Imagine working hard on a successful project, only to find that no one notices your efforts. Frustrating, right?
Unrecognized work can lead to disengaged and burnt-out employees, with 66% considering leaving their jobs when they feel unappreciated. Higher turnover rates harm morale, effectiveness, and productivity—terrible outcomes for any business. Not to mention, turnover is extremely costly (in terms of both new hiring costs and lost potential and knowledge).
To prevent these outcomes, foster a positive workplace culture that recognizes, engages, and motivates employees.
Thankfully, administering an employee recognition program doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. Employee recognition software streamlines the process so that you can build an engaging culture of appreciation that leaves no team member behind.
We’ll highlight ten top providers that can help any organization improve its recognition program, plus we’ll cover frequently asked questions and steps for choosing the right recognition software once you’re ready to get started.
10 Employee Recognition Platforms for Any Organization
Here are our favorite employee recognition tools and software solutions that can help you strengthen your relationships with employees and build a more engaging culture:
Looking for more comprehensive employee engagement software? We’ve got a guide for that, too!
eCardWidget
eCardWidget is a highly flexible tool for creating and sending custom eCards to employees and creating easy peer-to-peer recognition systems. Simply design your cards, show your team how to use the platform, and start shouting out your top performers! With our tool, you have the freedom to implement an easy-to-maintain recognition system that supports your organizational goals. For example, use eCardWidget to:
- Recognize employees with meaningful messages
- Allow employees to recognize each other
- Create eCards that specifically relate to company values
- Include digital rewards or vouchers in received eCards
- Create simple employee contests and raffles
- Support temporary projects and priorities
- Keep records of who’s been recognized and for what
Recognition doesn’t have to be complicated—in fact, simpler solutions are more likely to be used frequently and drive real impact! eCardWidget gives you the full customization, flexibility, and robust reporting features you need to create an engaging culture of recognition (without creating an overdesigned or cumbersome process).
Learn more about eCardWidget and request a demo to see all its flexible use cases in action!
SnackNation
SnackNation is an employee recognition service that focuses on something everyone appreciates—snacks!
SnackNation makes it easy to thank employees for their contributions by sending curated, budget-conscious boxes of snacks. They’ll ship the boxes to your office or straight to employees’ homes for hybrid and remote businesses.
The platform also offers options for easily managing a repeat shipment service to keep your office stocked with healthy snacks, beverages, and other supplies, helping create a culture that employees want to be a part of. Not only does SnackNation offer recognition boxes that everyone is guaranteed to enjoy, but its platform also takes the logistical and time concerns out of maintaining an appealing workplace.
Learn more about SnackNation.
WorkTango
WorkTango is a leading employee recognition tool and engagement platform for larger businesses. It includes a broad range of features to help you create and foster a more engaging recognition-driven culture.
For your recognition program, specifically, WorkTango creates a social media-style interface where employees and managers can post, react to, and comment on shout-outs. Easily set up special incentive programs to promote your business priorities and other engagement programs, like L&D and employee wellness. WorkTango’s options for reward point systems also make it easy to create catalogs of merchandise, gift cards, and more for employees to choose from.
Most importantly, if investing in a larger-scale platform like WorkTango, you’ll need robust analytics features to ensure it’s having the desired impact. This platform’s data capabilities ensure that your team will be able to accurately gauge the success of your recognition and engagement efforts over time.
Learn more about WorkTango.
Jotform Teams
Jotform is a leading, easy-to-use platform for building custom forms, surveys, and more. With the introduction of their suite of features designed for business productivity, Jotform Teams, the platform can be used in all kinds of new ways to facilitate communication and employee recognition.
Make recognition easy by seamlessly integrating shout-out forms into your daily operations. Gather the data and insights you need to make engagement a strategic priority. Use intuitive communication features to collaborate with team members. With Jotform, businesses can increase internal efficiency and improve the employee experience without investing in a large HR platform.
Learn more about Jotform Teams.
Motivosity
Motivosity is another comprehensive employee recognition platform that can help you redesign your engagement efforts from the ground up. It focuses on peer-to-peer recognition, making it easy for employees and teams to recognize one another and tie achievements to company values.
Along with employee profiles, announcement tools, and interest group capabilities, Motivosity offers a full range of options to build stronger connections between your organization and employees. Its customizable rewards system stands out as particularly engaging, plus it includes built-in processes for budgeting and awarding spot bonuses for standout performance.
Learn more about Motivosity.
Blueboard
Blueboard isn’t just another employee rewards platform—it specializes in experiential rewards. Guided by the idea that quality time is the best way to reward and recognize employees, Blueboard offers a unique twist on classic engagement techniques.
Build out a custom set of recognition and rewards programs for employees, like for sales incentives, high performance, hiring referrals, and adherence to company values. Then, allow your recipients to choose from the curated sets of experiences. These can include food and drink packages, classes taught by experts, entertainment, outdoor adventures, and even full getaways and travel packages.
If your business has mastered foundational employee recognition strategies and is looking to go above and beyond, Blueboard is worth exploring.
Learn more about Blueboard.
Fond
Fond is an employee recognition software solution designed for larger businesses. It focuses specifically on recognition, making it a good choice for organizations that know exactly what they need rather than those that wish to make further-reaching investments in comprehensive employee engagement tech.
Fond includes a full range of social recognition, awards catalogs, and advanced analytics features. One standout benefit of this platform is the pre-negotiated, transparently priced corporate discounts on employee perks and rewards. Full customization in an easy-to-use platform with complete visibility makes Fond a smart choice for many businesses.
Learn more about Fond.
Empuls
Empuls is an employee engagement platform that offers helpful recognition and rewards tools. It’s a comprehensive suite of features, making this software ideal for companies ready to make a full investment in their recognition and engagement programs rather than scale it up over time.
