10 Best Employee Engagement Software for 2022

Connecteam has been around since 2015. 

Since its inception, this top employee engagement software has served over 20K businesses. In addition, its website claims to have more than 500K active users per day. 

The solution is applicable across 200+ industries, amongst them construction, hospitality, cleaning, security, and logistics. 

There’s more:

Its high-profile clients include: 

• Nike 
• McDonald's 
• Plasson 
• King’s Daughter
• Sabong 

So, what can it do for you?

Features

Here are Connecteam’s stand-out features:

Communication

This employee engagement software lets your workforce stay on the same page. Its internal communication can also be a great way to onboard. 

With it, you can send your newbies your organization’s guidelines, handbook, and protocols. And by the way, it allows them to ask ‌questions from within the app.

Rewards

Aside from letting you acknowledge who’s doing a good job, Connecteam allows you to offer them tokens to improve employee engagement. They can then use them to:

• buy gifts 
• celebrate birthdays 

Recognition

Wanna make your employees feel appreciated and valued?

Then try this employee recognition software. 

You don’t need to create everything from scratch. All you need to do is click on any of the following badges, tag the staff member, and the system will display it on the company’s wall:

• employee of the month 
• great leadership 
• kudos 
• creative 
• well done 

Surveys

Connecteam is one of the best solutions to gauge the temperature regarding how your stuff thinks/feels. It has various instruments to measure employee engagement, such as:

• digital polls 
• staff insights
• anonymous surveys

Time Clock

Connecteam makes it easy for your employees to clock in and out. It even alerts you on who shows up late! 

As if that’s not enough, it notifies them if they surpass stipulated working hours.

Plus:

It’s an efficient GPS tracking tool, so you can always know where your field staff is. 

You can also integrate it with payroll to calculate payments based on the hours your employees work. 

Scheduling

Connecteam is one of the best employee engagement software for planning your work schedules to avoid time-consuming mishaps. After creating shifts, you can drag and drop them if you need to share them with your managers for easier supervision. 

It gets better. 

If you want to give your workers more flexibility regarding what time slots they want to work, Connecteam got you. 

You can create open shifts and allow them to pick hours that suit them. 

Analytics and Reporting

Connecteam doesn’t have that many report options. The few it has are:

• attendance
• timeclock
• forms

Advanced Features

If you need something more, though, the tool has some advanced features:

Quizzes

Connecteam also works as an employee engagement and evaluation software. It allows you to create courses suitable for your industry. After, you can get everyone to do quizzes to access their knowledge.

And by the way, they are super engaging, so your employees won’t feel like they’re in a boring classroom. 

You can choose to post the results of top performers for a morale boost. 

Or:

Use the results as a learning point for determining what staff needs retraining.

Centralized storage

You can use Connecteam as a repository for all your HR files. Staff can upload their documents directly, so you don’t have to take too much time on that. 

You can view what’s pending review or needs approval from the database. Also, you can group everything into packs/folders to make it easier to access. 

Automation

This employee engagement software takes automation to the next level with its workflows. 

To break it down:

It helps you create a series of tasks that can run automatically. That way, you save time and effort that you’d otherwise waste if you had to input every single time.

A good example of such a task could be, “send claim forms to accounts every Monday at 8 am.”

Apps and Integrations

Connecteam is available on the cloud so your team can use it on any operating‌ system or device. It also has iOS and Android apps. 

You can also link it with different applications for better efficiency. Examples include:

• QuickBooks
• Google Calendar
• NextBee

Ease of Use

Using Connecteam is easy breezy. To begin with, its dashboard is uncluttered, making it easy for you to find whatever you need. 

And it's very intuitive, each step flowing into the next seamlessly. We were able to carry out most tasks, such as activating the time clock, rewarding employees, and approving forms.

Customer Support

Connecteam has one of the best customer service teams we’ve come across. The always-ready-to-help type. It's professional, knowledgeable, and friendly.

It’s available 24/7 through the following channels:

• email
• chat
• phone

Pricing

Connecteam offers a two-week trial; you don’t need to provide your credit card details to sign up. If you’re looking for free employee engagement software, it offers that option. 

It also has premium plans, and here are its rates per 50 users:

• Basic - $47/month or $39/month x 12 months (single time clock)
• Advanced - $95/month or 79/month x12 months (up to 3 time clocks)
• Expert - $191/month or $159/month x 12 months (up to 6 time clocks)
• Enterprise - custom quote (unlimited time clocks)

*Note that yearly payments have an 18% discount. 

Verdict

Connecteam doesn’t have desktop apps. However, it's available in the cloud so you can use it on any device. 

It also requires your phone number to complete the sign-up process. Otherwise, you won’t be able to access the dashboard. However, if you’re worried that constant notifications might be disruptive, you can disable them from your dashboard. 

