Keeping employees engaged is one of the biggest challenges for modern businesses, especially with so many people working remotely. After extensive research and testing, we’ve narrowed down the best employee engagement solutions with in-depth reviews and everything else you need to find the best option for your company.
The Top 5 Employee Engagement Software Tools
- Officevibe – Best Manager Tools For Company Culture
- Peakon – Best For Businesses With Over 1,000+ Employees
- BambooHR – Best HR Software With Built-In Engagement Tools
- Kudos – Best For Employee Recognition
- Connecteam – Best For Deskless Employees
What is Employee Engagement Software?
Employee engagement software is a component of human resources. These tools contain a wide range of features like surveys, gamification, analytics, progress reports, employee recognition, and more to drive employee engagement and keep everyone connected in the workplace. Managers can use employee engagement software to identify which members of the team are feeling disconnected. Overall, the software helps businesses keep their employees happy, which ultimately increases employee performance and reduces employee turnover.
Do I Need Employee Engagement Software?
Every business has unique needs. Beyond components like team size and industry, you must consider certain factors when evaluating employee engagement software.
The best way to do this by identifying your goals and needs and using software to solve your biggest challenges. We’ll take a closer look at the types of businesses that need employee engagement software below.
If Your Business Has Remote Employees or Field Service Workers
Employees can easily disengage when they’re not in a traditional office setting on a daily basis. There’s no water cooler talk, lunch with coworkers, or managers keeping an eye on progress.
With remote work becoming the new normal, managers and HR departments are faced with unprecedented challenges related to employee engagement.
Employees start to feel undervalued and lose connection with their team members. Remote collaboration software can only connect people so much—there needs to be more.
Furthermore, remote workers and field service workers experience this same type of disconnection. They might spend all day in a vehicle alone or on a job site with little interaction from coworkers and management. Organizations that fall into this category should be seeking a mobile-first employee engagement solution.
If Your Business Doesn’t Have an Employee Feedback Loop
Management only makes up a small percentage of your organization. If you’re solely relying on their opinions and best practices to keep everyone engaged, there’s a good chance that your employees will suffer.
It’s not necessarily management’s fault when the staff becomes disconnected. Often, there’s just no system in place for managers to identify when employees are unhappy.
If you fall into this category, you should be looking for a solution with employee surveys, polls, and open-ended feedback submission. This valuable insight will give managers the tools they need to change procedures in the workplace.
In many instances, just allowing your staff to share their thoughts is enough to keep them engaged.
Look for a solution that contains anonymous feedback tools so employees can say how they feel without worrying about being reprimanded.
If Your Business is Experiencing High Employee Turnover
High employee churn rates are a red flag, especially in certain industries. While it may be typical for restaurants and retailers to go through lots of employees during busy seasons, that shouldn’t be the case for insurance, finance, tech, and similar industries.
Suppose your turnover rates are high and you’re offering competitive salaries and great benefits. In that case, it’s safe to assume the problem is something else—employees aren’t engaged and are leaving to find more fulfilling work or office culture elsewhere.
Organizations with these types of problems need a way to shift company culture. Fortunately, there are employee engagement solutions on the market that specialize in this area.
You’ll be able to understand your staff on a deeper level, build stronger relationships, and ultimately retain top-level talent for the long run.
If Your Business Has Low Employee Satisfaction Rates
Some of you might be conducting internal surveys on employee satisfaction—that’s a great start! But if those satisfaction rates are low, you need to do more to solve your problems.
Sometimes low satisfaction rates are tied to the lack of recognition in the workplace.
Feedback from managers and coworkers congratulating each other on a job well done can really boost performance and engagement. Some engagement tools even have features similar to social media feeds, which can connect employees on a deeper level while they’re working together.
Officevibe – Best Manager Tools For Company Culture
Officevibe is trusted by thousands of companies worldwide, including industry leaders like Bose, Dyson, Ikea, Crocs, Trivago, and Warner Brothers. It’s designed to eliminate barriers between managers and employees, which ultimately helps build stronger relationships and drive employee engagement.
With Officevibe, managers can connect with their teams on a one-to-one basis and company-wide.
For one-to-ones, Officevibe makes it easy to facilitate a shared agenda between managers and employees. It’s a centralized location to manage notes and set action items as well.
You’ll have the ability to set individual goals for staff based on their unique needs, as well as team goals for everyone to strive for. Officevibe makes it easy to do this whether your team is working in a traditional office environment or disbursed remotely.
The software supports anonymous feedback so that employees can share their thoughts with managers without fear of repercussions. Managers can ultimately use this anonymous feedback to do their jobs better and help improve overall company culture.
Additional features and benefits of Officevibe include custom polls, Slack integration, industry benchmarking, eNPS metrics, automated surveys, and more. The software even contains 120 science-backed employee engagement questions to understand how your team is feeling.
There’s a free plan for basic use, and paid plans start at just $4 per user per month. Officevibe offers discounts on annual subscriptions, and you can try all of the premium features by signing up for a free trial.
Pros
- Improve one-on-ones with action items and goal setting
- Anonymous messaging and anonymous feedback from employees
- Integrates with Slack, Teams, Office 365, G Suite, and more
- Affordable pricing, including a free plan for small teams
Cons
- Not an all-in-one HR solution
- No customizations or enterprise-grade packages
- Free plan is pretty limited
Peakon – Best For Businesses With Over 1,000+ Employees
Peakon is branded as a people analytics and employee engagement solution. In early 2021, the company announced that Workday—an industry leader in the HRIS software space—acquired Peakon.
