Empower Progress: 10+ Employee Engagement Software + Tips

Employee engagement is too easily neglected in the hustle and bustle of daily operations. After all, taking stock of your current state, designing new engagement strategies and programs, and then effectively rolling them out all take time and resources.

But employee engagement is critical for business growth. Fostering an engaged, satisfied team and supporting it long-term with a robust culture must be treated as investments—be intentional with your engagement efforts, and you’ll see some amazing results.

So how can you intentionally invest in engagement in sustainable, scalable ways? Dedicated employee engagement software and tools can help organizations of all types and sizes enact meaningful engagement strategies for remote and in-person employees, all without eating up undue time and resources.

In this crash course, we’ll cover all the essentials you need to know to make informed decisions for your own business:

• 10+ Best Employee Engagement Tools and Platforms
• Employee Engagement Software 101
• How to Choose and Implement Engagement Software

10+ Best Employee Engagement Tools and Platforms

 

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eCardWidget

Looking for an extremely flexible way to engage employees and empower them to connect with one another? eCardWidget has the answer.

Our tool allows you to set up and send customized eCards to express your appreciation to employees for all their hard work. They’re simple, easy, and fun. Plus, you can allow employees to create and send their own recognition eCards to coworkers, creating a supportive culture of team-wide buy-in.

Use eCards to reinforce your organization’s cultural values, distribute prizes, support temporary projects and priorities, track feedback for performance management purposes—there are tons of possibilities.

Use Cases for this Employee Engagement Software

There are all kinds of flexible ways to use eCardWidget:

• Recognize employees for their contributions
• Create a scalable peer-to-peer recognition system
• Keep records of recognition and feedback to simplify performance management
• Open up new lines of communication on your organization’s eCard page
• Foster a stronger culture of recognition, supportiveness, and communication

Don’t underestimate the power of recognition for improving engagement and reducing turnover! 66% of employees report considering quitting if they feel unappreciated—and among Millennial workers that number jumps to 76%.

eCardWidget stands out as a simple, highly flexible way to bake recognition and engagement into your organization’s internal processes. If you’re just starting to prioritize employee engagement or are looking for new engagement tools to add to your approach, it’s a natural fit.

Learn more about eCardWidget and request a demo to see all its flexible use cases in action!

PeopleMetrics

PeopleMetrics is a leading employee experience (EX) platform for mid-size to large businesses seeking to improve employee engagement and retention specifically through feedback collection.

Setting up a robust “Voice of the Employee” feedback collection program can drastically improve your operations and show employees that you value their input. Use this information to learn more about the employee experience you’re offering, reveal strategic gaps and misalignments that are reducing employee engagement and customer outcomes, and more.

PeopleMetrics offers advanced EX tools and complete support to help you make the most of the platform and start seeing results fast.

Use Cases for this Employee Engagement Software

PeopleMetrics specializes in all things feedback collection and is best suited to larger or growing organizations that want to prioritize EX. It allows you to create, facilitate, automate, and analyze custom surveys at any point in the employee journey.

You can drive significant impact simply by listening and responding to employee feedback. Use these insights to directly address issues as they arise. Build a more accurate picture of your employees’ experiences so that they can be strategically improved over time. Form employee focus groups to test new initiatives or dig deeper into your top concerns.

Learn more about the PeopleMetrics EX platform.

Trakstar

Trakstar is a top HR and engagement platform for organizations of all sizes. Its suite of products includes diverse features that support performance management, the hiring process, facilitating education programs, and analyzing HR data.

Trusted by a full roster of prominent names, Trakstar helps to support employees and drive engagement at all stages of the employee journey, from hiring to onboarding to long-term retention and upskilling.

Use Cases for this Employee Engagement Software

When it comes to the key strategic areas that drive employee engagement, Trakstar supports performance management, learning and development, and surveys/feedback collection. It doesn’t include recognition or communication features.

It can be a great choice for organizations looking to invest in a dedicated HR and talent development platform but still want the flexibility to tailor their recognition programs to their unique needs and cultures.

Learn more about Trakstar.

Workvivo

Workvivo is a robust employee engagement and experience platform ideal for large and enterprise businesses. It includes a range of features that can help you better manage, motivate, and recognize your team to drive results both internally and externally.