All in all, Connecteam is a reliable engagement, time, and location tracking tool. It is also user-friendly. In addition, it has a fantastic customer service team to help you whenever you get stuck.

Scott Johnson created Motivosity to encourage managers to not only focus on results but on staff welfare too. 

That was about nine years ago. 

Since then, the software has continued doing what it does best - creating happier workplaces worldwide!

KPMG, Fujifilm and Sales Rabbit are just a few examples of its loyal clients.

Feature

Here are Motivosity’s best features:

ThanksMatters Card

This employee feedback software lets your staff know ‌you acknowledge and appreciate their efforts. 

With the ThanksMatters Visa card, you can award bonuses, rewards, and appreciation as spending cash. Your staff can use the card to shop in physical or online stores as long as they accept Visa cards. 

Your workers can also recognize each other through the social feed. They can also send their messages privately if they don’t want to do it publicly. 

Lead

Motivosity has all the right ‌tools to nurture outstanding leadership. For one, it trains managers on how best to handle their teams. It also sends smart nudges to remind them to keep their teams engaged, be it one-on-one, offering recognitions, awards, etc.

1:1’s

The best way to understand the reasons behind your staff’s performance is by meeting them individually. This employee engagement survey software sends alerts to workers and managers so they can prepare ahead of time. 

Listen

This platform allows you to listen to your staff’s suggestions. It does that through eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score), giving you an idea of how they feel about working for you. 

And you can customize the surveys in relevance to your company, team, or department.

Connect

With Motivosity, your employees can form interest groups that promote team bonding. They also get personal profiles on the social feed to recognize their colleagues, take part in discussions, or check out company values.

And by the way, this feature is free.

Analytics and Reporting

Motivosity offers a couple of reports and insights to gauge your team's engagement level. Examples include:

• Recognition
• Manager
• Community and Team
• Surveys
• Money

Advanced Features

Here are this employee engagement software’s advanced tools:

Organizational Chart

This feature is essential in helping your staff know who to go to and for what. That’s because it clearly outlines what everyone’s role is to avoid confusion. 

Apps and Integrations

Although Motivosity is available in the cloud, it also has mobile apps. In addition, you can link it with any SaaS application for higher productivity. Examples include:

• Slack
• Ping
• Okta
• SAML
• Sharepoint

Ease of Use

Using Motivosity is a breeze. For starters, the setup took seconds. 

Once we finished signing up, the system gave us a couple of tips on where to find stuff, how it works, etc. See example below

Our dashboard was uncluttered too, making it easy to find whatever we needed. We performed actions like imputing user details, recognizing them, and getting reports without a hassle.

Customer Support

Motivosity’s support works Monday through Friday Mountain Standard Time from 8 am to 5 pm.

Despite not having 24/7 availability, it’s good at what it does. The team is friendly, professional, and knowledgeable. 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t have that many channels to reach it. You can do so by submitting a ticket. 

Pricing

It is a free employee engagement software, but only for Connects package. Its pricing is feature-based and is‌:

• Recognize - $5/month/employee
• Lead - $6.50/month/employee
• Listen - $2/employee/month

* Note that billing is manual.

Motivosity has a 6-month money-back guarantee. I

Verdict

If you try to submit a ticket to support, the system will present you with a list of predefined options, which can suck if your issue isn’t on the list. 

Additionally, some messages will pop up once you sign into Motivosity. While these can be annoying to some, it's one of the best ways to check in. It will ask whether you’ve filled in your survey,  recognized top performers, etc.

So, it's a good thing. 

Also, its rates are standard for everyone, whether you have 3 or 50 employees.

But it's a double-edged sword because you must pay for each feature separately, making costs add up. 

Overall, Motivosity is an excellent software to eliminate disengagement. It allows you to recognize and award your staff to feel appreciated. It also creates an environment for them to communicate better through joining groups with similar interests or interacting on the company wall.

Empuls has been around since 2019 and has been helping companies create a people-first culture. Thousands of businesses trust Empuls to do its magic, amongst them Rakuten, Techwave, and Mx Player.

On its About Us page, the company claims to have a team of creative problem-solvers, top-notch contributors, and authentic humans. Which could, to some extent, show that it's a fantastic solution.

But is that so? 

Let’s find that out in this Empuls employee engagement software review. 

Features

Some of Empul’s functionalities include:

Recognition and Rewards 

Empuls allows you to nurture healthy competition. It does this through peer-to-peer recognition that colleagues can applaud one another. 

There’s more:

The system lets you offer points to your staff. In case you’re wondering where they can redeem them, it outlines businesses in your country where they can do so. And the process is super easy. 

Social Intranet

It's no secret that emails can sometimes go unchecked for days. 

