13 Best Employee Experience Platform Solutions for 2025
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Employee experience (EX) management spans the entire employee journey, from hire to retire. As a result, employee experience software is not simply engagement, rewards, or recognition tools; this SaaS category encompasses any software that can boost satisfaction, productivity, and retention.
To help you choose one of the leading employee experience solutions on the market, our experts have put together this guide with top options, pricing details, best practices, use cases, and potential mistakes to avoid.
To select the top employee experience management platforms, our team evaluated dozens of tools based on software vendor demos, expert interviews, user input, and hands-on testing.
After researching over 30 notable brands in this space, we noticed the best ones emphasize communication and collaboration, culture and engagement, employee development, and, most importantly, analytics to track all of the above.
- Communication and collaboration: How employees communicate and collaborate can make or break the employee experience. To facilitate and empower connection, we prioritized tools with capabilities like company-wide announcements, team collaboration, document sharing, and virtual meetings.
- Culture and engagement: Experience management platforms, used right, can significantly help drive engagement and build a long-lasting culture of inclusion, belonging, and camaraderie in the workplace. We’ve included EX software with peer-to-peer recognition, pulse surveys, and community-building features to help you realize this vision.
- Employee development: The best employee experience software integrates learning into the employee journey. We looked for smooth integrations with enterprise learning management systems (ELMS) and/or built-in ELMS features to support continual skill building.
- Progress analytics: Robust analytics around survey responses, community engagement levels, and other engagement metrics are crucial. This allows you to measure workforce engagement over time, identify problem areas, and continuously work on improving your employees' experience.
We are thorough in our research and only recommend effective products. To learn more about our methods, check out this article on how we evaluate HR tech vendors.
Workvivo
Promoting workplace camaraderie is at the heart of Workvivo. It does it by allowing employees to recognize their coworkers' achievements by nominating them for awards. Employees can also provide feedback, share news and events, and add comments, kudos, and shout-outs.
PROS
- Workvivo integrates with the top payroll, HR, and communication apps like Slack, MS Teams, Zoom, etc. This makes it easy to connect with your team from within Workvivo's dashboard.
- Workvivo lets you share more than just text. You can share pictures, videos, and other media to enhance your personal and work events. It's like social media for organizations!
- According to online reviews and feedback, Workvivo offers excellent customer support. The company is always eager to make enhancements to its product, and they factor in suggestions from users on how to enhance the tool.
CONS
- Workvivo's desktop version doesn't support emojis, while the Android app doesn't support pictures. Because of this, you might have to alternate between using both apps for a single response.
- There is a chance that the mobile app of Workvivo will run slowly or lag at times. A user mentioned that some features of the app don't work at all, which is something that the technical team should work on fixing.
- Workvivo frequently sends emails notifying users about every single comment and activity in the campaign, which can be annoying for users. Some users complained that they do not need to receive notifications for every single comment and activity.
Workvivo facilitates two-way conversations and helps capture an organization’s pulse with polls and surveys. There’s a personalized activity feed that helps employees to interact with colleagues through posts, shoutouts, articles, etc. With the news and events features, you can share the latest company news and upcoming events – ensuring employees never miss an update again.
Workvivo helps employees feel they’re on the same team by connecting them to the company’s goals and values. Individual and team achievements can be recognized publicly using shoutouts, promoting peer recognition and rewarding achievements. There’s also a “people directory” that allows you to connect with colleagues across different teams and locations.
Workvivo's client list includes Kent, Amazon, Mercedes Benz, Stanford, and many other big names from diverse industries.
Workvivo offers custom pricing plans. We suggest you get in touch with their sales team for a price quote and to get answers to any questions you may have about the platform.
Best For
Workvivo is a great tool for companies looking to increase communication and productivity in their office with an intranet. Ideally, if you are a mid-sized company, you might find that Workvivo is right for you.
ThriveSparrow
We picked ThriveSparrow because it nails both engagement and recognition—key pillars for a thriving workplace culture. Its customizable pulse surveys, AI-driven insights, and kudos feature stood out in our testing, making it easier for companies to understand their employees' sentiments, build genuine connections, and quickly act on feedback.
PROS
- Highly customizable pulse surveys for ongoing feedback.
- AI-driven sentiment analysis surfaces key employee concerns quickly.
- Action Plans feature ensures feedback leads to tangible changes.
- Easy-to-use kudos tool promotes peer recognition and engagement.
- Integrates smoothly with Slack and MS Teams for better accessibility.
- Offers deep customization, allowing full control over survey questions, rating scales, and visibility settings.
- AI-powered sentiment analysis categorizes qualitative responses into key themes and presents insights in a visually digestible format.
- Granular data filtering by department, tenure, or location for precise trend analysis.
- Transparent pricing starting at $2 per user per month.
- Strong integration capabilities.
CONS
- No dedicated mobile app for managers and HR.
- Some HR system integrations may come with additional costs.
- Employee feedback and engagement data doesn’t auto-connect with the OKR module, which could limit development plan insights.
- Some integrations may require an additional cost.
- No dedicated mobile app for admins.
- As a relatively new product, ThriveSparrow may not have the experience of more established vendors.
After testing ThriveSparrow, we found the employee experience tool delivers on its core promise: making employee feedback collection easy and insightful. It’s especially valuable for companies serious about culture-building and continuous engagement.
We liked how the platform made gathering honest, regular feedback both convenient and effective. Instead of old-school, annual surveys, ThriveSparrow offers recurring pulse surveys that you can automate weekly, monthly, or quarterly. During our testing, we found plenty of pre-built survey templates, but what really stood out was how simple it was to customize just about everything—from the questions asked to how anonymous responses were. Distribution was easy too, whether via Slack, MS Teams, email, or even SMS.
The best part, though, was the native AI-driven sentiment analysis. In our test, the system quickly sorted through open-ended responses and highlighted key themes like leadership and communication. It also visualized the data in a heat map, allowing us to pinpoint problem areas easily without drowning in data. This feature was incredibly practical, especially compared to other tools we’ve tested, which often leave you struggling to make sense of feedback.
ThriveSparrow’s employee recognition and rewards module felt intuitive and natural. We had no trouble giving shout-outs and celebrating achievements with peers. Plus, this peer-to-peer kudos tool integrates directly with Slack and MS Teams, so if your team already uses either of these communication tools, they can easily celebrate small achievements or helpful gestures without leaving their usual workflow.
Similar to other robust recognition platforms, with ThriveSparrow, employees can accumulate points through recognition, which they can later redeem for rewards via a built-in marketplace. And it’s nice to see that this marketplace could be customized by location and include automated fulfillment, as it’s going to save HR great adm” or “Take a Day Off” to add a personal touch to recognition programs.
