Best Employee Engagement Tools We've Tested (November 2025)

Lattice’s engagement suite lets you build everything from onboarding to engagement to exit surveys using their validated templates or your own fully customized question sets.

You can tweak anonymity settings, apply skip logic, and automate recurring surveys, making Lattice a versatile tool for HR teams ready to get serious about feedback. If you’ve used platforms like Leapsome or Culture Amp, you’ll find Lattice offers similar survey-building control, but with added options for importing historical survey data and configuring group-level anonymity thresholds.

One nice feature is Lattice’s analytics engine. With this feature, you can filter data by tenure, location, department, or custom fields, such as manager or parental status. The heatmap view helps you visualize engagement trends across the org, while the AI Insights tool summarizes open-text feedback into common themes (think sentiment scores around “leadership,” “growth,” or “workload.”) It’s a feature we’ve seen work well in ThriveSparrow and Leapsome, but in Lattice’s case, you’ll need to have eNPS enabled to unlock the complete driver analysis.

Where Lattice lags is the user experience. The HR admin app is surprisingly limited, with key tasks like managing surveys or reviewing dashboards still desktop-only. Compared to mobile-first tools we’ve evaluated like Connecteam or Mo, Lattice feels somewhat dated in this regard.

We also noticed that survey exports to PowerPoint are restricted to agree/disagree formats only, which may frustrate teams that rely on more complex reporting. And unlike Motivosity or Workleap, there’s no self-serve free trial, meaning you’ll need to book a demo to get started.

Although we appreciate that the action plan tool helps turn insights into accountability by assigning follow-ups and pulse check-ins, some managers we surveyed find the UI clunky when toggling between survey data, goals, and performance reviews. For example, a few have requested a side-by-side comparison view for self versus manager feedback—something other platforms, such as Leapsome, already include.

5,000+ companies, including Olo, Strike Graph, Cutover, and Sendle.

Lattice’s Engagement module is available as an add-on for $4 per user per month, billed annually. It requires the core Talent Management suite ($11 per user per month), totaling $15 monthly. There are no setup fees, but a $4,000 annual contract minimum applies.

Connecteam offers a comprehensive suite of employee-centric tools that cover communication, training, recognition, and operations in a mobile-friendly format, designed for deskless teams. After trialing the platform, we found a lot to like, especially for organizations looking to connect and engage employees on the go.

Let’s start with the Communication Hub. The surveys and live polls functionality allows you to quickly collect input from your team, whether it’s feedback on a new policy or pulse-checking morale. The Updates module is another strong point. It provides managers with a streamlined way to share company news, best practices, or shout-outs, ensuring frontline staff stay informed in real-time.

Another thing that excited us about Connecteam is its commitment to recognition, which is not often seen in deskless workforce platforms. Managers can use built-in tools to highlight top performers, celebrate birthdays and work anniversaries, and issue digital rewards and shout-outs. This helps reinforce positive behavior and foster a culture of appreciation even in highly distributed workforces.

Connecteam also supports professional growth with features that span the employee lifecycle, from digital onboarding to mobile-first training courses. Employees can complete skill modules from their phones, access SOPs, and keep up with certifications through a centralized knowledge hub. This all-in-one approach helps boost productivity and engagement while reducing administrative burden.

Beyond engagement, this vendor also offers task and shift scheduling tools for day-to-day ops. Managers can assign work based on availability, approve time-off requests, and promote team events to build camaraderie. Consulting some HR professionals who have been using these features, one trend we noticed was that Connecteam is quite popular among teams working in retail, logistics, hospitality, and other mobile-first industries.

One anticipated drawback of this employee engagement platform, however, is that it can take time to fully get the hang of it due to its breadth of features. Connecteam is divided into multiple hubs (Communication, HR & Skills, Operations), allowing it to accommodate different scales. However, that also means that if you opt for just surveys, training, and recognition, you may end up paying more than one hub subscription with a few features unnecessarily plugged in.

Connecteam is used by 36,000+ businesses, including Subway, Hilton, and Volvo.

Connecteam offers three hubs: Operations, Communications, and HR & Skills. Each hub has various plans from $29 to $99 per month for 30 users, and a free plan for under 10 users.

Leapsome has long been known for its rich feature set covering engagement surveys, performance management, learning, and goal tracking. But in our most recent hands-on review, it was the August 2025 product updates, particularly the Unified Inbox and AI-powered Manager Assistant, that really stood out.