This is why having a social company intranet for your employees can work wonders when passing internal information. 

It’s more engaging since everyone can interact and contribute to discussions via comments and reaction emojis. Not only that, but you can post appreciation for outstanding performance.

Surveys

Empuls is a fantastic employee engagement survey software that makes it easy for you to get feedback from your workers. This is essential in helping you know where to improve to create a conducive environment for them to thrive. 

It does so in the form of pulse and eNPS surveys. 

The former is a short evaluation that you can send to your staff regularly, for instance, weekly or monthly. It strives to understand things like satisfaction with their role, relationships, work environment, etc. 

The latter gives a score, letting you know whether they would recommend your organization to others. It will show you the percentage of:

• Detractors
• Passives
• Promoters

Employee Discounts

With Empuls, you can launch corporate discounts. Your employees can take advantage of these by buying items at a reduced cost. 

Some exciting news:

This employee experience software has partnered with over 2000 businesses in 25 categories, for example:

• electronics
• fashion
• baby and kids
• food and beverage

Analytics and Reporting

Empuls gives various analytics to help you know how your engagement efforts are performing and if you need to make any changes. That could be:

• appreciation frequency
• past appreciations
• awarding budgets

Advanced Features

Let’s have a look at its advanced features:

Custom Budget Management

You can choose to create either manual or automated budgets. Automated are best for recurring allocations, while the manual one is best for irregular ones.

Automation

This employee sustainability and engagement software enables you to automate some processes, such as:

• anniversaries
• birthdays
• rewards and recognition

Apps and Integrations

Empuls is a cloud-based software. It also has Android and iOS apps.  You can integrate Empuls with:

• Okta
• Microsoft Teams
• Zoho People
• Slack
• Ping Identity

Ease of Use

Setting up this HR employee engagement software takes seconds, and you can start inviting your staff immediately. It also allows you to customize things like award definitions or add brand colors or logos. 

Its dashboard is uncrowded so finding whatever you want is super easy. We found it easy to use as it's intuitive. 

Customer Support

Empuls customer service isn’t as excellent as Connecteam’s. 

For starters, the chat feature on its site is very limited. It’s bot-operated and only allows you to send one query, after which it locks you out. It then asks you to use a particular email that doesn't work. 

We finally reached the department after opening a trial account. We clicked on the question mark at the bottom right part of our dashboard.

It brought up a new window on the right-hand side of the page. We then submitted a ticket under Help and Support. 

Here, the contact person gave us an email address that works. Although the team is professional, its responses weren’t as clear or direct to the point. They also didn't address some of our questions.

Note that the turnaround time is within 8 hours, 9 to 6 pm IST.  

Pricing

Unfortunately, Empuls doesn’t have a free version. But once you sign up, you can use it for 30 days, without being charged. Here are its plans:

• Starter - $2.50/month per employee or $2/month/employee x12 (for startups)
• Proficient -$4.00/month/employee or $3.60/month/employee x12 (for established engagement tools)
• Enterprise - for custom pricing (for large teams) 
• Employee perks discounts add on- $1 per employee

*The company offers a 20% discount for annual subscriptions

Verdict

Although Empuls is a great engagement software, it has its limitations. To begin with, the employee discounts feature comes as an add-on, so you need to fork in extra money for it.

Its client support could also do with some improvements.

In addition, it doesn’t have an inbuilt chat feature. The good news is that you can integrate it with communication programs like Slack.

It’s also not as feature-rich as Connecteam, which has a time clock, quizzes, and task manager, amongst other things.

However, it's incredibly affordable. This one will work for you if you’re looking for a simple solution to improve internal culture. It has a social intranet, rewards, recognition, etc., all essential for building engaged teams.

Jenny von Pudewillis and Kajetan von Armansperg co-founded Leapsome in 2016. They aimed to make it easy for companies to create more conducive work environments for millions of employees worldwide. 

There’s more:

It joined forces with Europe’s Creandum and Visionaries Club and America’s Insight Partners in 2022. The goal was to continue building happier workplaces.

Some of its prominent clients include Spotify, Unity, and Northvolt.

Now:

It's About Us page claims to have a 99% customer satisfaction rate. 

But is that so? 

Let’s find out more about that in this employee software engagement review. 

Features

Here’s what the tool can offer:

Performance Reviews

The Leapsome’s review feature strives to drive meaningful growth. The best thing about it is that it comes in templates that you can customize. They’re as follows:

• anonymous leadership reviews 
• agile project reviews 
• 360 reviews 

Goals and OKRs

It's necessary to align your employees' goals with your company’s for a common objective. It allows you to recur cycles to drive continuous progress. 

That’s not all:

You can request feedback on goals, so you and your employees can add comments for clarifications or contributions. For accountability, the owner, contributor, or the entire team can check progress on the dashboard. 