However, our biggest gripe about this platform is that while the AI-driven Personal Development Plans are impressive, they currently use only performance review data and don’t incorporate OKR data. This means the development recommendations might not fully reflect an employee's progress or struggles related to their actual goals.
Additionally, we found that while employees could easily respond to surveys on mobile through Slack or Teams, HR and managers are limited to managing insights strictly from desktop. The same limitation applies to the recognition module: employees can send kudos through mobile-friendly Slack or Teams integrations, but reviewing or managing recognition data is only possible through the desktop platform.
We appreciated ThriveSparrow’s transparent pricing, but we initially thought they didn’t offer a free trial because it wasn’t clearly mentioned on their site. Thankfully, a quick Google search for "ThriveSparrow free trial" led us directly to their 14-day trial sign-up form. Another thing we'd suggest checking with the vendor upfront is integration costs, since some might come with extra fees depending on your contract.
Some of ThriveSparrow's customers include Ikea, Tropicana, Infosys, and Honda.
ThriveSparrow offers a range of pricing plans to suit various organizational needs, each billed annually:
- Engage: $3 per employee per month.
- Kudos: $2 per employee per month.
- Performance: $5 per employee per month.
- Goals (OKRs): $3 per employee per month.
Best For
ThriveSparrow is best for organizations aiming to boost employee experience through continuous employee feedback, AI-driven insights, and integrated recognition programs.
Leapsome
Used by big brands such Spotify and Mercedes-Benz, Leapsome helps you understand your employees using surveys and gives you the insights you need to drive change. It's highly interactive and fully customizable.
PROS
- 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
- 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.
Leapsome has tons of functionality. By sending out pulse surveys, you’ll be able to check in on employee culture and mitigate any major issues before they start. The platform uses Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning to analyze open-ended response questions, providing your HR team with quantifiable data to make actionable decisions.
After receiving data from surveys, you can make use of Leapsome’s robust learning, 1:1, and team-building features to fix any shortcomings your employees pointed out.
- Spotify
- Babbel
- PayFit
Leapsome is priced based on a few factors: number of employees, feature set, and contract length. It starts at $7 per user per month billed annually. They offer a 14-day free trial to try before you buy, no credit card required.
Best For
Leapsome is a great choice for companies of all sizes.
MeBeBot
MeBeBot combines AI chatbots for quick question answering, pulse surveys to gather timely feedback, analytics for insights, and seamless integration into Slack, Teams, SharePoint to engage employees in their daily workflow.
PROS
- AI chatbot for 24/7 support and quick access to company knowledge
- It is easy to create pulse surveys to gather timely feedback
- Analytics and dashboards provide visibility into conversations and engagement
- Its conversational interface improves the employee experience
- Managers get custom insights from ToolBot
- Support is now offered in multiple languages
- No-code tool, easy to maintain. The customer portal makes it very straightforward to find and edit your knowledge base and keep the chatbot up to date.
- If an area of your knowledge center is in the works, we found it simple to set up placeholders for the entire topic.
- SOC-certified for data privacy
- 4-6 weeks implementation
- API availability
CONS
- No free trial or free plan.
- No mobile app for on-the-go access.
- Mainly helpful for companies that use Slack and/or Teams.
- Not a good match for companies with less than 250 employees
- Mainly aimed for companies that use Slack and/or Teams
- No multi-lingual support at the moment
MeBeBot is all about improving workplace communication, engagement, and culture. At its core is an AI-powered chatbot that provides employees with quick access to company knowledge, policies, and HR information. Employees can ask questions in natural language via chat and get answers instantly 24/7.
Beyond the chatbot, MeBeBot offers several capabilities to enhance the employee experience. Its pulse surveys allow you to gather feedback from employees in real time through simple conversational questionnaires. The surveys can be targeted and results analyzed to take action on emerging issues. For managers, MeBeBot has a dedicated ToolBot that provides coaching and tips personalized to the manager's team and challenges.
On the analytics side, MeBeBot gives administrators visibility into conversational metrics to optimize knowledge management. Features like conversation volume, response times, and topics analysis help improve the self-service experience. For reporting, MeBeBot offers live dashboards tracking utilization, user satisfaction, and content gaps.
From an integration standpoint, MeBeBot is designed as an app for Slack, Microsoft Teams, and SharePoint. This places support and engagement directly in the flow of work. The platform also offers APIs for customization and integration with HRIS, ITSM, and other workplace systems.
Ziff Davis, HireVue, Abrigo, CrowdStreet, Terminal, Massage Envy
MeBeBot is sold as an annual SaaS subscription license. The average pricing is $2.00-$5.00 per employee per month (tiered, based on the number of employees), and $250-1,000 per month for an AI Portal license. There are no implementation fees.
There’s no free trial, but employers interested in the tool should ask about the MeBeBot paid pilot program.
Best For
MeBeBot is best suited for growing companies, particularly in technology, finance, consulting, or similar industries.
Reward Gateway
Reward Gateway helps you build a tailored employee experience platform. Their implementation team will help you design a strategy that is unique to your business. Fancy an employee recognition system? You can get that and much more.
PROS
- 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
- No free trial
- The “Reward Gateway for Small Business” version is only available for companies in the UK and Australia
Reward Gateway is very well respected in the employee experience space. Through an engaging peer-to-peer recognition program, you’ll allow your employees to celebrate the wins with each other. As its name suggests, Reward Gateway offers many types of rewards for peer and managerial recognition, including gift vouchers and cashback offers.
- Samsung
- Orbis
- Five Star Bank
Each of Reward Gateway’s solutions are available for standalone purchase. However, price is not publicly available, so you must contact a sales representative. If you’re a UK or AU user, the company offers a Reward Gateway for Small Business plan which is £6 per employee per month.
Best For
Companies of any size will find a use case in at least one Reward Gateway module.
I use Reward Gateway on a weekly basis as part of our regular workflow for employee recognition and rewards. One of the primary ways we use the platform is through its peer-to-peer recognition feature, allowing staff to publicly acknowledge the hard work and achievements of their colleagues.
I also manage and distribute reward points that employees can redeem in place of other benefits to further engage them. Additionally, the analytics and reporting tools help us gauge employee engagement and assess the effectiveness of our recognition programs.
Overall, Reward Gateway has proven to be an essential tool in building a culture of appreciation within the organization.
Reward Gateway has an extremely user-friendly interface, making it easy for employees to navigate and access recognition tools. It offers a wide variety of custom rewards and discounts, which can be tailored to fit our team's preferences. The platform's robust analytics provide valuable insights into employee engagement, helping us continually improve our recognition programs.
