HRIS platforms for automated birthday and anniversary recognitions.
Peer recognition is also simplified through Bonusly. There’s only a few steps to do it: employees receive a monthly allotment of points valued from $10-$20 to recognize fellow team members, then it’s as simple as choosing the recipient, points amount, reason, and optional hashtags or GIFs. To top it all off, all recognition shared around is showcased on a public feed, spreading and amplifying the positive vibes further.
Among Bonusly’s 3000+ customers are Hulu, InVision, SurveyMonkey, Headspace, and more.
Bonusly has 3 plan that costs as follows when billed annually:
- The Core plan costs $2.70 per user per month for up to 50 users. This plan is best suited for small businesses.
- The Pro plan costs $4.50 per user per month and provides more reporting, permissions, and integration capabilities for larger teams.
- The Custom plan gives access to all of the platforms’ features, plus premium customer service and implementation support for big businesses. Pricing is determined based on the number of users and features needed.
Best For
Bonusly serves companies in different verticals. As for company size, Bonusly is typically used by companies between 50-5,000 employees.
Bonusly is ideal for hourly, non-exempt workforce populations; these folks are engaged and thrive off the recognition. Management applauds this valuable tool and its support of teams and people across capabilities, departments and projects. Bonusly is also used as a means to donate to different charities. The reporting feature is helpful to understanding employee engagement.
Bonusly offers diverse opportunities to acknowledge and commend team contributions in a meaningful and impactful way. The UI is quite easy to navigate and integration with Slack makes it so easy to send "fun recognition" to colleagues. The ability to utilize Bonusly across the globe is also a great benefit.
I've used Bonusly with different organizations over the years. Bonusly absolutely achieves collaboration across teams/departments. It is a great way for peers to give kudos to each other via Slack (or other integrated platforms, as needed). I have multi-generational teams including Boomers to Gen Z-ers. Team members enjoy the ease of use, and the ability to recognize their teammates any time, day or night, and the ability to make it fun by adding memes, GIFs etc. to their posts.
The rewards are limited; not a lot of variety in gift cards. The need for a message and a mandatory hashtag can seem redundant and inconvenient. Automatic reminders to users to redeem points before they expire should be a standard feature. Additional choices for international employees would definitely be welcome!
Bonusly is a great platform for daily recognition. I don't feel that Bonusly can truly compete with platforms such as Snappy, which offer more impactful gifts. Organizations truly do need both as an opportunity for keeping teammates and colleagues engaged.
- Integrations are important, especially with Slack or any main workplace communication tool.
- Reporting is pivotal to determining how to best use peer recognition tools within the workplace.
- Having a functional, easy-to-use dashboard is a must-have, as is the ability to customize based on business needs.
Bonusly's possibilities for integrations and mobility is constantly evolving, as are the rewards and charitable donation options.
Bonusly is excellent for remote and global workforces, as well as hourly and entry-level employees and their managers. Bonusly is a successful tool in any sector of industry; as it is a universal tool that encourages peer recognition, appreciation, rewards and charitable giving.
I believe Bonusly to be a beneficial tool for any organization/sector of industry.
Motivosity
Motivosity’s product is changing every time we see it! We like that their employee Net Promoter Score survey (eNPS) goes out on the cadence you choose, and their feature-rich platform combines community, recognition and rewards, and employee insights.
PROS
- Motivosity’s friendly UI is easy to use both for employees and employers.
- Surveys are customizable and you can compare results to industry benchmarks.
- The built-in reporting provides insights on attrition, top employees, and manager coaching needs.
- Employees can access this system from their phones, desktop, and apps they are in at work such as Teams/Slack
- One platform that combines rewards, recognition, employee engagement, and more
- Built in reporting with insights around potential attrition, most recognized employees, managers that need coaching, etc.
CONS
- The mobile app doesn’t currently cover the employee survey tools.
- Integrations with tools like Slack and MS Outlook can be buggy, especially concerning notifications.
- There are no free trials at this time.
- Only has dollar (not points) based rewards. Their research shows dollars is more effective, but many companies want points.
- Some users claimed sometimes it can be a bit buggy connecting to Slack to notify people that an appreciation came through.
- It would have broadened the number of gift card options for users to choose from.
- There could have been an easier way to integrate the software with swag stores. For now, you have to transfer funds to a card and then link that card with the swag store, which slows down a bit the process to cash in funds.
Motivosity's employee engagement solution makes it easy to regularly gather feedback from employees and turn insights into action. We like how customizable their eNPS pulse surveys are, which yield rolling employee satisfaction data. This enables you to identify trends, compare results to industry benchmarks, and make better decisions to improve engagement.
You can build surveys for specific teams and departments, or have them made for organization-wide distribution. To ensure high participation rates and the least amount of friction in gathering employee input, Motivosity seamlessly integrates polling within the systems your employees already use.
Motivosity also helps companies understand and reduce regrettable turnover through aggregated exit interview insights. You can analyze trends in why employees leave to pinpoint areas for improvement. The platform further enables leaders to act on employee feedback with automated, easy-to-understand dashboards.
To sum up, we think there’s a lot to love above Motivosity. Its feedback-to-action loop can effectively help you stay on top of employee concerns and needs, which ultimately leads to higher retention. It’s also an easy-to-use platform that scales according to your needs.
Chick-fil-A, A&B, Bosch, KPMG, Fujifilm.
Motivosity’s pricing starts from $2 per user per month (billed annually) for their base module per user per month. Recognition & Rewards, Manager Development, and Employee Insight are offered as add-ons, each starting from $2 per user per month.
Best For
Motivosity is best suited for mid-sized companies with 100-3,000 employees aiming to improve employee experience. However, companies of all sizes can benefit from its offering.
Empuls
Empuls is one of the few employee engagement platforms that let you create your own social intranet to keep them abreast of the latest company updates, industry news, and seek feedback via interactive polls and quizzes. Your team can also celebrate milestones using built-in rewards, gift cards, and exclusive employee discounts.
PROS
- Empuls features a modern UI that’s easy to navigate. They also offer plenty of self-help articles to help you get started.