1:1 Team Meetings

This HR employee engagement software allows you to conduct team or individual meetings. With this feature, you can collaborate on projects, assign action items, and even take notes.

Engagement surveys

Engagement surveys can give you powerful insights into staff welfare‌. To help you with that, Leapsome offers the following options:

• team-specific 
• company-wide 
• leaders-only 

Feedback and Praise

Everyone can do with a bit of feedback from time to time, whether positive or negative!

And Leapsome gives you this avenue. You can base your assessment on pre-defined competencies or make them open-ended.

Like some employee engagement software solutions on our list, it also allows you to praise employees for a job well done. 

Advanced Features

Here are Leapsome’s advanced features:

Development Framework

With this platform, you can create frameworks for your engagement processes, such as instant feedback or surveys. You can then use them for the entire company or make them department-specific. 

Onboarding

Leapsome is excellent at helping you nurture your fresh hires right from the first day. To build role-specific skills, it lets you create paths that are: 

• team-specific
• company-wide
• customized

Automation

If you hate doing those repetitive tasks now and then, Leapsome’s got you.It’s simply one of the best employee engagement tools to help you automate different processes, such as:

• document processing 
• performance reviews
• development tracking

Apps and Integrations

Unfortunately, Leapsome doesn’t have mobile or desktop apps. However, it’s cloud-based; hence, you can deploy it on any device. You can also integrate it with different applications for maximum productivity. Here are some examples:

• Bamboo HR
• Personio
• HiBob
• WorkDay
• Active Directory

Ease of Use

Leapsome's rollout was straightforward, and we could use it right away. 

We performed a couple of functions like setting goals, giving reviews, and feedback just to get a feel of how it works. Everything was a breeze.

Customer Support

Leapsome’s customer support is friendly, always ready to help, and knows its product inside out. It’s available in 13 languages, and some of them include:

• English
• French
• German
• Italian 
• Chinese

You can reach the support team through:

• email
• chat

Pricing

Leapsome doesn’t provide pricing on the website. You have to email it for a quote depending on your preferred module. However, this employee engagement software hints that its cost starts at $6/employee/month billed annually.

Here are its packages are‌:

• Perform (Career growth and reviews)
• Align (goals & OKRs)
• Engage (surveys and pulse)
• Learn (learning and onboarding)

Verdict

Leapsome doesn’t offer extensive customization. It also doesn't have any apps. Luckily, it’s open to suggestions from its clients, which is one of the areas it's currently working on. 

To conclude, it's a great tool to correct disengagement. It will help you congratulate your staff for good performance, give feedback for improvement, and gauge their sentiments, amongst other things.

Features

Let’s have a look at Vantage Circle’s functionalities:

Experience Cycle

One of the ways this solution will measure employee engagement is by using the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) percentage. It will help you gauge how likely your team is to recommend your business.

And it color-codes that using: 

• Green - Promoters 
• Yellow - Passives
• Red - Detractors

See far right below.

That’s not all:

This employee experience software evaluates how happy your workforce is throughout their stay with you. 

Here are the phases it checks regarding that:

Onboarding 

Onboarding focuses on newbies that are zero to three months old in your company. It’s crucial since it helps you learn what you could be doing wrong when introducing them to their roles.

Initial Development

This stage starts from the fourth to the twenty-fourth month, when you’re supposed to be giving lots of feedback. This tool enables you to measure their performance and address any arising issues.

Ongoing Development and Retention

This one makes you understand what would drive your staff to do their absolute best. You can use it to design the most productive environment.

Separation 

This will enable you to find out why your staff leaves your organization. So you can take measures to lower turnover.

Feed

A quality employee engagement software benefits businesses by allowing team members to socially connect through a feed.

It provides a wall where everyone can post and check out congratulatory mentions regarding their performance. To add to that, users can like announcements and even leave comments.

Aaand, you can add unique hashtags to make it easier to find related content.

Sort of like what you’d find on a social media profile like Facebook or LinkedIn. 

Rewards

Vantage Circle uses the Standard Of Living Index (SOLI) to award points to its employees. 

Here, you can give them non-monetary (appreciation) or monetary awards, such as gift cards or points. They are redeemable in 1000+ businesses, for instance: 

• Amazon 
• Uber 
• Macy’s 
• Target 
• Woolworths 

Feedback

The employee engagement and survey software that allows your staff to anonymize their feedback. It will enable them to score how satisfied they feel working in your organization. 

There’s more:

You can analyze comments by the department to see whether the issues run across the entire organization. You can also apply different filters, such as:

• Recognition
• Personal growth
• Engagement
• Peer relationships
• Autonomy

Analytics and Reporting

This platform shows insights regarding different aspects of engagement. Examples include likes, comments, mentions, nominations, or appreciation. 