Our organization implemented Reward Gateway to address significant challenges related to employee engagement and recognition. Before using this tool, we struggled with inconsistency in employee recognition and a lack of centralized resources for rewards, which negatively affected morale and motivation.
We sought a solution that would foster a culture of appreciation and make it easier for employees to recognize each other's contributions. Reward Gateway offers key benefits such as an easy-to-use peer-to-peer recognition platform, customizable reward options, and exclusive employee discounts.
I have been using Reward Gateway for over a year, and it has significantly enhanced our ability to celebrate achievements and maintain a positive workplace culture.
The search functionality for rewards is somewhat limited, making it difficult to quickly find specific items. The mobile application is less intuitive than the desktop version, which can hinder on-the-go recognition. While the reporting features are useful, they could benefit from more customization options for deeper analysis of engagement metrics.
Reward Gateway stands out because it offers a comprehensive employee engagement solution that combines recognition, rewards, and communication in one platform. While many tools focus solely on recognition or discounts, Reward Gateway integrates additional features such as employee surveys and company news, supporting a more holistic approach to engagement.
Compared to competitors like Bonusly and TINYpulse, Reward Gateway offers broader incentives through customizable rewards and a large-scale discount program. I appreciate how it nurtures a culture of appreciation while also keeping everyone informed of company news, which helps boost morale.
When choosing an employee engagement tool like Reward Gateway, consider functionality—ensure the platform has the features you need for recognition, rewards, and communication.
A user-friendly interface is important to ensure high adoption across the organization. The platform’s ability to be customized to reflect your company's culture and values is also crucial.
Additionally, check if the tool integrates smoothly with your existing HR systems to improve efficiency. Lastly, assess the vendor’s level of support to ensure you receive the necessary assistance during implementation and ongoing use.
Reward Gateway has evolved significantly, expanding its features to better meet user needs. Originally a simple recognition and rewards platform, it has grown to include engagement tools such as employee communication and surveys. The user interface has become more intuitive and accessible, driven by user feedback.
The platform now offers more customizable reward options and a broader range of discounts, catering to diverse employee preferences. Additionally, Reward Gateway has enhanced its analytics features, enabling organizations to track engagement metrics more thoroughly.
Reward Gateway is well-suited for mid-sized to large organizations where employee engagement and recognition are key components of corporate culture. It is ideal for companies looking to boost morale and retention through comprehensive rewards and recognition programs.
The platform is particularly beneficial for organizations with diverse workforces, as it offers customizable rewards and discounts to cater to different employee preferences. Companies seeking a tool that combines engagement features with communication capabilities will find Reward Gateway’s all-in-one approach valuable for creating a positive workplace environment.
Reward Gateway may not be the best fit for very small organizations with limited budgets or those that do not require an extensive recognition and reward program. Companies with highly specialized engagement needs may find the platform’s broader approach less suitable.
Additionally, organizations seeking a simple, low-cost tool focused solely on recognition, without integrated communication or analytics features, may prefer a more basic solution.
WorkTango
WorkTango's employee experience software includes goals, OKRs, recognition, conversations, employee surveys, feedback, and Incentives. Use this all-in-one tool to elevate your employee experience and by extension, company culture.
PROS
- Worktango has a simple and intuitive interface available in 9 languages.
- Coworkers can give public or private recognition in any direction, with or without reward points to celebrate one another’s efforts and achievements - viewable companywide in a social media-like activity feed.
- Robust dashboards and reporting fuel near real-time insights that are easily accessible to admins.
- Users appreciate the wide selection of reward options including: gift cards, charitable donations, physical items, swag, travel and more.
- Automated recognition ensures you never miss a milestone, sending prompt shoutouts for birthdays, work anniversaries, and other occasions.
- Simple implementation with ongoing and on-demand training sessions.
- Create custom incentives to reinforce your company’s objectives, programs, core values, or any positive actions.
- You can run unlimited surveys in over 20 languages with the flexibility to use WorkTango’s research-backed and statistically validated assessments, or create your own.
- 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 can only be done annually.
- All plans require a minimum commitment of 12 months.
- 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.
If you want it all, WorkTango has it. People teams can leverage all of WorkTango's functionality to build a healthy employee experience. While it can be a challenge to have your employees adopt new software, WorkTango has tools to engage employees at all levels of your organization to drive platform adoption and engagement. Employees who actively use the WorkTango Recognition & Rewards platform stay at their company 2.8 years longer on average than inactive employees.
1000+ organizations have used WorkTango, including Kia Motors, HUB International and Rexall.
WorkTango's pricing isn't disclosed upfront. To get an estimate based on your business size and needs, we recommend scheduling a demo with their Sales team
Best For
Although WorkTango can be used by companies of any size, it is worth noting that small and medium-sized businesses make up the majority of their customer base.
We use WorkTango frequently, though not on a daily basis. It integrates Employee Recognition & Rewards with Surveys & Insights, providing a seamless experience that aligns with our goal of improving engagement and recognition.
WorkTango’s platform drives employee motivation and engagement, offering tools for feedback, rewards, and insights. The platform’s comprehensive Employee Experience capabilities make it effective for aligning our recognition and survey processes. This integrated approach helps us gather insights and foster a supportive work environment.
- The platform makes it easy to give positive feedback and recognize colleagues, which boosts morale.
- It’s user-friendly, with easy access to profiles, allowing for quick recognition of multiple people.
- Customer service is outstanding and responsive.
Our organization chose WorkTango to address challenges in effectively engaging employees and gathering meaningful feedback. Previously, it was difficult to collect actionable insights from employees, and our methods for recognizing and rewarding performance were not streamlined.
WorkTango offered a solution with its engagement surveys and feedback tools, allowing employees to participate easily through a simple link. Real-time results and the ability to monitor response rates have been invaluable, helping us make informed, timely decisions.
I’ve used WorkTango for several months, and it has greatly simplified our feedback process while enhancing workplace culture.
- The reports and dashboard features are somewhat basic and could be enhanced.
- The analytics capabilities need improvement for deeper insights.
WorkTango’s Employee Experience platform stands out by combining essential tools—Employee Recognition & Rewards, Surveys & Insights, and reporting—in one solution. It excels in user-friendliness, making it easy for employees to provide feedback and for administrators to manage engagement.
Its simplicity and ease of navigation are major advantages, as they streamline the experience for both users and admins. The platform’s ability to deliver powerful insights, paired with its simplicity, makes it unique among competitors.