- The platform is quite comprehensive, with tools covering employee communication, engagement surveys, recognition, rewards, and analytics.
- Employees are able to participate in surveys on the go with the help of Empuls’ mobile app available on both iOS and Android devices.
- Their affordable and tiered pricing ensures different size companies can try out the tool and scale up or down as needed. They also offer a 30-day free trial that anyone can sign up for.
CONS
- A few users find the options for rewards rather limited. Several of them are specifically wishing for the inclusion of more Amazon gift cards viable in their countries.
- Employees cannot share their points with each other at this time.
- Once you assign a sub-domain, you cannot change it later.
- Several users have experienced performance speed issues with Empuls’ mobile app.
Empuls helps you create your own social intranet, a place where your employees can communicate with one another, send private messages to individuals or groups, create channels for specific teams or projects, and share files and documents securely. The platform also gives you the capability to create and deploy a variety of surveys covering every stage of their journey so get the insights you need to drive engagement, performance, and create a better workplace culture overall.
Empuls has over 1000 global customers, including Prodevans, Bahwan Cybertek, Magzter, FCA India Automobiles Private Limited, KPIT, Quixy, and more.
Empuls offers three pricing plans. Here are the prices if you choose to pay annually:
- Starter: This plan costs $20/year per employee. It offers features, including rewards and recognition, employee surveys and feedback, social intranet, and reports and analytics.
- Proficient: This plan costs $50/year per employee. It offers features, including white labeling, polls & quizzes, customer support, and everything that is in the Starter plan.
- Enterprise: This is a custom plan that offers everything from Proficient plan, plus custom HRMS integration, multi-region deployment, multi-currency payoffs, and dedicated customer success manager.
Best For
While Empuls offers several competitive features for every business, it’s most suitable for small to medium-sized businesses who want to build a people-first environment.
Assembly
With an adoption rate of over 90%, Assembly is a rewards and recognition platform that also allows you to customize and send out all sorts of engagement forms and receive actionable feedback.
PROS
- Explore the platform for free, no need for a credit card or demo
- Great set of features for the price point
- Make your own rewards and even set up a points system with automated incentives
- You have the option to go with a month-to-month plan or a long-term contract. For the latter, you can reach out to their team for a custom deal if it’s a larger team. However, keep in mind that the minimum agreement is 12 months.
CONS
- Coins and points do expire, so sometimes they’ll expire by the end of the month before you can use them, although you get more the next period.
- SSO is only included with some plans. For others, it can be purchased as an add-on.
Assembly started out as an employee rewards product and rapidly grew into a comprehensive platform that facilitates employee engagement, project management, and performance management.
Thanks to customizable forms and workflows, companies can use Assembly to send pulse surveys, conduct routine standups and 1:1s, track progress, automate employee recognition, and much more.
To put it in numbers, Assembly sees around 90% of employees use it on a monthly basis which is evidence that companies are successfully using it to build stronger cultures with more engaged employees.
Coca-Cola, Quest Nutrition, Nesco Resource, HelloTech, Amazon
Assembly has four plans that are priced as follows:
- Starter: Limited to 10 members, the Starter plan is free of charge and is designed for small teams that are interested in employee recognition.
- Lite: For $2.80 per member per month, billed annually, the Lite plan is designed for teams that want to maximize their employee engagement. This plan is limited to 50 members.
- Standard: For $4.50 per member per month, billed annually, the Standard plan packs all the necessary features for businesses to amplify cross-functional engagement, without any limits on the number of members on board.
- Premium: Designed for large organizations that need a custom and unique program, the Premium plan can accommodate unlimited members. Contact Assembly’s Sales team for a price quote.
Best For
Assembly can be used by companies of all sizes across different verticals.
Assembly is such a fantastic platform for sharing gratitude with your colleagues, across the organization as a whole, as well as internally and externally between departments. It is straightforward, easy, and fun to use! This tool is especially good for nurturing culture across a remote team. The integration with Slack makes it seamless for the team to use and engage with, and Assembly engages senior leadership with ease.
Simple, fast platform. Easy set-up and free trial version prior to transition to paid version. Easy implementation and great reporting options and support.
In the age of remote, work-from-home, and hybrid models, and all of the inherent challenges it presents, Assembly has allowed us to continue to celebrate business culture and monetize the value of success within our organization. We are able to easily recognize team members and their accomplishments so that those ambiguous moments can become tangible for the entire company to see. Acknowledgements of birthdays, anniversaries, work anniversaries etc. are seamlessly built in, never to be forgotten or overlooked. Coins can be exchanged for gifts, donated to charity, traded in for company-branded gifts, or cashed in for rewards. Our engagement rate is over 90% on the Assembly platform and we are very excited to see how they can continue to evolve its value proposition.
Coins expire if not used in time. UX could be more user-friendly. Larger tiered allotments would be a great improvement.
When considering any employee recognition platform, functionality and reporting should always be heavily weighted in the final decision. Recognition platforms go hand-in-hand with engagement surveys; some platforms do not offer this feature or offer. Limited version of this feature. Mobility and accessibility are primary concerns, especially where remote and global teams exist. Also, goal/challenge creation, tracking and attainment features are wonderful enhancements to include.
There have been consistent upgrades to the platform and Assembly is very open to feedback and suggestions.
Assembly is ideal for small and mid-market organizations.
Assembly would not be a good fit for large/enterprise organizations.
Leapsome
Leapsome is highly flexible; you can choose to build on their best-practice surveys and questionnaires developed by psychologists or customize everything — from questions to timelines and anonymity settings.
PROS
- Leapsome is feature-rich and easy to use.
- Through anonymous surveys, managers can collect honest feedback to understand the sentiment.
- Users appreciated how Leapsome centralizes feedback and reviews in one place.
- The notifications and reminders ensure tasks aren’t neglected.
- The visual charts, graphs, and analytics in Leapsome help you understand feedback and performance data.
- Leapsome is quite feature-rich; the platform packs modules for employee onboarding, learning management, engagement, performance management, goals tracking and much more.
- The majority of users find Leapsome’s UI to be friendly and easy to navigate.
- There are lots of third party integrations options to choose from, including Slack, which many users appreciate.