It also lets you generate reports in real-time. Examples include Point allocation, Nominations, and Appreciation. 

Advanced Features

Here are Vantage Circle’s additional functionalities:

Corporate Wellness

This solution has a wellness program that helps encourage workers to live healthier lives. It’s one of the employee engagement features you’ll appreciate most if you want to cut healthcare costs. 

It allows staff to participate in contests and challenges. 

Additionally, it tracks calories burned steps taken through wearable devices. So they’re able to know precisely where they stand in their fitness journey.  

Wall of Fame

The Wall of Fame displays the top achievers in your organization. It shows how many awards and badges each has received.  

Automation

Unfortunately, Vantage Circle doesn’t offer any workflow automation.

Apps and Integrations

This HR employee engagement software is cloud-based and comes with Android and iOS apps. To maximize productivity, you can link it to a variety of applications, like:

• Single Sign-On (SSO) - Office 365, Azure, Okta
• Chat and Collaboration - Slack, Workplace, and Microsoft Teams
• Human Capital Management (HCM) and Human Resources Information System (HRIS) - SAP, People Strong, Zoho People, Freshteam

Ease of Use

Vantage Circle’s trial is quite limited. We couldn’t do most things like mine for reports, give awards, or redeem points. 

But it allowed us to easily do nominations, appreciation, post comments, or like posts. None of it requires technical knowledge.  

Customer Support

The customer service for this employee feedback software works round the clock. It’s reachable via:

• Email
• Chat

We reached out to them when we needed clarification on a few things. They responded in under 10 minutes each time all right.

But:

Their responses were off the mark even and we never got a straight answer. That’s after asking several contact people the same question hoping to get an answer to our query. They kept asking us to book a demo which was odd - client support staff should have product-related information at their fingertips. 

Pricing

Vantage Circle offers a 15-day trial but doesn’t have any money-back guarantee. In addition, it doesn’t list its rates on its website. However, it has a form that you can fill out to request a quote. 

Verdict 

The biggest downside to this employee engagement software is that it doesn’t automate workflows like pre-populating questionnaires or scheduling one-on-ones. It also doesn’t have many of the features that top solutions on this list offer. For example, raising hands,  OKRs, or high-fives.

In addition, its customer service staff also doesn’t seem in touch with its features. 

But its social recognition impressed us. It’s an easy way to appreciate and nominate staff to make them see you value their effort. With it, you can also award points and vouchers for your team to redeem from various stores. 

Founding partners Magino Marveaux-Cochet and Pierre-Jacques Dauvert created Alaya in January 2018. Since then, it has been helping companies make a positive impact globally. 

To date, it has processed donations worth $8 billion. It has also recorded 43 million volunteering hours and still counting. 

Features

Alaya comes with:

Pulse Surveys

Alaya helps you gauge how connected your workers feel towards your business. It delves deep into initiatives, feedback, and preferred causes, then displays metrics showing what percentage:

• strongly disagrees 
• disagrees 
• is neutral 
• agrees 
• strongly agrees

Points

Employee engagement software and tools that reward outstanding performance are some of the best. 

Alaya uses Hopeys to do precisely that. 

And it displays them on the dashboard to show which employee has accumulated the highest number. 

Donations and Matching

Alaya enables you to search for charities that need help. It displays cause details like location and what the initiative is about so you can pick one that suits your team.  

That’s not all:

It gives options regarding how much money your workers can give to charity. And the system allows you to easily manage fundraisers so you can always see where you’re at compared to your goal. 

Plus, it accepts over 135 currencies. 

Employee Volunteering

Through Do Good, this employee engagement and evaluation software let you encourage your staff to volunteer to help the less fortunate in the community. And the system gives them the liberty to do this either online or in person.

You can let community champions create related activities or do it yourself. 

Employee Wellbeing

Alaya can help you foster a culture that allows staff to prioritize their wellbeing for better productivity. It also reduces stress around the workplace, which could lead to more sick leaves.

There’s more: 

You can create a catalog of activities encouraging your employees to live healthier lives. All they have to do is click on the start button to participate. 

Analytics and Reporting

Alaya is one of those employee engagement software platforms that lets you track your business's efforts. This is crucial since it's the only way to know how well or poorly you're doing. 

It displays an impact pie chart to show:

• donations 
• goods collection 
• field volunteering 
• skills volunteering

Advanced Features

Now let's see what else Alaya offers:

Purpose Challenges

There’s no better bonding than participating in challenges as a team. Alaya gives you the tools to create fun activities that your staff can take part in, such as:

• empathy and inclusion
• meet and greet 
• hydrate and rejuvenate 
• bias breakers

Customizations

Alaya enables you to customize it to your organization’s needs. You can tailor the feel and look to make it easier for your workers to identify with it. That could be by using your brand's colors and logo. 