When selecting this type of tool, consider its customization options, as some workflows may be limited if they are complex. Assess whether the platform’s capabilities align with your needs before purchasing. Be prepared for a learning curve, and use available training resources. You may need to contact support occasionally during the initial setup to fully utilize the tool.
Yes, the tool has improved over time by adding necessary features and AI options, which is beneficial.
WorkTango is suitable for a wide range of users and organizations.
WorkTango is versatile and seems to be a good fit for any organization, based on feedback from my colleagues as well.
eloomi
Eloomi packs several tools that can help you deliver great employee experiences. You can use the platform’s onboarding module to transition new employees seamlessly into your team, boost productivity with 1:1 reviews, and build a healthy and positive company culture with continuous feedback surveys, rewards, and recognition features.
PROS
- Eloomi is easy to use and navigate, even for non-tech-savvy employees.
- Users praised Eloomi's responsive and helpful customer support team.
- It is simple and fast to create new courses and programs and upload custom content in Eloomi.
- Eloomi can be customized to match an organization's brand and tailored to different departments.
- Eloomi is quite comprehensive, with modules for onboarding, training/learning, performance management, employee engagement, and recognition.
- The platform comes with a library of ready-to-use templates to help you create online training faster. It also has a mobile app for your employees to access training materials on the go.
- Their surveys are customizable and private, helping you get specific and honest feedback from employees.
- You can request other members of the organization to provide feedback on certain skills of employees.
- You can make use of Eloomi’s micro-sized online training content to prevent overwhelming onboarding experiences.
CONS
- Some users experienced minor bugs or glitches, though these were typically fixed quickly.
- The reporting feature is limited in scope and customization.
- The setup process can involve a learning curve and some features like appraisals lack self-serve support docs.
- Eloomi’s pricing isn’t transparent and there are no free trials yet.
- Because of the sheer number of features Eloomi offers, there’s a steeper learning curve for the average user to get the hang of the platform and understand it to its fullest.
- A few users reported experiencing bugs and speed issues when generating reports, especially ones with a large volume of data, but have noted that Eloomi’s customer support team is quick to resolve such issues.
- The platform’s pricing isn’t transparent and free trials aren’t available at this time.
Eloomi provides managers with a host of tools to deliver great employee experiences. These tools streamline coaching, mentorship, learning path creation for quick onboarding, training programs delivery, and survey design and deployment for employee feedback. It also provides in-depth analytics and insights so you can see exactly how your employees are engaging with your initiatives and what areas need improvement. In addition, you can encourage goal achievement by adding points, rewards, and certificates.
Eloomi’s customer list includes BONUS Vorsorgekasse AG, Breakout Games, Carne Group, ElectricBrands, Nufarm, Domino’s, and more.
Eloomi offers custom pricing, so the best way to find out how much it costs is to request a demo.
Best For
Eloomi works well for HR leaders at mid-sized and large businesses. It’s especially suitable for those who want a platform that can tackle employee experience with a sharp focus on learning and skills development.
Peakon
Workday Peakon uses journey mapping to improve employee experience and retention. The platform is most used by growing companies and enterprises to collect employee data at every stage of their employment, get insights to uncover reasons for employee turnover, and forecast attrition risk in real-time.
PROS
- Workday Peakon allows employees to provide feedback anonymously, which encourages honest and open feedback.
- The platform supports over 20 languages.
- The built-in analytics show how the company performed over time and compares it to the market.
- The platform gives you data-driven insights and action plans based on responses which are helpful for better employee engagement and satisfaction.
- Having a variety of pricing options makes the tool scalable and fits various business sizes.
- It integrates with several business systems, making it easy to collect and analyze data from multiple sources.
- The customer support team is available 24/7.
- Workday Peakon keeps feedback anonymous, which allows employees to give their opinion without fear of reprisal.
- Surveys are easy to navigate, and employees can answer as many questions as they like from the survey—and skip over any that they don’t want to answer.
- Based on responses, Workday Peakon offers suggestions on what you can do to improve employee experience.
CONS
- The platform doesn't come with the ability to create custom reports. The tool instead offers a variety of pre-built reports that users can use.
- A few users shared that it can be hard to navigate Peakon and find employee profiles at times.
- Some features, for example, analytics and reporting, can be too much for small teams.
- The platform’s pricing isn’t transparent, and there isn’t a free trial at this time, either.
- Peakon doesn't come with the ability to create custom reports. It does, however, offer a variety of pre-built reports that you can use.
- A few users shared that it can be hard to navigate Peakon and find employee profiles at times.
- The platform’s pricing isn’t transparent and there aren’t free trials at this time.
Workday Peakon is a solid solution for growing companies and enterprises to get insights into employee responses and get actionable plans they can work on to improve the employee experience.
The first thing that caught our eyes was the feedback tools. We heard several employee users share that the surveys enable them to be honest without revealing their identities. As a multinational team, we appreciate that Workday Peakon is accessible in 20 different languages.
Another thing we like about Workday Peakon is its analytics capability. The platform is able to make sense of gathered employee responses quite well. It’s worth noting, though, that while the survey tools, analytics, and suggestions can give enterprises the power to dig deep into what’s going on with their teams and what they can change for the better, these tools can be too much for early-stage businesses and such, won’t get the same results. Benchmarking is another cool tool: it provides analytics on how a team has performed over time and compares it to market data. This could be an advantage for businesses to pinpoint and work on areas that need improvement before it’s too late. Workday Peakon’s customer service is available 24/7 and is highly rated for being customer-oriented.
With that said, we found it hard to have fully custom reports with Peakon. While, for the most part, accessing the platform is straightforward, some users found it hard to find employee profiles. Lastly, the pricing of the platform isn’t fixed and free trials are not available at this time.
EasyJet, Verizon, Nando's, Pret, Capgemini.
Peakon has an undisclosed pricing structure, so you must contact a sales representative for specific costs.
Best For
Workday Peakon is best suited for growing companies and enterprises looking to drive employee engagement and improve their workplace culture.
Spring Health
Spring Health is a mental healthcare software that takes a holistic approach to improve employee wellness. It asks employees a few simple questions and in turn provides personalized care.
PROS
- Spring Health leverages machine learning and data-based insights to tailor-make mental health plans for each employee.
- It assigns a dedicated Care Navigator to guide each team member's wellness journey.
- Spring Health uses data-driven insights and machine learning models to create a personalized mental healthcare plan for every individual
- Spring Health provides every member with a Care Navigator who walks you through your healthcare plan, answers any questions, helps you schedule your therapy sessions, and acts as a guide in your mental wellness journey.
- Now supports over 20 languages.