The unified inbox brings clarity and efficiency to manager workflows. Instead of switching between modules, all feedback, reviews, and survey responses now arrive in one centralized place. It significantly cut down time-to-action in our testing. Meanwhile, the new AI assistant helped generate quality drafts for review feedback and pulse survey replies, which is a welcome aid for people managers balancing high-volume work.

Beyond the AI and UX improvements, Leapsome still excels at data-driven engagement. Users can segment survey results by team, location, or tenure, then use sentiment analysis to track patterns and performance correlations. Optional anonymous follow-ups help managers understand underlying issues and build psychological safety.

One major differentiator we noted is Leapsome’s multilingual reach. With the engagement tool available in 32 languages and support offered in both English and German, it’s a good fit for global organizations. Their Success Center is filled with how-to guides, videos, and best practices. It’s also available to all users, regardless of contract size.

However, hands-on help from the Customer Success team is only provided to customers on annual contracts of $6,000 or more. For smaller teams, this paywall can feel limiting.

Another point to consider is pricing. While it starts at $7 per user per month, the final cost depends on your company's size, contract length, and selected modules. Special rates are available for startups and NGOs, but you’ll need to speak with the sales team to find out if you qualify. Also, although Leapsome now offers a free 14-day trial with no credit card required, it’s only available after you’ve gone through a demo with sales.

Over 1,500 companies use Leapsome, including Mercedes Benz, Spotify, Trivago, Eventim, and Babbel.

Starts at $7 per user per month with annual billing, varying based on employee count, contract length (minimum 1 year), and modules, with special rates for startups and NGOs. A $6,000+ annual contract is required for Customer Success, and a 14-day free trial is available after a demo without a credit card.

Mo’s platform takes on employee engagement through meaningful rewards and recognition. At its core, you’ll find Moments and Boosts - which are simple yet effective features engineered to fuel morale. Managers can easily create Moments to praise team or individual accomplishments, pairing the shout-outs with gift cards or custom rewards. Boosts, on the other hand, are automations that ensure day-to-day kudos are never forgotten.

We appreciate Mo’s attention to different preferences through its varied and customizable reward options. We also like how straightforward their rewards program is; if a user puts in $5 to recognize someone, the recipient gets $5 to redeem. Having a clear dollar value to rewards is great for a few reasons: it’s simpler for users to understand (as opposed to confusing point-based systems), and it also makes budget tracking infinitely easier.

Mo also promotes inclusiveness in its peer-to-peer nomination features, which give employees the ability to actively recognize one another. This not only makes employees feel more empowered but also contributes to a positive and supportive company culture.

To complement its core offering, Mo recently introduced its AI-powered Assistant tool, which provides customized recommendations on actions leaders can take to boost engagement further. For example, it will automatically remind managers of upcoming employee milestones like birthdays and work anniversaries. Or if someone hasn’t given praise to a deserving co-worker in a while, the Assistant will gently prompt them to send some appreciation.

However, we were disappointed to learn that Slack and Microsoft Teams integrations may require additional implementation fees. HRIS integration isn’t included in the base plan either, which could be a blocker for teams looking to sync data automatically.

Customer support also comes with caveats: it’s only available during UK business hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. GMT, weekdays only). Take note, North American-based users, because that’s going to be a considerable gap for you guys, especially those who may need help outside of those windows.

Finally, Mo doesn’t currently offer a free plan or trial. That means you’ll need to commit before getting hands-on with the product—something to keep in mind if you’re comparing multiple tools.

Mo counts over 58,000 users using its platform, including SGN, The O2, NHS, Aspen, William Hill, and SHL.

Mo’s pricing starts at $2.25 per user per month. More specifically, the employee engagement tool offers 3 plans: Appreciate at $2.25/user/month for basic recognition, Engage at $4.5/user/month adding awards and advanced reporting, and Transform with custom pricing for large companies including full features, program design, and premium support.

While Deel is best known for its global payroll capabilities, the platform has recently expanded into employee experience, adding tools that support engagement, connection, and community across time zones. After testing these features, we found that they aren’t as advanced as what you’d get from established platforms like Motivosity or Leapsome, but they’re quite promising, with a gentle and meaningful touch.

One of the standout features is Connections. If you’re a remote-first organization like ours, you’ll see what we mean. With this tool, you can help employees form relationships through structured 1:1s, group chats, and shared interest spaces. You can even use Connections to introduce new hires, spark mentor pairings, or create virtual watercooler moments.

Deel also integrates tightly with Slack to deliver pulse surveys and engagement nudges in the flow of work. Surveys launched via Slack tend to yield higher response rates, and Deel uses the results to suggest curated interest groups, bringing together like-minded colleagues around shared hobbies, which we found pretty cool.