The platform’s social media feed-style user interface stands out as a helpful asset. Its familiarity and ease of use mean employees are much more likely to actually use it, see its value, and integrate it as a part of their day-to-day work.

Use Cases for this Employee Engagement Software

Workvivo’s features revolved around a few key areas: recognition, communication, and surveys. Create employee groups to streamline communication with teams, recognize their achievements publicly, solicit feedback, and empower employees to drive engagement through peer-to-peer recognition and group creation.

Learn more about Workvivo.

Flare by Astron Solutions

Flare by Astron Solutions is an ultra-customizable suite of talent management and engagement features for small to large businesses and associations.

It provides you with the tools you need to manage your organization’s teams more efficiently and transparently. Use this foundation to build a stronger culture of engagement and trust, backed up by solid performance management, hiring, and financial practices.

Use Cases for this Employee Engagement Software

Flare excels when used to handle the backend logistics of running an engaged team of employees. Its primary features focus on performance management, organizational structure, incentive-based compensation, and gamified recognition.

As a fully customizable set of HR and engagement tools, the Astron Solutions team works closely with you to implement and configure your Flare toolkit to meet your exact needs.

Learn more about Flare.

Qualtrics

For many, Qualtrics is the name in customer experience and analytics. But it also offers an employee engagement platform that may be an ideal choice for enterprise-level businesses that are already familiar with the Qualtrics ecosystem.

The Qualtrics management and engagement platform is packed with robust features, all designed to help you learn more from your touchpoints with employees. Set smarter goals, empower managers with truly helpful insights, show employees that you value their input, and more.

Use Cases for this Employee Engagement Software

As a customer and employee experience platform, Qualtrics focuses heavily on one key area: feedback collection.

The platform’s advanced survey creation, automation, and analytics features can help you create a feedback program that sustains all of your other employee engagement efforts. Use it to measure what’s working or falling short, identify standout contributors, and reveal unaddressed gaps and issues, all in service of creating a more dynamic and engaging workplace.

Learn more about Qualtrics.

SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is a well-known and highly flexible tool that businesses of all sizes can use to boost their employee engagement efforts through feedback collection.

Use Cases for the Employee Engagement Software

As its name suggests, SurveyMonkey focuses on one core capability – survey creation and facilitation. And although it’s easy to use, don’t let its simplicity fool you – this platform offers a full range of helpful features to help you collect feedback from employees in smarter ways.

Use surveys to gather employee input and check in on satisfaction, then use these insights to improve your engagement strategies, build employee buy-in, identify trends, and more.

Learn more about SurveyMonkey.

Worktango

Worktango is a robust employee engagement platform ideal for mid-size to enterprise-level businesses. Like other top providers in this list, Worktango seeks to open clearer lines of communication between organizations and employees and equip them with tools to engage more efficiently and meaningfully with each other.

Use Cases for this Employee Engagement Software

The Worktango platform is anchored by a handful of core capabilities: recognition and rewards, surveys and insights, and goals and feedback.

Together, these features give you a solid foundation on which to communicate with and recognize employees and implement more organized, structured, and transparent performance management practices. Worktango’s extensive industry awards help it stand out as a valuable choice for most organizations seeking to improve their engagement strategies in one or more of its key areas of focus.

Learn more about Worktango.

15five

15five is among the most comprehensive employee engagement and performance management solutions on the market today. It’s a leading choice for enterprise-level organizations looking to bring all of their HR and talent management tasks under one roof.

Use Cases for this Employee Engagement Software

You can use 15five to support practically any employee engagement strategy. Its full set of features is broken down into four categories: engage, perform, focus, and transform. Between these, you get access to tools that help you recognize and communicate with employees, track and manage performance, facilitate learning and development programs, solicit feedback, analyze engagement metrics, and more.

15five could be an excellent choice for many organizations, but keep in mind that purchasing, implementing, and adopting it organization-wide will likely be a significant investment of time and resources.

Learn more about 15five.