CONS
- Spring Health’s services can only be accessed if your employer has paid for a subscription.
- The platform is currently only available in English.
- You cannot access Spring Health’s services unless your employer has paid for them.
Spring Health melds clinically-proven tech with world-class mental health providers to give your employees the best mental health experience possible. Customers receive personalized support, which means that a custom mental health program is built for your company’s and individual employees’ needs.
- TED
- Whole Foods
- Instacart
- Gap
The first 10 sessions every calendar year are free for employees. Afterwards, sessions are covered by insurance. For employer costs, contact Spring Health or talk to your benefits administrator.
Best For
Any company looking to enhance employee experience by providing mental health resources.
Bonusly
Bonusly boosts employee experience by making peer recognition and rewards seamless, frequent, and public to increase engagement and positivity in the workplace.
PROS
- Bonusly’s UI is modern, easy to navigate, and available in 3 other languages besides English.
- Users appreciated being able to express gratitude in a lighthearted way with things like GIFs, points, rewards, etc.
- The public nature of the recognition on Bonusly allows appreciation to be visible across teams/departments.
- You can redeem points for tangible rewards like gift cards.
- You can test Bonusly out for 14 days for free.
- 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 Core plan that’s designed for small businesses is limited to 50 users.
- The analytics and reporting features are relatively basic.
- The reward catalog lacks experiential gifts and is focused more on gift cards, cash, or donations.
- Employees outside of the U.S. have rewards caps and fewer redemption options.
- Technical issues like site downtime, user import problems, and point redemption bugs may be experienced.
- 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.
Bonusly’s goal is to boost employee engagement, morale, and retention through rewards and recognition. Through its social media-style interface, your employees can give timely bonuses to colleagues for wins both big and small. These recognitions then populate a highly visible news feed bolstering awareness around accomplishments.
A major strength of Bonusly lies in its flexibility around rewards. Employees can choose from gift cards, charitable donations, or cold hard cash. Peer bonuses can be any amount set by admins, enabling creativity in recognition. The wide selection of redemption choices gives employees autonomy in finding meaning in the rewards.
By making appreciation easy to express and highly visible, Bonusly can effectively improve the experience of your employees. For any budget-conscious organization seeking to improve engagement and positivity through frequent peer recognition and rewards, Bonusly is absolutely worth considering.
Over 3,000 companies use Bonusly, including Workday, Toast, and Chobani.
Bonusly has three plans:
- Core: Designed for small businesses and costs $3/user/month, billed annually.
- Pro: Designed for growing businesses, and costs $5/user/month, billed annually.
- Custom: Designed for larger organizations and has custom pricing.
Best For
Small to mid-sized companies.
- I use the flow of recognition through values to acknowledge colleagues for their positive actions
- I use the points exchange flow to receive rewards from partners.
- I use the dashboards to identify the recognition among my team and know where I stand in comparison to my colleagues
- the reports and dashboards are useful to identify which values I have received the most recognition for and which I have received the least recognition for.
- We can use the management flow to adjust the registrations and be able to give extra bonuses to employees if a specific policy is applied that allows this action.
- I really like the possibility to recognise colleagues and use the gifs which make everything much more fun.
- I like to change the rewards for several possible vendors
- I really like to see the Dashboards that indicate the best-placed teams globally.
- They have a cool interface and are very easy to work with
We had been looking for a tool that could reinforce our values through recognition and rewards and thought to give Bonusly a try.
Having been using it for over a year now, I can say that it provides a relaxed environment for recognition and appreciation of our internal actions. It promotes satisfaction with the possibilities of exchanging rewards for benefits among several suppliers of major brands and franchises.
It also helps our employees feel at ease to express their feelings of appreciation and gratitude regarding projects or small actions that require formal recognition.
- Limitation of exchange partners for some specific regions.
- Some partners require fees for the exchange of rewards such as "PayPal".
I think Bonusly is something very unique. I don't see many vendors with similar products and the biggest difference is the integration with other products such as Slack.
People buying this type of tool should check if it:
- is practical and easy-to-use tool.
- generates engagement between employees.
- has good customer service support.
- has a global performance and with very good partners to exchange rewards.
- is flexible so that Human Resources can adapt it to their reality in terms of points provided to employees.
They have sought to improve their service, implement new tools such as Analytics and Dashboards, and also include new partners to exchange rewards.
I see Bonusly suitable for companies with a young audience, as it is a tool that uses many gifs and emojis, which generally appeals to this type of audience.
I also see it for companies seeking to create greater engagement and recognition within employees.
Companies with very traditional processes and people who do not adapt to online tools for recognition.
Companies with bureaucratic and archaic methods may not adapt to the tool.
Empuls
Empuls offers a suite of tools to connect with employees, seek their feedback, and provide incentives to improve the employee experience. For instance, you can leverage eNPS surveys, lifecycle surveys, and engagement surveys for feedback, as well as recognize their efforts with greetings and rewards.
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' Employee Experience Software allows organizations to quickly identify and address key areas for improvement based on employee feedback. The built-in social intranet facilitates open communication, and can also be used to celebrate achievements, stay informed about company news, take part in social activities at the office, and collaborate on different projects. You can also show your appreciation for your employees by sending them virtual greeting cards, rewards and gifts when they reach important milestones.
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
Empuls is a versatile employee experience software tool that caters to businesses of all sizes. However, it is particularly well-suited for small to medium-sized businesses aiming to foster a people-first environment.
Kudos
Kudos is an excellent employee experience software for its simple yet visually engaging interface that makes recognizing colleagues easy and fun, driving employee engagement.
PROS
- Kudos is very easy and simple to use for giving recognition and appreciation to coworkers.
- You can earn reward points and redeem them for gift cards and prizes.
- Users appreciate the ability to recognize, reward, and show appreciation to their coworkers and peers.
- 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
- Several users felt the monthly limit on points you can give to others is too low.
- A common complaint was challenges and lack of flexibility when trying to redeem earned points for actual rewards.
- A few users expressed wanting a broader selection of gift card options, especially local ones, to choose from when redeeming points.
- 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®’s platform is specifically designed to engage employees through peer to peer recognition, that can also include employee rewards. Recognition sent within the Kudos® platform is tied to company values and qualities, reinforcing your culture and enabling deep data insights into the health of your workplace culture. In addition to software, they offer consulting services.
ATCO, Bulgari, Arch Insurance, KidsPeace
Kudos starts at $3.25 per user per month for teams of minimum 500 employees. Final pricing varies based on users and contract length.
Best For
Kudos is most ideal for companies with over 500 employees. The platform serves a variety of industries and operates internationally.
