Introduction
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Built for SMBs that want to boost employee recognition, Assembly is one of the most cost-effective solutions in the rewards and recognition space. It’s free for up to five members per month, and very moderately-priced afterwards.
Ratings
Ease of Use
Best For
Key Differentiator
Price
Free Trial
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.
C.A. Short Company
C.A. Short Company
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Nectar
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Motivosity
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AdvantageClub.ai
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Awardco
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While best known for their rewards and recognition software, Assembly have expanded into offering more, making them a rather complete employee engagement suite. As of mid 2022, they have a communication productivity and automation tool. This is packed with features like team retrospective templates (and templates for other similar processes), employee surveys, and an intranet-like digital HQ.
As to their flagship product, Assembly's employee recognition and rewards software enables HR teams to build stronger cultures with more engaged employees through various forms of recognition.
Specifically, employees use Assembly to recognize their co-workers for accomplishments large and small. In turn, these recognitions can be broadcasted to the rest of the company, who can in turn react to them like on a social media network.
Of course, recognition aligns with company values which are set by you. Employees who are recognized typically are also given points by their peers which they can then turn into various rewards.
Furthermore, Assembly stood out to us among the dozens of companies we demoed in this space because of their customizable rewards. Apart from letting employees pick rewards from a curated catalog, you can also set up your own rewards, such as team building events, sleep-in days, choose office music for the day, etc, or other stuff you and your team can think of.
Then, there’s the price point. Assembly offers a free tier for smaller companies, or small teams within an organization that want to give this a try before implementing it at large. Now, if you were to move to the paid version, it’s good to know that it’s rather moderately priced if we compare it to other solutions. Their monthly plan starts at $2.50 - $4.00 per employee per month.
Among their clients, it’s typical for around 90% of the employees at each company to use it on a monthly basis. This is evidence that there is a self-sustaining feedback loop of employees being recognized, and giving recognition.
Assembly is used on a monthly cycle. Users receive a monthly allotment of points to give to their coworkers. Recognition posts are created on the board by tagging one or more employees, assigning Assembly Applause Points, and posting for the company to view, like, and comment on.
Once enough points are earned, users can redeem them for rewards in the form of gift cards or charitable donations. Admin users have additional permissions to allocate extra points to individuals based on performance and reward metrics, creating a customizable and engaging experience.
Assembly is excellent for boosting employee engagement. It helps organizations align their core values and vision through a recognition-based culture. Its pricing is affordable for small businesses, as it is based on the number of active users.
My organization has used Assembly for over three years, and I personally used it for one year while working with the team. Leadership needed a user-friendly platform to promote engagement and rewards for their hybrid workforce.
Assembly provided customizable tools for giving kudos and gifts to individuals and teams for a job well done, all on a secure platform. It allows individuals to choose how to spend their points in a rewards storefront, which includes local businesses and big-box store gift cards.
Additionally, it offers the option to donate points or cash rewards to various fundraisers, making it a great tool for supporting corporate social responsibility initiatives.
The program should be integrated into self-service portals for easier access. It generates excessive email notifications, which can reduce productivity during the workday. Some employees may struggle to understand or fully appreciate the concept of virtual recognition.
Assembly stands out for its user-friendly interface and customizable features that enhance employee engagement. However, competitors may offer more competitive pricing or better integration with existing tools.
Assembly encourages daily use and provides a feed page that functions similarly to social media, making it intuitive for users familiar with platforms like Facebook. Ensuring proper customization can optimize user engagement and deliver a solid return on investment.
Consider your company culture and communication style when evaluating this tool. If your team relies on digital communication, Assembly can be an excellent fit for fostering engagement. Review the pricing structure to ensure it aligns with your budget, and assess whether the program's features match your organization's needs.
Assembly has continuously updated its platform to offer more integrations that meet customers’ needs. Its rewards catalog is always expanding, and users can even create custom rewards to support local charities, families, or non-profits. The platform is evolving to include new ways for teams to interact, making it more engaging and user-friendly.
Assembly is ideal for organizations with hybrid or remote employees. It’s also well-suited for companies with multiple shifts or locations, as it helps connect employees and celebrate achievements through an easy-to-navigate online platform. Its feed page allows team members to create and respond to content, much like social media, which many employees find intuitive and engaging.
Assembly may not be suitable for organizations that do not use computers or tablets in their daily operations. Additionally, it requires a proper budget to maintain and fund the program long-term.
Before implementing Assembly, ensure that a rewards and recognition program aligns with your team's needs by requesting a demo and conducting employee surveys to assess its effectiveness.