The software has several ideal solutions for larger organizations, including employee engagement tools, employee feedback solutions, and employee retention.
Some organizations even use Peakon to help facilitate leadership development, diversity, equality, and inclusion in the workplace.
Peakon gives managers and HR departments the ability to see a real-time view of the total employee experience. This includes intelligent benchmarking, structured question libraries, and other factors for effective employee engagement in a large-scale operation.
The software even uses an intelligent listening tool to ask the right questions to the right employees at the perfect time—no complicated or time-consuming survey creation required.
All surveys and feedback questionnaires can be delivered via email, SMS, or kiosk. The software can translate it all into 50+ languages to accommodate the needs of your employees worldwide.
Peakon pricing is not available online, but it can accommodate the needs of global enterprises with 10,000+ employees. Book a demo to get started.
Pros
- Automated scheduling, delivery, and analysis of employee feedback surveys
- Survey questions can be translated into 50+ languages
- Personalized insights and action reports to empower employees
- Accommodates the needs of large multi-site organizations
Cons
- Not suitable for smaller businesses
- No pricing or plan information available online
- You need to book a demo and wait for a Peakon rep to contact you to proceed or even get pricing.
BambooHR – Best HR Software With Built-In Engagement Tools
Unlike some of the other tools on our list, BambooHR is an all-in-one solution for human resources. This HR software contains features for hiring, onboarding, time tracking, employee compensation, employee recordkeeping, and more.
In terms of employee engagement, BambooHR comes with built-in solutions for employee satisfaction and performance management.
You can use it to harness the power of eNPS (employee net promoter score) to see exactly how your staff feels about your organization. The platform supports surveys and anonymous open-ended feedback to instantly deliver satisfaction metrics to managers.
In addition to eNPS, your human resources department will also see a research-backed employee engagement score. These scores come with in-depth reports tied to the feelings and opinions of your employees.
The performance report tools make it easier for managers to provide positive reinforcement to employees for a job well done. Rather than waiting for an annual review, BambooHR facilitates employee feedback on an ongoing basis.
BambooHR has two base packages and an extensive list of add-ons to accommodate your needs. Request a free quote and free trial to get started.
Pros
- All of your HR software needs from a single source of truth
- Track eNPS and manage employee performance
- Ongoing employee feedback
- Anonymous employee surveys
Cons
- eNPS not available with entry-level Essentials package
- Performance management must be purchased as an add-on
- No pricing available online
Kudos – Best For Employee Recognition
For many businesses, employees disengage because they don’t feel appreciated for the work that they’re doing. But simply recognizing the work that your staff is doing can drastically improve employee performance and engagement—and Kudos makes this possible.
The platform supports peer-to-peer recognition, manager badges, certificates, and fully customizable rewards.
Kudos is easy to use, mobile-friendly, and perfect for team members and admins alike. In addition to recognition tools, Kudos comes with employee communication features, simple integrations, and robust reporting.
The software provides a centralized hub feature and sharing tool to keep your entire organization engaged. You can use it for company announcements, newsletters, event reminders, employee birthdays, and so much more.
This hub brings somewhat of a social media experience into the workplace for internal team members. Each employee can create a profile, share media, post statuses, and ultimately connect with each other on a higher level.
All of this helps your staff stay more engaged in the workplace.
Pricing and plan information is not available online. To get started, request a demo or contact the Kudos sales team.
Pros
- Recognize employee achievements with badges, certificates, and custom rewards
- Peer-to-peer employee recognition
- Centralized hub with company announcements, newsletters, and more
- Advanced data security
Cons
- No pricing available online
- The social media-like features could cause a distraction in the workplace
- Not an all-in-one HR solution
Connecteam – Best For Deskless Employees
Connecteam is a mobile-first solution to engage with employees who don’t have access to computers throughout the day. It’s perfect for industries like construction, hospitality, cleaning, security, lawn care, and HVAC.
It’s easy for these employees to lose out on engagement while on the road and at job sites since they don’t have a ton of face-to-face communication with management and coworkers. But with Connecteam, everyone can stay engaged from their phones.
The software contains features for time tracking, employee scheduling, task management, employee training, and internal employee communication.
Communicate tools include live polls, surveys, announcements, suggestions, updates, and even live group chats.
Connecteam takes your employee engagement to the next level by facilitating job dispatches, GPS status updates, shift planning, and even job information. All of this forces your staff to use the app for their day-to-day tasks, therefore increasing engagement.
The software is best for teams of up to 200 employees, and there’s even a free plan for basic use. Paid plans start at $39 per month, and you can try them for free with a 14-day trial.
Pros
- Communicate with employees on-the-go
- Tiered pricing packages to accommodate different needs
- Drive engagement with in-app employee training
- Group chats, live polls, surveys, and company announcements
Cons
- Not the best for companies with thousands of employees
- Advanced features come at a higher price point
- Not ideal for traditional office workers or work-from-home environments
Summary
Officevibe and BambooHR will likely fit the needs of the vast majority of businesses. But with so many remote employees and field service workers out there, Connecteam should also be a strong consideration for many companies.
- Officevibe – Best Manager Tools For Company Culture
- Peakon – Best For Businesses With Over 1,000+ Employees
- BambooHR – Best HR Software With Built-In Engagement Tools
- Kudos – Best For Employee Recognition
- Connecteam – Best For Deskless Employees
Overall, employee engagement software is crucial for improving performance and reducing turnover in the workplace.