I used Kudos to shout out my coworkers on my team and other teams. I used it to keep track of my successes and achievements. With the graphs, I could see what prominent words were used the most to describe me as a colleague, so that was neat to see in what ways I was adding value to the team. During performance reviews, I could review all the projects I completed and the recognition I received since it keeps track of all the kudos I have received from my colleagues and managers. I also used it to see how others viewed me as a teammate and to identify areas where I might need improvement.
I liked that it was fun to give shoutouts to each other. I appreciated seeing how my coworkers viewed me. It was easy to use as it’s an intuitive tool that takes hardly any learning curve to get started.
We used Kudos to give praise to each other. It was a way for us to recognize each other's work within our team and while collaborating with other teams. It was also a good way to keep track of our successes and achievements. When it came time for performance reviews, I could look back on all my shoutouts and accomplishments. I used this tool for six months.
I disliked the limited ways the data could be split; there weren't enough tables and graphs. I felt the incentive program led to giving kudos just to earn points for redemption; there weren’t many options for gift cards. The pulse surveys didn't explore company culture deeply enough.
N/A - I haven't used another tool similar to Kudos before, so I don't have enough data for comparison. If I had to say, I feel Kudos is a good tool to at least check out to see if it’s something to implement in one’s organization.
People should consider how they would use this tool to encourage company culture and what type of culture they want to build on their teams. They should also consider if this tool is necessary or if there is another way to build company culture without using a tool.
I'm unsure. I didn't use this tool long enough to see it evolve.
Kudos would be useful for a small startup or a company trying to build up its culture. It would be best for organizations that work cross-functionally since it would help build trust among the various teams that work together, such as recruiting working alongside sales, HR, and hiring teams.
I can't think of any organization that couldn't find Kudos useful. However, if the organization is starting out with less than 100 employees, then I could see this tool being too premature for an organization of that size.
Mo
Mo packs an impressive range of vouchers that can be shared as rewards to delight and appreciate employees. The platform is also available in 12 languages and growing, making it ideal for companies with distributed, multilingual employees.
PROS
- User interface is clean and intuitive across devices.
- Users highly rate the platform’s varied range of reward vouchers.
- Available in 12 languages so far and the team is actively working on adding more.
- Transparent, budget-friendly pricing with no extra rewards fees.
- Free onboarding and implementation assistance for all users.
- Well-developed mobile apps.
- UI is easy to navigate, and users seem to appreciate the varied choice of gift cards they can offer through the platform.
- Transparent pricing starting from $2.25/user/month with no rewards fees.
- Free onboarding and implementation support for all users.
- Robust and feature-rich mobile applications.
- Available in 12 languages and growing.
CONS
- No HRIS integration in Base plan. Potential fee for Slack, Microsoft Teams integrations.
- Customer support is only offered between 9 AM - 5 PM GMT.
- Free trials and free plans are not available as of yet.
- HRIS integration absent in Base plan. Possible implementation fee for Slack and Microsoft Teams integrations.
- The customer support hours are limited to weekdays, 9 AM - 5 PM GMT.
Mo's platform is designed to enhance employee morale and minimize turnover. It features Moments and Boosts, which help you acknowledge and celebrate your team members’ achievements either individually or in a group. The platform gives you the flexibility to reward employees either with vouchers redeemable at various stores like Amazon, ASOS, and John Lewis, or with customized rewards tailored specifically for each team member. In addition to rewards given by managers, Mo empowers employees to participate in the process with peer-to-peer nominations of deserving individuals for awards or recognition.
To make rewards and recognition even easier, Mo recently launched “Assistant”, a tool that gives you quick recommendations on actions you can take to further drive engagement, a summary of recent Moments, an overview of your team’s reward budget, and more.
SGN, The O2, NHS, Aspen, William Hill, and SHL are some of Mo’s 58k users.
Mo’s offering is available over three plans. When billed annually, the pricing for each plan is as follows:
- Appreciate: This plan is designed for small teams who are new to recognition software. It costs $2.25 per user per month and includes features that allow you to acknowledge achievements, celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and more.
- Engage: Priced at $4.5 per user per month, this plan includes everything in the Appreciate 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.
- Transform: Tailored for large companies, the Transform 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 benefit from Mo’s offering, but we think its feature set supports SMBs best.
Motivosity
Motivosity has been expanding its focus to become an employee recognition and experience platform that can easily work for teams from 50 to 5,000. It encompasses a complete recognition tool encompassing internal communication, awards, rewards, insights, and a way to run all your programs in one place.
PROS
- It’s a very complete tool from the get-go, with its core module (Community and Connection) offering a very wide array of features.
- Then, expansions of the tool are available as separately priced add-ons, letting you manage employee rewards, wellness programs, employee engagement surveys, and analytics from the same tool.
- Has a social media feel that makes it intuitive to use.
- Motivosity is very transparent about their pricing and what you get with each module.
- Factoring all of the above, Motivosity is quite a good deal if you consider all the workflows it can handle for that price point.
- 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
- Although it’s improved over the years, we find the UI to be a bit heavy on the cognitive side. The platform does do a lot, so it can be a bit overwhelming when you first lay eyes on it. That being said, it doesn’t seem to stop people from using the tool, as 96% of employees use the system at least once a month.
- When it comes to rewards, these are limited to the dollar-based kind, it doesn’t support point-based systems.
- 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 is probably one of the most complete employee experience products out there. What started as a rewards and recognition tool, can now handle most aspects of what you would call employee experience. It makes sense for a company that, from the start, has made it its mission to help people be happier at work.
This expansion has been impressive to witness over the years, as we’ve been familiar with the tool since early on in their journey and have had several demos over the years. Our most recent one included a tour of the whole suite, starting from the communications hub but also going through the rewards and recognition module, which is more complete than ever and is now offered as an add-on.
Then, there are employee insights, which feature many types of surveys and metrics you can use to get an idea of how people feel and behave in the workplace. Although it can feel like too much at first, given the many options that you can point and click to, the UI is always improving. It’s also fairly easy to figure out once you locate the workflow you’re after. It also helps that you won’t start alone since implementation support is included with each plan.
Motivosity proudly serves a diverse range of esteemed customers, including Instructure, the University of Michigan, Cotopaxi, HealthEquity, DF Credit Union, and WGU among others.
Motivosity’s core product of Recognition and Rewards is $4 per employee per month. This includes all of their tools for internal communication, rewards, awards, milestones, social connection features, etc. For a comprehensive list of features included in each pricing option, refer to Motivosity's dedicated pricing page.