- The platform has transparent pricing, and you only pay for the modules you need.
CONS
- Users can’t include images or files in feedback.
- Leapsome’s wide range of features does mean a learning curve and lengthy implementation.
- There isn’t a mobile app for quick access on the go.
- Free trials require a sales demo to access.
- There is currently no way to post or upload an image or file into your feedback.
- Since Leapsome can do so many things, you may need some time to get used to it. The implementation process can also take some time.
- There currently isn’t a mobile app that users can download and access Leapsome quickly on-the-go.
- Free 14-day trials are available but you need to book a demo with the sales team first to sign up for one; you can’t do so on your own.
With customizable, easy-to-set-up employee engagement surveys, Leapsome allows you to measure the pulse of your company culture and make strategic decisions based on real-time insights. The platform also features Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning technologies that analyze written responses to open-ended questions, helping you quickly uncover sentiment, identify common themes, and undertake data-driven actions to tackle the biggest challenges.
Mercedes Benz, Spotify, Trivago, Eventim, Babbel, Plus Dental
Leapsome’s pricing depends on the number of your employees, the modules you want to use, and the length of your contract. Its modular pricing starts from $7 per user per month when billed annually. To get a detailed quote, contact Leapsome’s sales team. You can also test out Leapsome free of charge for a full 14 days - no credit card required.
Best For
Leapsome can be used by companies of all sizes across different verticals.
Reward Gateway
Reward Gateway stands out for combining employee engagement surveys, recognition features, reward options, communication tools, wellness guidance, analytics and more in a single solution.
PROS
- Easy to use for both the employees and the admin users.
- Remarkably good customer support thanks to their 24/7 help desk team and multiple communication channels.
- Varied rewards, including products from Amazon, customizable ecards, and experiences.
- You can purchase modules separately if you prefer it.
- Integration includes HRIS, directory, authentication apps, and collaboration tools. There’s also an open API.
- Remarkably good customer support due to their 24/7 help desk team and multiple communication channels
- Varied rewards including products from Amazon, customizable ecards, and experiences
- You can purchase modules separately if you prefer it
CONS
- The “Reward Gateway for Small Business” version is only available for companies in the UK, Australia, and Ireland.
- The platform’s free trial is only available for the Reward Gateway for Small Business version.
- The reporting feature isn’t very easy to navigate, according to some users.
- Several users noted they had poor experiences using the mobile app to access discounts provided by employers. The app also hasn’t been updated since Dec 9, 2022.
- Users are unable to change employee profiles or create new recognition themselves but have to rely on customer support.
- No free trial
- The “Reward Gateway for Small Business” version is only available for companies in the UK and Australia
Reward Gateway’s employee engagement platform is popular for its flexibility and wealth of features. It offers a range of engagement tools covering rewards, recognition, communication, surveys, well-being, and employee discounts — and gives you the option to purchase all or whichever of those tools as you need.
Another standout point of the engagement platform is its customer service. Businesses will have a dedicated client success manager, an implementation team, and a 24/7/365 employee support staff. According to several users, the support team has been proactive and helpful.
The platform also has flexible layouts. Non-IT users can navigate and modify it pretty easily. While reports are not as user-friendly as other features, the well-being center and segment surveys that support voice feedback are some unique elements it possesses.
Reward Gateway has over 1900 customers, including Ikea, McDonald's, Unilever, and Heineken.
- For companies under 100 employees and are based in the UK, Ireland, or Australia: It costs £6 (around $7.5) per employee per month for an annual subscription.
- For companies with 100+ employees: Undisclosed pricing. You will have to get in touch with their team to get the quote.
Best For
While having customers in 23 countries, Reward Gateway’s customer support is available in English, making it more helpful for English-speaking organizations. Their special scheme for small companies in the UK, Australia, and Ireland also makes it a compelling option for teams with under 100 employees and are based in these countries.
Culture Amp
Culture Amp boosts engagement through dozens of ready-made and customizable surveys, powerful analytics, and integration capabilities. To top it all off, the platform is supported by a group of data experts focused on everything relating to engagement.
PROS
- Culture Amp has an intuitive, easy-to-navigate interface.
- You can choose from multiple survey templates or create your own.
- Upon survey completion, the platform gives you insights into employee sentiment via heatmaps, trendlines, and benchmarks.
- You can set goals and track their progress seamlessly.
- You get useful reminders about different things like tasks, reviews, and 1:1s.
- People science team
- Tons of engagement surveys
CONS
- Customization options for reviews and ratings are limited.
- The platform features a text-heavy design that lacks visual elements like charts.
- It takes time to understand the platform’s full capabilities.
- The pricing isn’t publicly disclosed and can only be obtained after booking a demo.
- Their people science plus offering is not available for very small companies
- Enterprise clients might find that they lack some of the integrations and customizations a bigger team needs.
Culture Amp provides organizations with an effective system to regularly pulse their workforce, dig into key drivers of engagement, and take proven steps to create a thriving culture.
One of Culture Amp's greatest strengths is its library of 40+ customizable survey templates designed by experts in organizational psychology. You can leverage these prescriptive questionnaires to glean actionable insights around engagement, inclusion, onboarding, company events, and more. The software also benchmarks results against over 1 billion survey responses, allowing you to understand your engagement levels compared to top-performing companies.
Another feature worth highlighting is Culture Amp’s Retention Insights, which gives you early warning signs around employee flight risks. It doesn’t stop there though, Retention Insights also gives you suggestions on what you can do to bring these employees around.
The insights Culture Amp gives you aren't just comprehensive for leadership - they empower each employee to feel heard while driving change at an individual level. Both managers and employees appreciate the customized reporting and focused recommendations that translate feedback into clear steps forward. The platform is thoughtfully designed for each stakeholder, providing leaders with a birds-eye view of engagement while giving teams and individual employees visibility into areas requiring their input. This connectivity fosters a culture of accountability at all levels.
Culture Amp is used by over 6500 companies, including SoulCycle, Canva, McDonalds, Etsy, and Bombas.
Culture Amp has three modules - Engage, Develop, and Perform. The pricing isn’t fixed and is calculated based on the modules, number of user seats, and features you need. Contact the Culture Amp sales team for pricing details.