Cloverleaf

Cloverleaf is a helpful employee engagement solution that specifically helps organizations develop and coach employees. Learning and development is a key component of employee engagement and retention, but without dedicated resources and strategies in place, it’s easily forgotten. Tools like Cloverleaf, appropriate for businesses of all sizes, help to combat this.

Use Cases for this Employee Engagement Software

Use Cloverleaf to automate coaching programs for employees and teams, open up new lines of internal communication to support your program, track trends and insights, and more. Its personality and communication assessments and broad range of integrations can make it a tool that drives daily value across the entire employee lifecycle.

Learn more about Cloverleaf.

Monday

Monday is a popular and highly customizable project and team management platform used by businesses of all sizes. While not focused on other aspects of employee engagement, its ability to organize, structure, and streamline your employees’ workloads can be a serious asset as you strengthen your culture of engagement.

Use Cases for this Employee Engagement Software

Web-based project management platforms have skyrocketed in popularity, and for good reason. When communication is clearer and easier, employees can more easily get their jobs done and feel more engaged than hassled by their work.

Tools like Monday can support project management, task management, team structures, goal-setting, and more. With progress, updates, and requests centralized in one place, your employees can focus on collaborating to drive results.

Learn more about Monday.

Limeade

Limeade’s partnership with WebMD blends science with software to provide a holistic approach to employee wellness. Limeade’s unique features allow you to:

• Facilitate employee wellness visits with integrated health appointment scheduling
• Spread employee awareness and understanding of their benefits
• Encourage employee wellness with gamification, such as step challenges 
• Drive employee participation in internal programs with notifications
• Enable managers to send personalized communications to their directs and schedule one-on-one meetings
• Visualize employee engagement data, such as program participation 
• Collect nuanced and anonymous employee engagement feedback via surveys
• Recognize peers publicly with team-wide messaging channels
• Integrate with other tools to personalize your experience 

Between its main offerings of Limeade Well-Being and Limeade Listening, your organization can rest assured that your employees remain tuned into your company culture and feel motivated to do great work every day.

Use Cases for this Employee Engagement Software

Ultimately, Limeade’s partnership with WebMD is what makes it a standout pick for employee engagement software. By combining Limeade’s focus on employee engagement and WebMD’s knowledge of health, you can create a truly unique company culture that’s grounded in employee wellness.

Learn more about Limeade.

BambooHR

BambooHR is one of the leading software solutions in the HR space. Its Human Resources Information System (HRIS) is aimed specifically at small- to medium-sized businesses, but nonprofits can leverage it as well. Its specific offerings include onboarding and offboarding coordination and performance management functionalities including goal-setting, self-assessments, and peer reviews. Additionally, while these aren’t core features of the software, BambooHR can provide employee recognition, learning opportunities, and surveys through integrations.

Use Cases for this Employee Engagement Software

BambooHR stands out from other software solutions in that it can optimize all aspects of the employee lifecycle. From onboarding to offboarding, BambooHR streamlines training to help employees easily transition into and out of their roles, boosting employee engagement and satisfaction.

Learn more about BambooHR.

Employee Engagement Software 101

Let’s start with the basics. Here are a few common questions you may have if you’re considering updating your employee engagement toolkit (or building one for the first time).

Why is employee engagement so important?

Employee engagement is critically important for all organizations. When employees are engaged, invested in the organization’s success, satisfied in their jobs, and aligned on organizational goals, you’ll see some significant benefits:

• Engaged employees are more productive and motivated to produce high-quality work efficiently. They’re also more likely to contribute innovative new ideas, offer constructive feedback, and problem-solve to help the organization thrive.
• When employees are engaged with their work, they’re less likely to leave for other opportunities. Remember that employee turnover is extremely costly—an average departing employee costs $18,591 in lost productivity, rehiring, and retraining expenses! Retained employees also bring more value and expertise over time, ultimately creating a stronger, more effective organization.
• Engaged employees also create better customer experiences, improving customer satisfaction, loyalty, retention, and word-of-mouth acquisition over time.

For organizations that prioritize employee engagement, these benefits can compound to both strengthen your bottom line and improve your internal culture, giving you an overall business edge.

What is employee engagement software?