Obviously, Deel’s engagement functionality is still relatively new, so when compared to established platforms in the space, its feature set is fairly limited. For example, there’s no standalone engagement dashboard, no in-app survey creation outside of Slack, and no mobile app for recognition or survey feedback on the go. As a result, teams who want deeper analytics, advanced feedback workflows, or in-app engagement tools may find the current capabilities too lightweight.

Over 15,000 businesses use Deel, including Nike, Shopify, Redbull, and Zapier.

Deel’s employee engagement tool starts at $20 per employee per month.

Workleap (formerly Officevibe) is a cloud-based platform built to help managers drive engagement, growth, and team connection. We’ve tested its engagement features firsthand and figured this platform would offer an excellent solution to surface honest employee sentiment and guide managers toward meaningful action.

The pulse surveys and anonymous feedback tools are Workleap’s core strengths. Managers can schedule recurring check-ins to assess team morale, and the platform provides suggested talking points, analytics, and coaching tips based on real-time feedback. For client-based organizations, we liked that you can compare engagement across different accounts or departments through Workleap’s team and agency-level reporting dashboards.

More recently, Workleap has introduced tools to strengthen employee recognition. Its Good Vibes feature lets team members send appreciation e-cards to one another, while managers gain insight into recognition trends, such as who is consistently being celebrated and what types of contributions are driving praise. One limitation here, though, is that recognition is private by default, visible only to the sender, recipient, and team manager. There’s no option (yet) to showcase recognition company-wide, which could limit its cultural impact.

Workleap also includes manager tools for hosting 1-on-1s and tracking OKRs, but we found these features less polished than others. Some verified users told us they found the 1-on-1 scheduling clunky and noted that resetting OKRs mid-cycle can be unintuitive.

Another caveat to keep in mind is that personalized onboarding is only available for teams with 100 or more users, and a dedicated success manager is included with 500 or more seats. So while Workleap scales well for larger teams, smaller organizations may need to self-navigate the setup and onboarding process.

WeTransfer, Dyson, Bose, PayScale, and Trivago are some of their 20,000 Workleap customers.

Workleap Engagement is now priced at $5 per user per month, billed annually, with no minimum headcount requirement. A free trial is also available. This replaces the old Essential and Pro plan structure we covered in our last review.

Simple to launch, easy to complete, and designed to protect employee anonymity, Nectar’s survey tool is a strong choice for HR teams seeking actionable feedback without overengineering the process.

After testing several options each month for the last five years, Nectar Engage has quickly become one of our favorite tools for gathering employee feedback. It is not trying to compete with enterprise-level engagement platforms but focuses on the basics: customizable surveys, flexible delivery, privacy-first data handling, and lightweight reporting that is easy to act on.

The survey builder feels intuitive. We were able to create a pulse survey in just a few minutes using a combination of question types, including multiple-choice options, Likert scales, sliders, and open-ended responses. The drag-and-drop question editor made it simple to reorganize the flow, and we liked the ability to make certain questions optional or required depending on the context.

Sending the survey was just as flexible. You can deliver it to the whole company, individual teams, or select users. There is also a bulk resend option, which helped us nudge people who had not responded. For hybrid or frontline workers, you can share a direct link to the survey, although users do need to be logged into Nectar and in the correct workspace for it to work properly.

What also stood out to us was the incentive model. Nectar lets you assign points for survey completion, and it even estimates the total reward cost if everyone participates. This allows you to kill two birds with one stone: to drive up response rates without managing incentives in a separate tool.

The analytics dashboard is clear and useful. We could easily track total responses, completion rates, drop-off rates, and average time to complete. Once the minimum threshold is met (three for most question types and five for open-ended questions), you can unlock question-level data and see departmental breakdowns. That response minimum might feel restrictive, but it is designed to protect anonymity, which is essential if you want honest feedback.

Of course, there are a few drawbacks to be aware of. The first two questions in the eNPS survey template cannot be edited, which somewhat limits companies' flexibility to tailor their wording or scoring system. However, you can add additional questions to the eNPS survey that will be sent out. Additionally, while Engage does its job well, it is a newer module within the Nectar platform and does not yet offer some of the more advanced features found in tools like Culture Amp or Lattice.

It’s also worth mentioning that Nectar Engage is not included in every plan but is bundled with the highest-priced plan. It is available as an add-on to recognition, not as a standalone product, with pricing not publicly listed and no free trial, so you'll need to contact sales to get started.

1,500+ companies, including Redfin, Golden State Warriors, Major League Baseball, and SHRM.