Best For
Culture Amp serves growing and large companies best, regardless of industry and location.
Culture Amp has been a great tool in my work as an HR Consultant. I primarily use Culture Amp to streamline employee reviews and track employee engagement. Culture Amp's system and support team guide you through every step of the implementation process. It is fantastic for tracking employee goals. Culture Amp also provides survey templates that are easy to follow.
- Culture Amp is easy to set up.
- Culture Amp has an intuitive system.
- Culture Amp supports large organizations seamlessly.
My client purchased Culture Amp after rehauling the employee experience post-covid. I have been using the platform since then.
- Culture Amp has outdated terminology on occasion.
- It can take a lot of time to sort through what surveys are applicable to you.
- Setting up multiple users can take time.
Culture Amp is one of the better HRIS/Employee Feedback tools available. I would recommend it to 90% of their competitors.
Employers should consider the time it takes to properly analyze an effective survey before purchasing Culture Amp. If you are unfamiliar with the 360 process, it can be a learning curve.
Culture Amp has consistently maintained high marks among my clients based on their evolving to users’ needs.
Public-facing, growing organizations (particularly after M&A or high employee turnover).
Small businesses that are not culture-focused.
Kudos
Aside from the fact that they snatched one of the best possible names for an employee recognition and engagement platform, Kudos features robust people analytics that provides companies with insights into their employee experience and the overall health of their work culture.
PROS
- Kudos’ interface is quite intuitive, making recognizing coworkers very easy.
- Employees like the ability to reward and appreciate peers.
- Employees can earn points to redeem for gift cards and prizes.
- Unique, company culture-oriented features are present all across the platform, such as in the way they approach analytics, or on the actual Culture Accelerator module.
- Excellent relation of mobile / desktop functionality. You basically get all the bells and whistles on both versions.
CONS
- The monthly point limits to award others can be restrictive.
- The system can be buggy at times, especially when redeeming points for rewards.
- The gift card options are somewhat limited, especially for local brands.
- Unless you get a demo and start exploring the tool with the help of an insider, we’d say it’s somewhat hard to get a good idea of what features are like, how they work, and even what they do, just from their website alone.
- From our research, we could gather that the points system and how this works can get a bit confusing for some users.
Kudos is a cloud-based employee recognition and engagement platform. Leveraging the impact of peer-to-peer recognition, values reinforcement, open communication, and actionable feedback, Kudos helps organizations boost engagement, reduce turnover, improve culture, and drive performance.
With robust dashboards and real-time people analytics, Kudos provides organizations with deep insights and a clear understanding of their workforce.
In addition to software, the team at Kudos also offers consulting services for companies that need extra help.
KidsPeace, Kronos, DHL, Chewy.com, Make A Wish
With a minimum requirement of 500 employees, Kudos offers pricing starting at $3.25 per user per month. The actual cost varies based on factors such as the number of users and the length of the contract.
Best For
Kudos is best suited for companies with large teams, from 500 to thousands of users in practically any country and industry.
Officevibe
Officevibe is laser-focused on pulse surveys to help managers gain insights into teams' performance and just rolled out a recognition feature — Good Vibes. The platform has a scalable model and a generous free plan with all core features, making it a go-to option for both SMBs and large businesses.
PROS
- Officevibe is easy to use and set up. The platform also has a free plan with a feasible set of employee engagement features: automated pulse surveys, custom surveys, feedback, 1-on-1s, goals & OKRs, and recognition a team of up to 10 users can use.
- Officevibe puts effort into ensuring that feedback is truly anonymous without the manager or anyone with higher access being able to guess who submitted what response by requiring a minimum of 5 responses sent in before the survey manager can access the anonymous feedback.
- Officevibe has a peer-to-peer recognition feature, allowing your employees to praise one another for outstanding work.
- Officevibe built-in surveys cover a wide range of topics.
- Officevibe’s 14-day free trial lets users try all the Officevibe features without asking for their credit card info.
- Several users shared that Officevibe’s integration with Slack brought convenience for employees and improved their survey completion rates.
- Officevibe is easy to use and has a free plan that a team of up to 10 users can use.
- To ensure that feedback is truely anonymous, without the manager, or anyone with higher access being able guess who submitted what response, a minimum of 5 responses need to be sent in before the survey manager is able to access the anonymous feedback.
- The platform has a feature for peer-to-peer recognition, giving your employees the ability to praise one another for outstanding work.
CONS
- Personalized onboarding is available for 100+ users. A dedicated success manager is available for 500+ users.
- Resetting or adjusting OKRs has some limitations, some users noted.
- The Good Vibe lets employees do peer-to-peer recognition that only Good Vibes recipients, senders, and team managers can see. There has yet to be an option for public praise.
- Some users found the 1-on-1 templates and scheduling clunky.
- Some users have reported that Slack integration sometimes malfunctions.
- Officevibe does not include a complete performance management solution among their offerings. They have an OKR tool that lets you set goals but there isn’t a mechanism in place to track those goals or conduct performance reviews.
- There currently isn’t a mobile app that managers and employees can use on the go.
Officevibe is a cloud-based platform that focuses on employee engagement and manager growth. It allows managers to measure employee satisfaction through automated pulse surveys and anonymous feedback, then provides guidance on improving the work environment and culture. In line with those efforts, the employee engagement platform features agency-wide and team reporting so client-based businesses can spontaneously track and compare engagement across clients, departments, and managers.
Lately, the platform has rolled out some new features for manager-to-employee and peer-to-peer recognition. Good Vibes recognition is a simple feature that enables employees to recognized and being recognized for their great work in the form of e-cards. It also provides managers with a report on driving recognition, what’s being celebrated most, and who is at their absolute best.
WeTransfer, Dyson, Bose, PayScale, and Trivago are some of their 8,000 Officevibe customers.
Officevibe has four plans. When billed annually, these are charged as below:
- Free: This plan is free for 1 team with up to 10 users.
- Essential: This plan allows unlimited teams and costs $3.5 per user per month.
- Pro: Designed for larger teams, this plan costs $5 per user per month.