We use assembly on a daily basis for employee recognition and engagement, and team announcements such as birthdays. We use assembly messenger every week amongst our HR team to share ideas. In addition to a quick way to retrieve company policies, one of the key workflows we use it for is onboarding.
I love the ability to recognize and reward employees in multiple ways. We love digital gift cards, peer nominations, and culture rewards. We are able to reward employees based on their motivation style. We also enjoy the survey feature.
Our company recently expanded and we wanted a centralized platform to assist us with employee recognition and engagement. Preferably one that was automated.
At this time there isn’t anything we dislike.
Assembly is very affordable and scalable for small businesses. The platform is easy to navigate and we enjoy the integrated training. Other platforms we demoed required us to call an account manager for most inquiries or training. It is also very user-friendly and was easy to roll out to our staff.
They should first have an internal employee recognition and performance management process in mind. This will help them determine which system is best for them. The next thing they should look for is if the tool aligns with their business needs and goals. Lastly, the level of complexity requires to implement and use the system on a daily basis. It needs to be user-friendly to drive employee use.
Assembly has evolved with the the level of integrations it offers. They have also created RecognitionGPT to help create professional recognition responses and announcements.
I think assembly is great for all-size companies. The ideal user is someone in operations such as Supervisors and HR. The best part is the user doesn’t have to be tech-savvy.
A person who is unfamiliar with social engagement platforms and unwilling to learn the technology.
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.
Small companies that have more than 10 employees but are still looking for a free product, or are wary about signing up for a year, might not be a good fit for Assembly. That being said, many companies do start by simply implementing the tool amongst a smaller team within, then expanding if the rewards and recognition program is a success at that smaller scale.
Coca Cola, Goodside Health, StubHub, Amazon, Keck School of Medicine, Quest Nutrition
Assembly also features:
- Points system
- Automated incentives
- Employee surveys
Assembly is Part of the BambooHR app Marketplace. It also integrates natively with Zenefits, the payroll software company.
Assembly offers a free version for up to 10 employees. Paying customers are charged $2.80 - $4.50 per employee per month depending on the features you're looking for and if you choose an annual vs monthly plan.
With a free plan if you have 5 employees or less, Assembly is arguably best for small teams. However, their pricing plans are just as reasonable as you go up the employee count scale. As of the pandemic, the folks at Assembly have also focused more on hybrid workplaces.
If you use software that they already integrate with (like Slack or Teams), then it's fairly simple to get setup. Typically implementation takes less than a week.
All customers get access to 24/7 chat support, in addition to a dedicated account manager. Both their support team and customer success reps are known to go above and beyond to help the clients, sharing best practices and trying to help you truly make the most out of the platform. However, be advised that if you want custom onboarding support, this service starts at $5,000.
Further, the team at Assembly are also known to gather feedback from their users and use it to create new features, even taking time to let them know how they’ve incorporated said feedback. Arguably, this is something that the best vendors do in any software space.
Founded in 2017, Assembly have been rapidly making a name for themselves in the employee recognition space. From their headquarters in California, and with a modest team of under 50 employees, they’ve managed to become a key player in the rewards and recognition software category thanks to their comprehensive set of features offered at a very reasonable price, all built upon a bedrock of remarkably good (based on interviews and user reviews) customer service and support.
Fueled by this, they’ve managed to keep expanding, incorporate user feedback, and develop into a fuller employee engagement tool. Some remarkable aspects of their trajectory are the amounts they’ve raised in funding, their ever-growing client list, and perhaps more importantly to you, dear reader, their reputation among their customers.
Company HQ
Santa Monica, California
Number of Employees
11-50
Year Founded
2017
Amount Raised
4.500.000,00 US, backed by the likes of Homebrew and Wonder Ventures.
FAQ
- Do rewards within Assembly cost extra?
Naturally, rewards like gift cards do present additional costs, but this is only paid at the time of redemption. This means, when employees exchange points for a paid reward. The good thing is that you pay exactly what the rewards costs. Let’s say it’s a $50 gift card; you pay $50. - Do I have to set up rewards to use Assembly?
Not at all. Rewards are not required. You simply have access to their catalog if you need it, but you can use the tool without having to set up these rewards. Although they do recommend it as a best practice for high adoption, many companies choose to offer internal culture rewards only in order to keep the costs down. - Is peer-to-peer recognition a set feature with Assembly? Not either. While they do have that feature and recommend it to every customer, each company is free to set up the tool however they deem fit. You can limit who can give or receive recognition right from the admin panel and change it whenever you decide.