Best For
Motivosity is a versatile employee experience tool that caters to organizations of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises. Its strength lies in serving SMBs and mid-market companies. Their sweet spot is in the 75-750 headcount range, but they have customers from 25 employees to 25,000 employees.
Motivosity for management and leadership development has been a major area we employ. We use this to facilitate one-on-one and small group meetings between supervisors and their teams. It's been extremely helpful in getting everyone to participate and as they can add agenda items and plan in advance.
Performance has improved as a result because staff receives guidance on problem-solving and prioritizing work from their supervisor and they receive acknowledgment afterward. Also, the leadership team can see the reports on how often these meetings are happening and get a sense of how well our supervisors are performing.
We also use the recognize feature to reward the daily achievements and allow staff to recognize coworkers. Great work that often went unacknowledged or just was easily forgotten/overlooked now gets the attention it deserves. We found that everyone responds to this feature and that these small, regular acknowledgments tied to tangible monetary and gift rewards have really increased overall employee motivation and satisfaction and made doing great work rewarding and fun for our staff. We also set it up to make sure major events like an anniversary are not missed.
We also benefit from the surveys and feedback that leadership can see as insightful and data-driven reporting. It has been critical in getting information that was mainly anecdotal, unpredictable, and sporadic in the past. We use this for departing employees' exit interviews and to track turnover. Handling and understanding employee turnover had been overly informal and a bit chaotic before this feature, but we use the exit interviews and data to get a better picture of areas we need to focus on.
It improved employee morale and performance by offering ways for them to connect better with coworkers and supervisors and allowed ongoing, regular, and routine recognition rather than just major things like salary increases and promotions.
Leadership has gained a better sense of how our management is performing and increased the effectiveness of our supervisors at every level.
It's given us valuable data about how our staff are performing, employee turnover, and management performance in reports.
We were concerned about employee engagement given the fact that a large number of employees were remote, and we have multiple worksites. Both factors created a sense of disconnect among the staff from both the company and their co-workers. It seemed to be harming employee morale and, consequently, employee productivity.
We were also very concerned about increased interpersonal conflict, declining employee retention and feedback that generally indicated dissatisfaction. We were also looking for a way to provide ongoing recognition and to attain ongoing feedback, because annual reviews and occasional surveys were not enough, and were not incorporated into the day-to-day culture.
We've used motivosity for about a year and a half. In that time, we've seen improvements in all these areas.
We were not thrilled with the customer support regarding questions about billing and technical errors.
The system seemed to have some technical issues and was sometimes really slow or even would crash.
Though it met our needs, there do appear to be products on the market that have more features for around the same cost.
Having used a few similar products, I think Motivosity does a better than average job creating personalized connections between coworkers and social media-like content for staff members and was very good at fostering a sense of empowerment by management to the employees.
It allows for employees to recognize each other, not just management recognizing employees as is typically the case. Also, the user interface is very straightforward, intuitive, easy to navigate, and easy to use.
A tool like this will very likely increase employee engagement and increase performance and retention, but people should consider the costs involved both in the product and in monetized rewards and recognition to staff.
Once you institute such rewards, taking them away may be poorly received by staff. Also, it requires leadership to support and endorse the efforts to use this product and without that, it may not be effectively deployed, especially if you do not have full participation.
From my understanding, they have refined the features to focus better on reporting and on management development.
Remote workers will especially benefit. It helps to replace some of the personal bonding and connection that usually happens through in-person interactions.
Organizations, where there is infrequent staff interaction, will also find a lot of benefits in both the sense of personal connection and regular recognition that can be lost when workers are not physically near each other often.
An organization that highly values a top-down style of relationships may find that they don't value the degree to which employees are empowered to give feedback and recognition.
What is Employee Experience Software?
Employee experience (management) software, or in short, EX software, is an umbrella category that encompasses a variety of tools designed to enhance employees' overall experience. It focuses on improving engagement, productivity, and satisfaction by streamlining processes, facilitating communication, and providing resources for personal and professional growth.
Employee Experience vs. Employee Engagement
Employee experience and employee engagement are interconnected concepts but differ in scope, focus, and outcomes. EX is the comprehensive employee journey, while engagement reflects how employees feel about their work within that journey. More specifically:
- Scope and Focus: Employee experience refers to the holistic journey employees go through within an organization, from onboarding to offboarding. On the other hand, employee engagement zeroes in on how emotionally invested and motivated employees feel toward their roles and the company’s goals. While EX sets the stage, engagement measures how connected employees are to the performance.
- Drivers: The factors influencing EX are broad and organizational. They include HR policies, physical and digital environments, and organizational management practices that ensure a positive work environment. Engagement, however, is primarily driven by emotional and psychological elements, such as employee recognition, a sense of purpose, and opportunities for personal growth.
- Measurement: EX is measured by assessing satisfaction across various touchpoints, such as onboarding, workplace tools, and overall employee lifecycle. HR metrics like turnover rates and satisfaction surveys capture this. In contrast, regular pulse surveys that ask employees how meaningful they find their work provides a clear measure of engagement.
Key Features of An Employee Experience Platform
The employee experience software category is quite broad, encompassing tools specializing in engagement, rewards, recognition, wellness, learning and development, and performance management. Below is a breakdown of key features the vendors on our shortlist offer:
- Pulse surveys: Most employee experience management platforms offer pulse surveys as a core feature. These surveys help you gather actionable feedback from employees on various aspects of their work experience, such as job satisfaction, workplace environment, and organizational culture. The vendors on this list provide templates or customizable surveys that you can send out on a schedule or when you feel necessary.
- Rewards and recognition: Numerous recognition statistics show when employees feel appreciated, they tend to be more productive and stay longer. Several vendors on our shortlist focus on experience through employee rewards and recognition. These features enable you to foster a culture of appreciation by acknowledging your employees in various tangible and verbal ways (recognition words, non-money incentives, informal recognition, and virtual gifts are a few examples).
- Social media-style activity feeds: Many of the vendors on this list engage employees through a newsfeed quite similar to Facebook or X/Twitter. These enable employees to share their thoughts or recognize each other for achievements, while employers can share news and updates.
- Training and coaching: Growth is an important aspect of employee experience. A few vendors on this list offer training and coaching programs to provide employees with chances to learn and connect with leadership to benefit their long-term careers.
- Wellness: Employee wellness, whether mental, physical, or financial, is extremely important to maintaining psychological safety in the workplace. Many tools in this space can help you provide resources on mental and financial wellness, create challenges to reach certain physical health goals, and more.
- Analytics and reporting: The best-in-class experience management platforms have robust reporting and analytics capabilities, so you can monitor your initiatives' progress and identify trends and areas for improvement early on.