- Business: This plan has custom pricing for companies with over 500 users. Contact Officevibe’s Sales team to get a quote.
Best For
Officevibe focuses on employee engagement, recognition, and OKR management, making it a nice option for medium and large-sized businesses. However, small teams can also benefit from Officevibe’s free plan, which is available for up to 10 users.
I use Officevibe several days a week. I am the admin of the tool for our organization, so I am the one who manages teams and adds new employees to the program. We use the tool to report on each manager's team, as well as on department ratings, and all-company ratings. We also use the tool to send out any company-wide surveys, including our yearly Employee Engagement survey. Team members engage regularly with Good Vibes recognition.
- It allows you to build as many teams as you would like.
- It is clear on its anonymity policy so that team members feel comfortable sharing honest feedback.
- It allows you to conduct custom surveys on any topic.
We bought this tool for our organization because we take employee feedback very seriously. We have been using the tool for 3 years. I have been using it as a regular employee for 2 years and as an HR professional (admin of the tool) for 1 year. It allows you to get regular feedback (at whatever frequency you prefer) and allows you to put team members into teams so that managers can get team-specific feedback. It also allows you to give "Good Vibes" so that any team member can provide recognition to their peers.
- It does not have a Performance Management feature, which other similar tools do. For the price point, I would expect more features.
- It does not have industry benchmark data for specific questions, which is something our ELT was hoping to see.
- It currently does not integrate with our HRIS, which I mostly fault to the HRIS but it means I have to manually add all of our members and put them on teams.
I have not personally used comparable tools but I have done demos with others. I think this tool is very clear (more so than competitors) on its anonymity policy which is very important to our employees. I also think Good Vibes is a fairly unique feature that our team heavily uses and appreciates.
People should consider what features they need the tool to have. This tool does not have performance management, which is something that many similar tools do. They should also consider pricepoint. Officevibe is a high price point for the limited number of features. Overall, I think it is a great tool, just hard to justify the price considering it is lacking a crucial feature (performance management) that we will need soon.
Officevibe has launched new features throughout our time using it and I know it is currently working on others. Good Vibes was a feature that was added due to requests, and it has been a great addition to the tool. It also has an amazing Customer Support system, where you can answer your own questions or if you can't, they are very prompt at responding.
It is very good for large organizations that want specific team feedback. It is also good for teams that have a large budget for employee engagement metrics.
It is probably not a good fit for a small company or a start-up due to its price point. However, I do think any company could benefit from the tool.
Quantum Workplace
Quantum Workplace stands out for their exceptional ongoing customer service. Unlike most vendors that only provide initial implementation support, Quantum Workplace assigns clients a dedicated support team that provides continuous guidance to maximize the value of their platform investment over time.
PROS
- Easy to use, the user interface is intuitive, you can find what you’re looking for and still see the most important items pinned on top.
- The option to personalize surveys, make them from the best practices templates, or build entirely from scratch.
- The ability to share and review recognition with your teammates in a social newsfeed format. What’s great is that you have the option to make it as detailed and scheduled or as succinct and impromptu as you please.
- An ever-present customer service team. Many users have complimented on their responsiveness.
- Easy to use, the user interface is intuitive, you can find what you’re looking for and still see the most important items pinned on top.
- The option to personalize surveys, make them from the best practices templates, or build entirely from scratch.
- The ability to share and review recognition with your teammates in a social newsfeed format. What’s great is that you have the option to make it as detailed and scheduled or as succinct and impromptu as you please.
- An ever-present customer service team. Many users have complimented on their responsiveness.
CONS
- The platform lacks anonymity options with feedback being visible to peers/colleagues.
- Navigation can be confusing at times, particularly when trying to find past goals/feedback.
- The platform could benefit from more customization options, like adding more details when updating goals or customizing feedback questions.
- Many users have expressed their issues with canceling, rescheduling, and the inability to schedule 1-on-1s on short notice.
- Some users have found the goals feature to be a little confusing to understand because of its extensivity.
- This is a rather unprecedented one, but we found many users wishing for more vibrant colors for the platform.
Quantum Workplace’s employee engagement software is easy to navigate and is highly flexible in terms of customizations. It has three types of engagement tools: Engagement surveys, pulse surveys, and lifecycle surveys.
While the first type of survey is more in-depth and conducted after a long period of time (usually annually), pulse surveys allow teams to quickly survey employees on any topics and get real-time feedback. On the other hand, lifecycle surveys are fully automated and take place during key moments like hiring, onboarding, and retirement.
All the tools are built with research-backed survey design and provide you with multiple ways to slice your data.
Quantum Workplace is used by over 10,000 companies, including Dentsply Sirona, Panera Bread, Fossil Group, DSW, BKD, and Getty Images.
Pricing is not disclosed upfront but you can get it after booking a demo.
Best For
Quantum Workplace's employee engagement platform is ideal for medium to large businesses that require advanced engagement and analytics capabilities.
Mo
Mo's rewards and recognition platform can boost employee engagement for organizations of any size.
PROS
- The UI is user-friendly, and the majority of users like the wide range of vouchers they can provide using the platform.
- Mo’s pricing is publicly shared and quite reasonable compared to similar solutions.
- Users can access the platform in 12 languages.
- Android and iOS mobile apps are available for on-the-go access.
- Mo’s UI is easy to navigate, and users seem to appreciate the varied choice of gift cards they can offer through the platform.
- The platform’s pricing is transparent and reasonable compared to similar solutions in this space,
- Mo is available in 12 languages and growing.
CONS
- Mo currently only integrates with Slack and Microsoft Teams.
- The availability of customer support is limited to weekdays from 9 AM to 5 PM GMT.
- There aren’t free trials or free plans that you can sign up for at this time.
- Mo currently has limited integrations (only Slack and Microsoft Teams)
- The customer support hours are limited to weekdays, 9 AM - 5 PM GMT.
Mo‘s employee engagement solution features Moments and Boosts, which help you uplift employee morale by celebrating individual achievements and group successes. The platform stands out for its wide range of reward options, including vouchers redeemable at popular stores and personalized rewards tailored to each team member. The platform also promotes inclusiveness with peer-to-peer nominations, empowering employees to actively participate in the recognition process.