Nectar Engage is available through Nectar’s highest-tier Culture Suite plan or as an add-on to recognition. Pricing is not publicly listed and there is no free trial, so the best path forward is to request a custom demo and quote.

For teams looking for a straightforward hub for daily communication and knowledge sharing, we’ve found that Pebb delivers solid value, especially for organizations that don't need or cannot justify more complex HR tech.

In our testing, Pebb consistently stood out for its simplicity. Real-time chat, company-wide announcements, searchable profiles, and centralized file storage all worked reliably and required minimal setup.

We also liked Pebb’s mobile app design because it feels like mainstream social platforms, which helps drive adoption across distributed workforces. Plus, one-on-one and group chats, voice and video calls, @mentions, polls, and lightweight clubs give teams multiple ways to stay connected without exchanging personal contact details. Admin controls such as role management, post scheduling, and content visibility are straightforward and do not require IT involvement.

Unlike many engagement tools that reserve core features for paid plans, Pebb offers a usable free tier. It is expectedly basic, with no integrations, no polls, and fewer post controls, but teams still get unlimited chat, access to the knowledge library, tasks, and basic sharing features. This, in our opinion, is quite a great starting point already for teams exploring whether an internal communication hub will stick.

However, Pebb’s limitations become clear once you move beyond day-to-day communication. Unlike established brands like Lattice and Leapsome, Pebb falls short in engagement surveys and sentiment analysis. Though polls are fine for quick checks, they certainly can’t replace a dedicated employee feedback system. Compared with platforms such as ThriveSparrow or AdvantageClub, the absence of AI features is also noticeable.

Starbucks, Dave and Busters, Biggby coffee, porchlight group, The Fat Duck Restaurant

Pebb offers a free plan with unlimited Work Chat, News feed, posts, likes, Knowledge Library, Calendar, Apps, Clubs, Tasks, and multi-language support. Premium is $4/user/month with no setup fees.

Bonusly remains a top pick for organizations serious about building everyday employee engagement through peer recognition. We revisited the platform recently and found a well-rounded tool that blends fun, flexibility, and automation to boost morale, promote visibility, and make appreciation part of the employee experience.

At its core, Bonusly turns recognition into a habit. Employees award points to coworkers using emojis, hashtags, and shoutouts, which show up in a company-wide feed. That feed, visible across teams, creates a daily rhythm of public praise that supports culture and engagement beyond annual reviews or manager check-ins.

Redeeming those points is easy, too. Bonusly offers over 1,200 gift cards in more than 200 countries, plus options to donate to nonprofits, redeem via PayPal or prepaid Visa, or cash in for company swag through AXOMO. You can even add custom experiences like “Lunch with the CEO” or “extra PTO” under the HR admin user.

Recent updates make Bonusly even more employee engagement-friendly. The Slack and Microsoft Teams integrations now support instant recognition with one-click messages, previews, and real-time feedback loops. Admins gained more control over recognition budgets and content moderation, down to restricting certain emojis or hashtags. We also appreciated the improved support for provisioning and the growing list of integrations with platforms like Paylocity, Rippling, and Workday.

For hybrid and global teams, Bonusly has made strides in accessibility. The mobile experience now supports dark mode, and screen reader compatibility has improved. Still, some global users report a more limited reward catalog and stricter redemption thresholds outside the U.S.

We’d also like to see Bonusly push its analytics capabilities further. While you can monitor high-level engagement trends, deeper reporting feels somewhat basic compared to platforms with advanced engagement dashboards.

Among Bonusly’s 3000+ customers are Hulu, InVision, SurveyMonkey, Headspace, and more.

Bonusly provides three annual subscription tiers:

• Appreciate: Focuses on manager-led recognition and celebrating milestones.
• Connect: Builds upon Appreciate by adding peer-to-peer recognition and people analytics.
• Achieve: Includes AI-generated insights, real-time feedback, and goal tracking.

Pricing information is not publicly available. Interested teams can request a demo or begin a 14-day free trial.

Recent updates have made Bonusly feel even more intuitive and customizable. Now, with Slack and Microsoft Teams integrations, you can give recognition with just one click and see real-time previews. Admins also gained new controls to customize recognition policies, and provisioning tools have been improved, too. On the integration front, HRIS connectors now include more options like Rippling, Paylocity, and Workday.

Additional recent updates focus on strengthening the habits that make teams successful. Bonusly now includes structured 1:1s with shared agendas, lightweight check-ins that keep everyone aligned, and automated performance recaps that surface contributions across weeks and months, not just what’s most recent.