Employee engagement software is any platform or digital tool that helps organizations foster increased satisfaction, involvement, and buy-in from employees. In other words, it empowers businesses to encourage engagement in a deliberate and organized way.

The software may help with one or more aspects of this undertaking—like facilitating new touchpoints between employees and the organization, measuring changes in engagement trends over time, or creating more positive employee experiences with recognition and rewards.

What can you use employee engagement tools to do?

To help drive and measure engagement, employee engagement tools typically include features that fall into these categories:

• Recognition – Recognize employees (and let them recognize each other) for their hard work and the impact it has on your organization.
• Learning and development (L&D) – Provide employees with structured opportunities to deepen their knowledge and learn new skills on the job.
• Internal communications – Improve communication within and between your organization’s teams and leadership to create a transparent, engaging culture.
• Surveys and feedback collection – Use direct employee insights and opinions to shape new engagement initiatives and identify improvements for your programs.
• Performance management – Formally track and measure employees’ job performance, giving your management strategies an added level of organization and transparency.

Employee engagement software may focus on one of these key engagement drivers or include a broader suite of features to help you handle multiple aspects at once. Below, we’ll highlight some top providers and the specific categories that their features fall under (plus how to choose and implement new software).

Looking specifically for the best employee engagement software? We’ve got a guide for that, too!

What are the benefits of using engagement software?

Using dedicated employee engagement tools makes it possible to pursue and foster engagement more strategically and effectively. By selecting the right tools for your needs, you can enjoy these benefits:

• Enhanced employee retention and satisfaction
• Better alignment of employees with organizational priorities
• Greater development and growth among employees, generating more value for the organization

Software essentially gives you the structure you need to make employee engagement an intentional practice that can grow alongside your business; otherwise, it can easily fall by the wayside as the busy day-to-day takes over.

As you weigh your options and look for tools that fit your needs and budget, just be sure to keep the incredible impact of employee engagement in mind. A Gallup study found that:

Compared with disengaged teams, engaged teams show 24% to 59% less turnover, 10% higher customer ratings, 21% greater profitability, 17% higher productivity, and 41% less absenteeism.

Gallup

Plus, Haiilo found that it costs businesses over $5,000 to hire and onboard new team members.

What would these kinds of improvements mean for your business? Consider what might be possible as you consider the leading providers for organizations of all budgets and needs that we shared.

Is employee engagement software suitable for remote teams?

The short answer is absolutely yes! Employee engagement software solutions allow teams to connect with each other, no matter their proximity to each other or the office. The right solutions can allow your remote team to:

• Get to know each other. Building a community is one of the biggest challenges of hybrid or remote work. However, employee engagement software allows you to connect with your team virtually, whether it’s through planning remote events or having access to instant messaging. 
• Collaborate more efficiently. Even when you aren’t in the same space, some employee engagement software solutions allow remote teams to collaborate in the form of task assignments, document sharing, and more. 
• Recognize each other. A huge part of building community with remote teams is allowing them to support each other’s work. Peer-to-peer recognition capabilities allow remote teams to strengthen their trust in each other by acknowledging a job well done. 

In short, using employee engagement software can help bridge the gap between team members, no matter their location or position at your organization. Whether your workplace is hybrid or virtual-only, you can find a solution that fits your needs.

Will employee engagement software integrate with my other technology?

It depends on which software you use. In many cases, workplace engagement tools will integrate with various types of systems to streamline workflows, strengthen data accuracy, and provide a comprehensive view of employee engagement. Common types of software that these platforms typically integrate with include:

• Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS): This integration allows for seamless management of employee data, such as personal details, job roles, and organizational structure.
• Performance Management Systems: By integrating with performance management software, companies can correlate engagement data with performance metrics, providing a holistic view of each employee’s contributions and development needs.
• Payroll Systems: Linking with payroll systems can facilitate the management of rewards and recognition programs that are often part of employee engagement strategies.
• Learning Management Systems (LMS): LMS integrations enable businesses to share and track the effectiveness of employee development opportunities and engagement with these opportunities.

Prioritizing integrations like these will smoothen processes across your organization. When these systems work in harmony, they can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your employee engagement strategies.