To support all of the above efforts, Mo’s recently launched Assistant tool recommends actions you can take to drive engagement further. For example, the Assistant will remind you of upcoming employee occasions such as birthdays and work anniversaries, and if they haven't shared appreciation with a coworker in a while, it prompts them to do so.
Mo counts over 58k users using their platform, including SGN, The O2, NHS, Aspen, William Hill, and SHL.
Mo’s offering is available over three plans. When billed annually, the pricing for each plan is as follows:
- Starter: This plan is designed for small teams who are new to recognition software. It costs $2.7 per user per month and includes features that allow you to acknowledge achievements, celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and more.
- Level Up: Priced at $4.5 per user per month, this plan includes everything in the Starter plan and additional features such as the ability to nominate individuals for awards, grant rewards, access advanced reporting and insights, and integrate with third-party platforms.
- Custom: Tailored for large companies, the Custom plan has personalized pricing. It encompasses all the features available in the other plans, along with rewards and recognition program design, advanced security measures, premium support, and implementation services.
Best For
Companies of all sizes can use Mo to drive employee engagement through rewards and recognition.
15five
15Five provides administrators with access to assessments that collect employee feedback on topics including working from home, and diversity & inclusion. The questions are science-backed and confidential, allowing employees to be candid when giving their feedback.
PROS
- 15Five helps HR leaders run their performance programs from start to finish and make talent decisions based on a 360-degree view of each employee.
- With the help of visual dashboards, HR leaders can access colorful and easy-to-comprehend insights that will make their talent decisions easier.
- The platform is fairly easy to use, comes with a mobile app, has transparent pricing, as well as a 14-day free trial so users can try before they buy.
CONS
- Some users reported experiencing difficulty creating new objectives or connecting existing objectives to parent objectives in the objectives section.
- When you create an engagement survey using 15Five's template, you can only choose from a selection of pre-made categories rather than creating your own.
- The out of the box integration options are quite limited, and a Zapier integration used to be available but is now sunsetted. As an alternative, 15Five does have a public API for users to plug-in custom tools but that requires a bit more work.
15Five’s Engage tool helps HR leaders start meaningful conversations and get actionable feedback from their team members. The tool lets you have an engagement score and measure the response rate. It also lets you view response breakdowns, heatmaps, people involved, and more.
As an administrator, you get access to existing science-backed assessments and an intuitive dashboard that lets you perform weekly check-ins and 1-1 conversations to stay connected with your team. You can also use the High Five feature – a small, quick gesture of appreciation – to drive connectivity and gratitude within your teams.
15Five’s customer base includes Hubspot, Spotify, American Red Cross, Clearbit, Pendo and more.
- Engage: $4 per user per month. Its features include Core engagement surveys, Topic-based assessments, Custom topic-based assessments, Filterable heatmap & analytics, Enterprise-grade security, an Action plan dashboard, and more.
- Perform: $8 per user per month. Its features include Performance reviews, 360º feedback, Talent Matrix, Data insights, Career Paths & Plans, and more.
- Focus: $8 per user per month. Its features include Goal setting with OKRs, OKR chart view, Data insights, Jira & Salesforce Integration, and more.
- Total Platform: $14 per user per month. Its features include everything in other plans, plus DPAs and security questionnaires.
Best For
15Five is more suitable for growing companies and enterprises wanting to ensure that they're getting feedback from all corners of the organization.
We use 15Five for Annual Performance Reviews, ongoing check-ins and 1:1s between managers and employees, manager training, and engagement. The robust offerings of 15Five allowed us to originally bring on the tool only for APRs. Over time, we saw the capabilities it had in other arenas. Mainly, we appreciate the tool for its ongoing, direct feedback methods. This allows managers to send and review feedback frequently and has it stored in one location for easy record keeping and reference.
- Ease of use and implementation (lots of CX support with onboarding).
- It is science and research-backed so you know the tool and approach are effective for your employees.
- Affordable and customizable to your team size and needs.
We originally purchased a subscription to 15Five in order to simplify and streamline the Annual Performance Review (APR) process. Employees, managers, and HR were facing tremendous time and administrative burdens when it came to the APR process and we wanted a place to facilitate a more comprehensive, timely, and meaningful experience. We also were looking for something to easily store and document all performance-related information and feedback. We've used the tool for just over one year.
Very few cons about this tool. It really is effective and affordable.
I prefer this tool to others for how easy and straightforward it is. Performance reviews don't need to be complicated, and 15Five has found a way to make it easy and fun.
What are the main needs of your team? How do you want reviews to be structured? What are your employees craving in terms of feedback, engagement, and training?
We have customized weekly check-in questions to fit each team specifically. We have run off-cycle reviews as needed. We have added managers who have high potential to the manager training.
Highly engaged teams. Small-medium sized businesses. Companies with high Gen Z and Millenial populations.
I think this tool might not be beneficial in environments that are not forward-thinking, progressive, or want to be on the cutting edge of employee development and performance.
Benefits of Employee Engagement Software
The key benefits of employee engagement software are improvements to employee experience, access to real-time data for actionable insights, ability to create a focused strategy, holistic talent management, and increasedemployee performance.
Improve Employee Experience: By learning what they care about and representing their perspectives on the company culture, HR teams can build trust and a sense of belonging with each individual and the company. This is the foundation of a positive employee experience.
Trust building starts with the first contact with a recruiter and continues throughout the employee lifecycle. Benefits manifest at every step– when employees feel heard, and their concerns are addressed, it leads to less turnover and higher productivity.
To learn more, check out this article about employee engagement featuring our friend and engagement expert, Hallie Bregman.
Gather Real-Time, Actionable Insights: Unlike an annual survey, most engagement platforms use pulse surveys to gather small amounts of data in frequent intervals. These low-pressure samples ask only one or two questions and have high response rates. Pulse surveys offer real-time input on real-time issues, and the swift turnover turns data into actionable insights that can be deployed immediately.
Focused Strategy: Most employee engagement programs include a built-in playbook for engagement strategy. This is a massive bonus for HR teams who are (probably) already doing a lot (too much?) and don’t have the resources to drive this initiative with the focus it deserves.