Apps and Integrations

Alaya is a cloud-based solution so deployable on any operating system. It also has Android and web apps. You can link it with other tools you already love, for more efficiency, for instance:

• Okta
• Workday
• Slack
• Google
• Stripe

Ease of Use

Employee engagement software reviews by users say that Alaya is so fun and easy to use. 

And all the claims were true. 

Its dashboard is one of the most appealing, with beautiful pastels that are easy on the eyes. 

We tried doing a couple of things, like creating purpose challenges, searching for fundraisers, participating in some of them. 

Everything was effortless. 

Customer Support

Alaya’s customer support teams are ‌in different countries, such as:

• Spain
• The UK
• France 
• Switzerland

You can reach them via email during the countries’ business hours. 

Pricing

Alaya doesn't display pricing on its website. However, you can contact the company for a free quote. Its packages are as follows:

• Impact Starter (engagement essentials)
• Engagement Booster (more volunteering impact)
• Purpose Leader (scale participation)

Verdict

Aside from cost, it's essential to compare employee engagement software in terms of features. Alaya doesn’t have scheduling, time clock, or 1:1 meetings that some solutions on this list have. 

Although it has surveys, its primary focus is on giving back to the less fortunate. Through donations or fund drives, it's likely to foster stronger teams with a common goal to help the community.

Kudos is a private company based in Canada. Muni Boga founded it in 2010 and is the CEO to date. The SaaS engagement software is variable in 80 countries and eight languages. 

Some of its happy customers include MTN, DHL, Fortis, and more. 

Features

Here are Kudo’s features:

Peer-to-peer Recognition

Kudos allows peers to do performance-based recognition. For that, it has different appreciation buttons, such as:

• Good job 
• Thank you
• Impressive
• Exceptional

After selecting any of the above, the recognizer can add a heartfelt message for a personal touch.  

Personalized Awards

Another benefit of this employee engagement software is that it allows you to give awards and badges. These can be for:

• individual contributions
• team/company achievements

Points and Rewards

You can accompany every recognition with points redeemable with an extensive gift card.

Some examples include:

• Custom 
• Kudos

People and Culture

Kudos has a culture-oriented tool to reinforce great values. It's called Culture Accelerator.

It aligns your initiatives with organizational goals to create strong values.

Kudos Wall

Most employee engagement software vendors forget about creating a company wall where workers bond even more.

Kudos has a space where colleagues can share good news, create memories or celebrate achievements. 

Analytics and Reporting

Kudos offers analytical metrics that you can use to improve your engagement levels. They include:

• recognitions received
• recognitions sent 
• values you’ve lived 
• qualities you’ve demonstrated

Advanced Features

Here are Kudos’ advanced features:

User Provisioning

With this solution, you don’t have to create a user database from scratch. It allows you to import it from your existing HRIS easily.

GIFs

Kudos has several mage options that you can use to create gift cards to send to your employees/peers. They’re in the form of:

• Adobe Stock
• GIF
• 123rf

Apps and Integrations

This employee feedback software is cloud-based. It also offers mobile and desktop apps. In addition, it can integrate with the following applications:

• Slack
• LinkedIn
• OneLogin
• Okta
• ADP

Ease of Use

Kudos interface is engaging with all the fun emojis. It’s also easy to use, so it doesn't need any technical training.

Set up is also quick, so you can start using it soon after. As soon as we imported our user details, we posted some recognitions on the Kudos wall and awarded points without a hitch. 

Customer Support

Kudos, customer support isn’t as responsive. At the time of writing this review, it still hadn’t answered our query. 

We had emailed them about 15 hours prior. 

You can reach the department through:

• chat 
• email
•  phone

Pricing

Kudos pricing is quote-based. 

Verdict

The company rewards kudos for excellent performance. Unfortunately, it only allows you to award a specific number. 

In addition, you can’t roll kudos over. Therefore, your employees must use them within the pre-defined timeline; otherwise, they’ll expire.

Still, it's a good option for companies looking for basic engagement software. It encourages staff to recognize each other. Plus, you can award deserving teams to boost their morale. 

David Hassell created 15Five in 2012, out of a deep desire to help people achieve career satisfaction. Hassell got the idea to develop the software from using 15/5 earlier on in his entrepreneurial journey. 

15/5 is a system that requires employees to write 15-minute reports of their workweeks, and managers spend 5 minutes reviewing them.

Features

Here are 15Five's features.

Weekly check-ins

Check-ins are essential, whether in personal or work life. Opening up conversations between staff and management helps you understand how your team is fairing. 