- Integration with HR Systems: Employee experience software often integrates with existing HR systems, such as HRIS and HRMS software. This integration allows for seamless data flow, reducing manual data entry and ensuring a comprehensive view of the employee experience across different touchpoints.
Benefits of Using Employee Experience Software
As with any software purchase, it will be easier to get HR tech buy-in from upper management if you’re able to explain the benefits clearly. When you invest in employee experience software, you can expect:
- Increased employee experience: Obviously, some of the core features of employee experience management software, such as surveys and chat/social walls, by nature, lead to improved employee experience. Not only do these tools enable employees to communicate with each other and their managers easily, but they also give employees a safe space to submit feedback for improvement anonymously for leadership’s attention.
- Improved employee satisfaction: All of the tools under the employee experience category are designed to boost employee satisfaction. Surveys make employees feel heard; rewards and recognition ideas make employees feel appreciated; wellness resources and initiatives make employees feel cared for, and training/coaching tools make employees feel invested. All of the above means higher employee happiness and satisfaction, and satisfaction data show that satisfied employees are motivated to perform consistently better.
- Better retention rates: Studies on employee recognition found employees who like their workplace, feel appreciated for what they do, and have the potential to grow in their careers are statistically more likely to stick around longer. Employee experience software focuses on those areas, helping you see where your company is failing so you can make improvements before it's too late.
- Positive word-of-mouth (employer branding): What do your former employees say about you? Are your current employees referring people from their networks to open roles? If your employee experience initiative is working, you should hear nothing but positive things, and as a result, you will see more people want to apply to work for you.
How Much Does Employee Experience Software Cost?
The majority of employee experience platforms charge subscription-based pricing per user per month, with the option of annual billing. The EX software price per user tends to range from $2 to $10, depending on the features needed. Additional fees may also apply for on-demand services, such as software implementation, employee training, platform customization, dedicated account management, and contract cancellation.
Another thing to consider is whether the vendor has a minimum price commitment policy. Some employee experience management solutions have a minimum spend requirement to subscribe to certain plans, often their best-value ones. For more information, we have a dedicated ebook on getting the best pricing in HR tech that you can download for free.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing Employee Experience Software
- Over-reliance on software: Software isn’t a miracle worker. If your culture is toxic, you’ll need to do more than sign a contract with a tech vendor. Diagnose the problem below the surface, then devise a strategy to address it and use tech solutions to help.
- Not defining your goals: Similar to the previous bullet, you won’t accomplish much if you don’t have a firm idea of what you’re trying to achieve. Find your problem, then set a few goals along the way to measure the success of your efforts.
- Not measuring employee data: Goals have to be measurable so you can track success. Make sure you use KPIs like retention rate or employee satisfaction to recognize the difference your employee experience software makes.
- Not integrating across your tech stack: As HR becomes more data-centric, the more you know about using HR analytics, the better. Using data from all of your systems creates a holistic view of your organization. Make sure they’re all cleanly integrated for easy access.
Demo Questions: What to Ask Employee Experience Software Vendors
Demos are an essential part of the buying process when selecting literally any type of business software including employee experience platforms. If you’re not sure what to ask, here are some suggestions:
- Do you have strong data on how your software has helped employee attrition?
- Can you walk us through the employee portal and admin side of the platform?
- Can we tailor surveys, dashboards, and user interfaces to align with our brand and specific requirements?
- What’s the implementation process like?
- What kind of self-service support options do you provide?
- Will your software integrate with my existing tech stack?
- How do you handle data security and privacy?
- What sets your employee experience software apart from other solutions in the market?
- How much does your product cost for my team size and requirements?
- What features or improvements do you plan on rolling out in the near future?
FAQs
What is an employee experience model?
An employee experience model refers to a framework that organizations use to enhance employee interactions and perceptions throughout their tenure. It includes key components like cultural, physical, and technological environments and spans the entire employee lifecycle, from recruitment to exit.
Is employee experience the same as HR?
No, it’s not. Essentially, HR plays a crucial role in shaping the employee experience, but the two concepts represent different scopes and objectives within an organization.
- HR is primarily concerned with managing operational processes such as recruitment, onboarding, performance management, and compliance. This concept’s objective is to ensure efficient human resource management and policy adherence.
- Employee experience, on the other hand, covers the full employee journey within the organization, including interactions, perceptions, and feelings throughout their tenure. By looking at the broader organizational culture and how it impacts employees' daily experiences, EX seeks to create a positive work environment that fosters engagement, satisfaction, and well-being.
What does employee experience cover?
Employee experience covers all aspects of an employee's journey that can impact employee satisfaction and engagement within an organization. These include recruitment, onboarding, daily interactions, workplace culture, physical environment, technology, and support systems.
How does employee experience differ from employee engagement?
Employee experience is the overall journey employees have with an organization, covering all touchpoints from hiring to exit, including policies, tools, and culture. Employee engagement, on the other hand, focuses on employees' emotional commitment and motivation toward their work. Simply put, employee experience shapes the environment employees interact with, while engagement reflects how they feel and act within that environment.
What makes a good employee experience software?
A good employee experience software should positively impact your workforce while also providing value to your business. The ultimate aim of these tools is to drive employee satisfaction. Employees who are happier in their day-to-day work are more likely to stay with your company longer and tend to be more productive, too. On a technical level, good employee experience software should also be user-friendly, scalable, and customizable so you can derive the most value.
Why are different types of employee experience software?
Employee experience software includes engagement tools, wellness apps, social networks, employee assistance programs (EAPs), employee rewards programs, employee recognition tools, learning management systems, and performance management platforms.
When to Invest in Employee Experience Software
If you’re on a quest to boost employee satisfaction, retention, and productivity, then it’s worth getting employee experience software to complement your efforts. Any company with over 25 employees can invest in these solutions and see good results.
It’s important to note, though, that while software helps, it can’t perform miracles. If you’ve got systemic problems affecting the experience and culture at your company, you do need to properly diagnose those problems and come up with meaningful strategies to address them before you jump into a purchase.
To help you get a sense of what kind of return on investment you’ll get from purchasing employee experience software, check out our HR Tech ROI Calculators. If you’d like to learn more about employee engagement software, take a look at our detailed guide with benefits, features, use cases, pitfalls, and more.
About Us
- Our goal at SSR is to help HR and recruiting teams to find and buy the right software for their needs.
- Our site is free to use as some vendors will pay us for web traffic.
- SSR lists all companies we feel are top vendors - not just those who pay us - in our comprehensive directories full of the advice needed to make the right purchase decision for your HR team.