The built-in playbooks are built on solid research, which often includes the input of experts in Industrial and Organizational Psychology (IO). You can expect companies in this space to follow best practices for surveys: what to ask, who to ask, how to ask, and how often.
Holistic Talent Management: An employee engagement platform provides a holistic view of your company across the entire employee lifecycle. They give the People Operations team and functional leaders a means to examine and de-bug cultural issues before they become systemic predicaments. This benefit, in particular, requires a mindset that may benefit from more context than we can fit in this article. We encourage you to read more about holistic talent management in this article: 31 Effective and Actionable Employee Engagement Ideas.
Increase Employee Performance: Though performance management platforms are available as standalone tools, some engagement platforms include performance management features. This feature adds the ability to assess the effect of employees' efforts toward company goals and how these efforts compare to their peers.
Common Pitfalls When Buying and Using Employee Engagement Platforms?
1. Unreasonable Expectations of Impact: To be effective, the platform must work alongside a distinctive, authentic, and positive company culture. The software can supplement your efforts, but it won't “fix” company-wide problems with engagement. Herrin and Marie agree here, and Marie's experience has borne this out. She reminds us in no uncertain terms that software cannot replace the power of a human connection.
2. Unreasonable Expectations of Adoption: Affecting a company-wide change will take time. Simply put, inspiring behavior change is difficult. After working in an environment that could have been more attentive to their engagement, employees are sometimes distrustful of initiatives that promise brighter days. The process of winning over the skeptics can’t happen overnight, but it can happen. The right time to start, whether with engagement software or other means, is now.
3. Underestimating the Slow Pace of Implementation: Like the plodding, uphill struggle of behavior change, implementation can also move at a painfully sluggish pace. To make it as easy as possible, choose a platform with an open API and/or partnerships with tools you already use. Consider your HR tech stack and daily communication tools: both must be seamlessly connected to your new tool to ensure a seamless transition.
4. Trying to do Too Much, Too Fast: Be conservative and methodical about your rollout game plan. Some vendors offer assistance with this process, but if yours doesn't (or you chose not to follow it), you can orchestrate a successful rollout with good planning and reasonable expectations.
In our experience, creating a schedule with a regular cadence that introduces features slowly is best. We’ve also found it helpful to take feedback from departments across the organization about the rollout order: the insight of your leadership and individual contributors is a massive asset.
Making a Business Case for Employee Engagement Tools
In addition to being our HR Tech Editor, Alison has years of personal experience working in HR.
Early in her career, she saw firsthand how this tool could bring a significant change to a struggling company. She shared this anecdote with us – it’s a “best of” use case.
“I was temping at a large company, and there were obvious signs of trouble on my first day; people were conspicuously unhappy and disengaged due (in part) to a change in leadership. But then, a corporate intervention in the form of employee engagement software arrived.
Initially skeptical, I witnessed a fundamental transformation over about six weeks. People became happier and more focused on work. Among other things, simply giving a voice to people's dissatisfaction was enough to lift people's spirits, and the company's culture took a positive turn.”
Balancing the benefits of a holistic, people-first approach with the requirements of a data-driven work environment is challenging. Still, there are many ways to cite the connections between one and the other.
For example, employers can reap bottom-line benefits like decreased attrition by using employee engagement software. This is achieved by studying the losses and identifying trends that can be accounted for with a shift engagement strategy. To learn more about bottom-line benefits, check out this article highlighting the 9 best employee engagement metrics to measure.
Many HR pros are drawn to the field because they have an innate ability to connect with people and a heartfelt desire to help them. While those skills are critical and should be recognized, they can’t do much when tackling tasks like calculating Return On Investment.
And that is why we created these HR Tech, ROI calculators! This is a tool designed to address both the desire to help and the means to do so.
Here’s a video on calculating the ROI of employee engagement software to address the desire to help and the means to do so. We highly suggest you use the video to the right to understand best how to use this spreadsheet!
How to calculate the ROI from Employee Engagement Software
We also offer a free course on ROI for HR tech for the extra nerdy, deep divers among us (we see you!)
Key Features of the Best Employee Engagement Software
Here are some of the features that should be a “given” for any tool in the marketplace.
- Easy, Daily Engagement: This tool should be effortlessly embedded wherever your teams “talk.” Whichever email or internal comms platform you use, be sure your employee engagement tool fits right in. In addition to being there for the office chit-chat (and please don’t undervalue casual conversation, whether virtual or in person!), some vendors include a dashboard for daily activities, status checks, and up-to-date info. These can be highly customized or generalized depending on team needs.
- Encouragement: Some platforms include performance management and goal-setting features, which are great! But be mindful of when and how you use features like these. While a thriving team will appreciate tools like talent assessment, coaching, and feedback, a team in a slump needs a little TLC before the talent show.
- Peer Recognition: While performance management and goal-setting must be applied with care, our experience says it’s best to apply peer-to-peer recognition liberally! Employee recognition is a staple of engagement. Though employee recognition software is a platform unto itself, elements of this highly effective tactic should be built into your engagement software selection.
- Employee Surveys: Designed for lightweight deliveries and swift returns, frequently-deployed “pulse surveys” can net a significant effect from small servings. They can also focus on topics like “uh, what just happened?” which is helpful for situations where the follow-on is “something needs to be done.” We love these surveys because they are, on the employee end, very low effort, and on the HR end, uniquely and highly informative.
- Collaborative Spaces: Whether for work or play, virtual or in-person, employee engagement platforms can create “spaces” where people connect. They are sometimes built to mimic the look and feel of social media, so workers are naturally drawn to spend time getting to know each other inside and outside of work topics.
What Do You Ask During a Demo With an Employee Engagement Software Vendor?
When the time comes, you’ll want to understand key concepts regardless of your industry or specific use case. We have had great luck with these questions and suggest you ask them all!
1. What is the core philosophy behind your employee engagement solution?
Some vendors are focused on employee health, others on company health. Some started by operationalizing OKR tracking, others employee recognition. Find the vendor that best aligns philosophically with your organization. You’ll find their product manifests their beliefs in what the most critical aspects of culture are.