With weekly check-ins, it's much easier and quicker to establish underlying problems and deal with them instantly. Unlike lengthy reports and complicated spreadsheets, the feedback contains a handful of questions that relate to performance, needs, or concerns. 

Request feedback

Believe it or not, letting employees take control of feedback requests can engage them more. Science supports this claim. Although manager-to-employee feedback is essential, it's even more effective when staff asks for it as they're more likely to act on it.  

OKRs

Objective and Key Results (OKRs) can help you create a company, individual or departmental objectives. This employee engagement tracking software helps keep your goals in check without interfering with staff workflows. All an employee needs to do is take a couple of seconds to set their status to any of the following:

• On track
• Behind
• At-risk.

High fives

Like a physical high five, this virtual feature provides a fun way for peers or managers to recognize effort. This feature can help boost morale.

1:1s

After reviewing employee feedback, managers can note areas of concern and add responses. This helps in proper planning on the management side, regarding what to discuss during facetime.   

Analytics and reporting

15Five produces custom reports to help you measure how your organization is utilizing the solution. This feature allows you to sort answers to different survey questions into one document.

Advanced features

This software has review reminders to help hold employees accountable for their weekly progress. The reports show reviews, hi-fives, update frequency, compliance, overall growth, and 1-on-1s.

Automation

This employee feedback software has automated weekly check-ins. The solution comes with pre-populated questions, which saves time since all an employee does is fill in answers for around 15 minutes.

Apps and integrations

This is a cloud-based platform with Android, iOS apps. That said, you can use 15Five on any device with Windows, macOS, or Linux. 

For a more efficient outcome, you can integrate this software with apps like:

• Slack
• Google Calendar
• Jira
• SSO
• Namely

Ease of use

15Five is easy to use. This software's interface is clutter-free, hence spotting whatever you need is hassle-free. The menu bar has about five items (company name,1-on-1s, high fives, and company logo), making it very easy to navigate.

Customer support

You can reach 15Five support through either of the following options during business hours:

• Chatbot
• Email

Pricing

15Five doesn't have a free version. But the good news is that the solution has a 14-day trial period, which gives you enough time to experiment with its features. Here are 15Five's paid packages:

• Basis - $7/person/month
• Plus - $14/user/month
• Performance - Custom pricing

Note that the company bills annually. 

Verdict

15Five is an employee engagement software that has strategically designed features to guide you on continuous performance management. Use this tool to engage and retain your workforce, with OKRs, one-on-ones, and weekly reviews.

Also, there's no 24/7 support, so in case there are any issues, you must wait for US business hours to get assistance.

Assembly has been in operation since  2017. It's great for teams, managers, human resources, and OPs.

It has a customer base of more than 3000 businesses to date. 

There’s more:

This employee engagement program/software serves some of the biggest companies in the world, such as Coca-Cola, Nesco, and Amazon.

Features

Amazon offers:

Recognition and Rewards

Assembly helps you appreciate your staff from time to time through mentions to increase their experience and loyalty. You can also award trophies to deserving team members. From your admin dashboard, you can see trophy balance so you can allocate them accordingly. 

Employees can redeem them using gift cards or cashouts using Swag. 

Surveys

If you want to know how your staff feels, try surveying them. 

Luckily, this employee engagement software or program helps you do just that.

It comes with several survey forms you can tailor to your liking, and you can create your questions if you like. Alternatively, you go with Assembly’s choice.

Main Feed

The Main Feed is an area where everyone can interact. Here, staff can view recognitions and company news and contribute to discussions.

Nominations

With Assembly, you can involve the entire company in voting for top performers. You can then celebrate the nominees for good performance by posting them on the company wall.

Analytics and Reporting

Assembly has a couple of direct reports ‌you can use to gauge the morale temperature at your workplace. They relay metrics related to:

• engagement levels
• survey participation and results
• pending tasks
• recognition blocks

Advanced Features

The following are this employee experience software’s additional features:

Manager Empowerment

This solution can help you manage teams in more engaging ways. For instance, one-on-one can help them open up about things affecting their work. It also has questionnaires that employees can quickly fill regarding job satisfaction or improvement suggestions, and so on.

Notebook

Assembly makes it easy for you to keep track of your activities via the Notebook. It displays work you’ve assigned or pending tasks, i.e., team members to invite, creating flows, etc.

Automation

Assembly allows you to automate routine workflows. It has over 40 templates that you can use to make it easier for you to do repeat tasks instead of starting from scratch every time. We’re talking: 

• 360° reviews
• Ask Me Anything
• Benefits Survey
• CEO and Executive Updates
• Daily Recap

Apps and Integrations

This employee recognition software is cloud-based. You can link it with:

• ADP
• Axiom
• Azure SSO
• Bamboo HR
• Gusto

Ease of Use

Setting up Assembly was super easy. 