Empuls includes various communication, recognition, and rewards tools to help you build a more engaging workplace culture. Typical features like surveys, social recognition, and rewards catalogs abound, but Empuls stands out for some of its more unique offerings, like an AI-powered chatbot to nudge employees on special occasions and jury-based awards systems for teams to collaboratively choose recipients.
Learn more about Empuls.
Snappy
Snappy bills itself as “mission control for enterprise gifting,” an easy-to-use recognition software that takes all the guesswork out of creating a rewards program that employees will love.
Snappy curates unique collections of products, experiences, subscriptions, and more. Your organization can then build out dedicated recognition campaigns for specific occasions, like peer-to-peer shout-outs or service awards or anniversaries. With full customization, flexible options, and helpful analytics, Snappy is a great choice for businesses that want to specifically focus on offering rewards as a form of recognition.
Learn more about Snappy.
WorkHuman
WorkHuman is another full-scale employee recognition and engagement solution designed for businesses that want to make a more significant investment in these efforts.
It offers modular sets of features designed to help you facilitate social employee recognition, celebrate life events, foster conversation and connection, and even check in on employee engagement down to the individual level through pulse surveys and sentiment analytics. Rewards catalogs, various communication features, and even an AI-driven coaching tool make WorkHuman stand out as another robust option for businesses seeking to upgrade how they engage employees.
Learn more about WorkHuman.
Why invest in employee recognition?
Investing in employee recognition is a smart move for any business because it directly impacts employee motivation and satisfaction. Recognition also plays a pivotal role in improving workplace culture and communication, creating a positive environment that encourages collaboration, innovation, and stronger relationships.
Taken together, these forces can improve employee engagement, which has a powerful trickle-down effect. Engaged employees are much less likely to leave your business and more likely to perform at their best.
Engaged, satisfied, productive teams and better business results, all thanks to making a concerted effort to recognize employees—what’s not to love?
Why invest in employee recognition software?
Small acts to express recognition and gratitude might be easily forgotten in a busy workday. Remember that the negative impacts of neglecting to build a culture of recognition can be far-reaching and hard to overcome!
By using dedicated employee recognition tools, you’ll help give your process structure and consistency, both of which increase the likelihood of recognition occurring at all.
This is especially important in today’s hybrid work environments where employee achievements might not be as visible or apparent as they would be in person. Recognition software also brings a range of other benefits, particularly the ability to keep easy records of who’s been recognized, by whom, and for what. Use these insights to get the full picture of an employee’s performance over time.
What can you do with employee recognition software?
Employee recognition can take several forms. Your recognition program should be tailored to best support your unique culture and goals.
This means that software for supporting recognition programs is quite diverse. The providers listed below span a wide range of functionalities, but between them, you’ll encounter a few common features:
- Peer-to-peer systems and social recognition
- Badges and certifications
- Surveys for feedback collection
- Performance management and goal-tracking capabilities
- Gamification elements
- Rewards and incentive processes/catalogs
Choosing the Right Recognition Tools
How do you choose the right employee recognition software? Whether you’re starting from scratch or looking for an additional tool to add to your recognition program, there are a handful of essential steps you should follow:
- Form a team to help you research your options and then implement your chosen solution. This team should include a range of perspectives, including those who’ll make the ultimate purchase decision, managers, and employees.
- Define your needs and wants. What exactly are you seeking to accomplish, and/or what new features would be nice to have?
- Set guidelines for your search, like your budget, target deadline and timeframe, and the number of expected users for the new platform.
- Research and compare your options using your needs, wants, and guidelines.
- Refine your list of options, and conduct demos. Work as a team to narrow down your options to a short list of providers that check all your boxes. Request demos of each option and record them so that your whole team can use them to help make a final choice.
- Secure buy-in. If the person who will ultimately give the green light to purchase the new tool hasn’t yet been involved, present your findings and top choices to them for input.
- Choose your new platform based on all the factors discussed above.
- Create an implementation plan. The complexity of the plan will vary based on the particulars of the new tool, but you should at the very least lay out a timeline and assign ownership for different tasks.
- Explain your new tool to employees. Make sure your entire team understands what the new tool is, what you’re investing in it, and how it will be used.
- Reinforce adoption and track usage over time. Ensure that everyone continues using the new tool as intended by tracking usage and discussing it as a team.
Depending on the scale of your needs and the complexity of the solution you choose, you may abridge the steps listed above, forming a smaller research team or laying out a very loose implementation plan. The key point, though, is to be prepared and thoughtful with each step. Your new employee recognition platform will only drive the desired impacts if it’s treated as a true investment and priority!
Getting Started
Effective employee recognition can have serious benefits for businesses of all sizes. When employees are engaged and actively told about how their contributions make a difference, you can see reduced turnover and increased morale. All together, it’s a recipe for business success.
If you’re just getting started with employee recognition software, start with platforms that make it easy to master the fundamentals—acknowledging contributions in a personalized way. All other parts of your recognition program should be built on this foundation. Bonus points if you create a system for employees to recognize each other!
Just be sure that your recognition platform truly makes the process easy. If it takes too long to send a quick shout-out, your odds of effectively adopting it across your organization will shrink.
eCardWidget is a top choice for this exact reason. It gives you a highly-customizable recognition toolkit that’s quick and easy to use for organizations of any size. Learn more about how businesses use our eCards to recognize employees, or take our solution for a spin with a free demo.
Want to learn more about employee engagement best practices? We’ve got you covered:
- 13 Remote Employee Recognition Ideas to Show You Care
- A Complete Guide to Recognition Awards for Employees
- How to Master the Hybrid Workplace Model to Engage Employees