2. Do you have these features that we need?
While feature parity exists across many of these vendors, you should keep a list of key must-have features. Ask if they are available or when they will become available.
This is unusual, but we recommend speaking to the customer service rep you’ll be working with. This person will play a massive role in implementing and adopting the platform, so you must have a good rapport.
We recommend this because there are a remarkable number of reviews of employee engagement platforms that specifically mention customer success managers. Given the delicate nature of engagement and change management, it’s no surprise that this person can make or break a customer’s experience.
We’ve done it ourselves, and you should too. It’s not as awkward as it sounds!
3. How does your employee engagement software leverage AI?
AI-enabled products are everywhere, but how the technology is used for employee engagement can vary widely. You should ask how AI is part of the current product and how (or if) the team thinks about using AI to improve their product over time.
HR tech has a complex history with sentiment analysis, the computational understanding of “affective states of subjective information.” This emerging field of AI will likely play an increasingly important role in assessing expressions of emotion, including engagement.
4. Do you have guidance on the rollout?
Ask the vendor for their take on best practices for the rollout, specifically on internal communication. They are experts; their input is precious even if you use another company’s product.
Pro tip: As you introduce your team to the tool, also introduce them to the “why?” behind the decision to use it. Make it clear that they are why. The goal is to improve their work experience by checking in and voicing their concerns.
Between those of us at SSR with experience in rolling out engagement software (on teams of all sizes across the globe), this sentiment meets with universal head nodding.
5. Do you have partnerships or notable integrations with communication tools like Slack or Teams?
Ask all the tech questions! Get to know their capabilities (Open API? Partnerships?) and specifics of their product (Web-based? Mobile apps?). Ask about information security too, and if you’re unsure what to ask, talk to your IT team, engineers, or other techy folks on hand about multi-factor authentication (2FA) and OAuth.
Specifically, ask if your team will have to log into their system to use it. If yes, you may want to consider removing this vendor from your list.
Many factors contribute to workplace stress, including the cumulative annoyance of multiple minor stressors, like creating a profile and managing login information for yet another tool. Avoid this by using a platform that has streamlined integrations.
6. How do you manage visibility and permissions?
Understand the who, what, when, where, and why of visibility on employee feedback. This information should be highly privileged, anonymized by default, and carefully provisioned.
Don’t shy away from asking highly specific questions about minuscule elements of the product's features. The sales rep you speak with should know this product inside and out!
Employee Engagement Software FAQs
What is employee engagement software?
Employee engagement software aims to boost job satisfaction and retention by emphasizing the worker's involvement in company culture and the goals of workers with the organization's mission and culture.
Simply put, this software aims to inspire workers to improve performance. If the link between engagement and performance is unclear to you, it may be helpful to picture the initiatives in action. This article on employee engagement strategies to inspire your workforce can help you do just that.
What is the difference between employee engagement and employee recognition?
Employee recognition is a culture and performance-building method that praises the exceptional performance of individuals. It is one of the many components that affect employee engagement, which is the entire scope of emotional connection employees feel to their employer.
There are software platforms for each; in many cases, one will contain elements of the other. But keep this in mind: employee recognition software can benefit the company’s overall engagement strategy but should not be used as a substitute for engagement software. The opposite is also true: employee engagement software should not be used in place of employee recognition software.
If you feel like we just asked you an SAT question, or if the subject of employee rewards and recognition is of particular interest to you, our blog covers these topics (and many more) in depth. Take a break from the SAT prep with this fun read: nearly 300 ideas for employee award titles.
What are some use cases of employee engagement software?
Broadly, the use case for this software is the analysis of engagement across the employee lifecycle. Engagement starts with a recruiter's first “hello!” and continues to the exit survey. It can carry a new hire through onboarding and provide valuable insight for process improvement. Engagement data and KPIs are interrelated and can be measured and analyzed with these platforms. I would even argue that an employee's engagement can outlast the duration of employment so that it can defend or debase a company’s reputation.
The use case for employee engagement software is also apparent at the company level. This tool is crucial for shaping strategic recommendations and generating actionable steps that encourage engagement. This can improve organizational culture, enhance retention, and increase overall productivity.
When is the Best Time to Use Employee Engagement Software?
Choosing the right time to buy and use this tool takes time and effort. Moran emphasizes that there’s no exact headcount or state of company development, but the right time will be connected to your company’s needs.
She recommends being on the lookout for signs that indicate widespread disengagement. This can include decreased productivity, absenteeism, and complacency.
She adds, “Like with any software purchasing decision, the software should make your life better, easier, and higher-performing in the realm it’s being added to. It should be an enhancement, a value-add, not just an accepted cost.”
Our collective experience at SSR is in keeping with this wisdom.
Our staff has seen a slight trend toward waiting too long. We’ve seen startups blocked by tight budgets, enterprise companies who moved too slowly, and executive buy-in is challenging at any size. But here’s one more trick about timing gleaned from our real-world experience: the “best time” window might be narrow, but it opens and closes slowly.
Last Words on Buying Employee Engagement Software
Some of us have learned the hard way that this is different from the kind of choice you can make (or roll out) alone! Put together a team exclusively focused on selecting and implementing this software.
A cross-functional buying committee is a small team assembled to speak to the needs of the departments they represent. In addition to the benefit of their perspectives, their collective knowledge, skills, and “weight” will help secure the budget you need to support the program.
Equally important is the personal connection to their divisions, amplifying the sense of safety and trust needed for a successful implementation.
Final Advice
There is no silver bullet for engagement or crystal balls for insight, but the right employee engagement software can do the work of some serious magic. Take your time, and remember to use the wisdom of your buying committee! We recommend scheduling product demos with at least three companies.
Whether looking for a better way to gather employee feedback or exploring new ways to support a thriving culture, employee engagement software will do the trick. See examples of an employee engagement action plan (complete with templates!) if you’re too excited to wait for the new software.
We hope this article will help you prepare and that you’ll take your next steps with confidence. Good luck!
About Us
- Our goal at SSR is to help HR and recruiting teams to find and buy the right software for their needs.
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