How to Choose Employee Engagement Software for Your Business

So you’ve learned about employee engagement software and the various ways that you can use it to strengthen your connections with employees. What next?

To choose the right engagement software (or any software) for your business, it’s important to know what you’re looking for and then follow a few best practices. After all, you’re making a new investment in your organization’s ability to grow and thrive.

Let’s take a closer look at what you’ll need to know and the steps you’ll need to follow:

Key Features and Factors to Consider

The exact features to look for in your employee engagement software will depend on what you want it to accomplish (i.e. help you recognize employees, facilitate L&D programs, or streamline performance management). This may be one specific use case or multiple depending on the scope of the changes and investment you’re seeking to make. In general, stay on the lookout for:

• Custom survey/assessment capabilities
• Feedback and recognition tools in one form or another
• Analytics features to track engagement and generate reports
• Mobile accessibility for employee-facing tools
• Integrations with other platforms you use, especially your database
• Streamline user experience to help boost adoption

Along with the specific features you want in your engagement software, it’s important to also lay out a few guidelines to help you compare platforms and determine which will be the best fit for your unique business. Keep these factors in mind as you research your options:

• Your budget – Look specifically for employee engagement software for small business if needed, for example.
• Ease of use and implementation – How easy will it be to get up and running on the new software?
• Scalability and alignment – Can the software grow alongside your business, and does it mesh well with your existing processes?
• Customization – You should be able to adjust the look and setup of your new tools to support your goals.
• Support – Does the platform offer long-term technical support?
• Reviews and testimonials – Look for signals that other businesses trust and enjoy using the software.

10 Steps for Choosing and Implementing New Employee Engagement Tools

Let’s walk through our recommended steps for finding and implementing the perfect employee engagement software:

1. Form a team. Recruit a few individuals to help research options and own implementation. This team should ideally include a range of perspectives – those who will make purchasing decisions, those who will use the tool as a manager, and those who will experience and engage with it as an employee.
2. Define needs and wants. Why are you investing in new engagement tools? Define your exact needs and any additional features you want or that would be nice to have.
3. Set some guidelines. Lay out the parameters for your search, including your budget, a timeframe, the number of expected users, and more.
4. Research and compare. Begin researching engagement tools using resources like this article and other websites that round up top software providers in various categories. Work as a team to review features, make comparisons, and weigh platforms against the needs, wants, and guidelines you’ve established.
5. Refine your list and conduct demos. Narrow down a list of potential solutions that meet your needs and request demos from the vendors. Work with your team to choose the single best provider.
6. Secure buy-in. Present your choice to leadership or whoever has purchasing power for this project if they haven’t yet been involved in the discussion.
7. Make a decision. Consider all the factors listed above and finalize your choice!
8. Create an implementation plan. Work with the vendor to hammer out implementation details. Create a concrete plan, including timelines and assigned ownership, for implementing the new engagement software. Then, kick off your plan and implement the software.
9. Train and communicate with employees. Make sure employees know both why you’re investing in this new tool and how to use it. Let them know what to expect from it and who they can go to with questions that arise.
10. Track usage and impact over time. Finally, keep tabs on how the software is performing over time. How is it impacting your employee engagement metrics? Are you running into technical issues with it?

Employee Engagement Software Can Help Grow Your Business

Investing in employee engagement is among the smartest moves a business can make to build a solid foundation for growth. Having the right tools to make engagement an actual strategic priority and not just a vague initiative is a no-brainer!

If you’re just getting started with employee engagement software, start with tools that make it easier to recognize employees for their contributions and for employees to recognize one another. A flexible solution like eCardWidget can give you the exact toolkit you need to build a robust, customized recognition program that shows employees their work is valued.

Want to learn more? Keep exploring with these additional resources:

• A Complete Guide to Recognition Awards for Employees. Who doesn’t like being celebrated every once in a while? Level up your employee recognition efforts with this guide to awards.
• Outstanding Recognition Awards to Elevate Company Culture. It can be challenging to motivate your employees to work at their full potential. Enhance your tactics with these easy steps to success.
• How to Motivate Employees in the Workplace: 10 Easy Steps. Want to broaden your understanding of employee engagement? Our top guide can teach you everything you need to know.