We also loved that, unlike other solutions that are all business, it constantly displays humorous quotes to keep things light and fun. 

Everything is easy to find.

Customer Support

Once you open an account with assembly, Assembly will assign you an advisor you can communicate with via chat. Note that the advisors only work during US and Canadian business hours. 

The chat option asks you to leave your email address if you send in your query outside work hours. The contact person will then get back to you within 24 hours.

We found the staff entirely professional and at the top of its game regarding product knowledge. 

Pricing

Assembly is one of the best free employee engagement software for small teams of up to 10 members. 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer a free trial. However, it has demos for all its packages to give you a rough idea of what’s in store. 

Here are its plans:

• Lite - $2.80/member/month for a maximum of 50 staff
• Standard - $4.50/members/month for unlimited workers
• Premium- Custom quotes for unlimited members and storage space

Verdict

As much as you can customize Assembly's automation templates, you can’t change its look. For one, it doesn’t have any theme options. You also can’t add your brand colors or logo.

Assembly is always looking for employee engagement software ideas. Therefore, it's constantly rebranding. We came across a couple of customers claiming the action confused them.

The good news is that this is one of those companies that listens to its customers. Therefore, going forward, it might just decide to do updates without changing the terminology too much.

Parting shot:

Assembly is feature-rich, affordable, and user-friendly. Hence, an excellent solution for any organization that wants to engage its staff.

Synergita Aspire Systems Inc founded this platform in 1996. It’s suitable for different industries such as finance, manufacturing, IT, and retail. 

Under the leadership of CEO Shankar Krishnamoorthy, Synergita has grown into a formidable force when it comes to employee engagement solutions. It has ‌over 150 customers with a collective user base of 350 000. Together, they have created more than 6 million goals. 

Features

This employee engagement software offers:

1:1s

You can use Synergita to catch up on work goings-on regularly. The one-on-ones offer continuous feedback and reference notes between you and an individual employee to use during appraisals.

360° feedback

This form of feedback is essential for getting developmental learning points from peers, supervisors, managers, subordinates, and even external stakeholders. It offers you unbiased information regarding what you’re doing right or wrong. 

OKRs

These are essential in aligning individual, team, and company goals. That way, everyone will be working towards a common goal. 

This employee engagement and tracking software shows you:

• the total number of objectives
• overall progress
• overdue objectives 
• alignment percentage

Rewards and Recognition

Appreciating even the slightest milestones your workers make is one of the best ways to retain them. This system allows you to post appreciation on the company wall and give instant rewards. 

Examples of ways could be;

• Office Ninja
• Employee of the Year
• Star Gladiator Award

 And many more!

Analytics and Reporting

There are a couple of reports that you can extract from Synergita for analytical metrics. They include:

• Employee report
• Employee Feedback Status
• Performance Ratings and Score
• Objective Details Report
• Continuous Feedback Report

Advanced Features

Let’s look at Synergita's advanced functionalities:

Culture Score

We didn’t come across any employee engagement software providers with this feature. It gives a score regarding how well or poorly your company is towards achieving a good culture. Examples of scores could be:

• Excellent
• Good
• Fair
• Poor
• Very Poor

Sentiment Analysis

This solution uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to understand staff emotions better. It also measures overall dynamics, such as:

• peer recognition
• peer appreciation
• performance reviews

Automation

You can use Synergita to automate configurable workflows when it comes to the entire appraisal process. It can track skill sets among all employees.

It also provides continuous feedback, goal setting, and performance appraisal meetings and creates schedules on your behalf. 

Apps and Integrations

Synergita has Android and iOS mobile apps. It’s also available on the cloud, so you can use it on any operating system. You can also link it with the following applications:

• ADP
• People Strong
• Microsoft
• Okta
• Adrenaline

Ease of Use

Like with all the employee engagement software solutions on our list, Synergita is quick to set up. Its dashboard is also easy on the eyes with its color-coded metrics. Makes everything easy to analyze at a glance.

It's also uncluttered, eliminating the hassle that comes with trying to find features on crowded profiles. 

It’s also intuitive and easy to use. 

We used it to carry out surveys, OKRS, appreciation, and reward just to mention a few. Nothing required any technical skills. 

Customer Support

Synergita’s support doesn’t have specific working hours per se. But it does state in its terms of service that its turnaround time for minor incidents is 24 hours and 8 hours for critical issues. It assists clients through:

• phone
• email
• chat

Pricing

Synergita has a seven-day trial. Its rates for premium packages are as follows:

• Synergita Perform: $4/staff/month (for goals and performance)
• Synergita Perform Plus (includes 360° feedback)

*Note that billing is annual

Verdict

One downside to this employee engagement software is that its support response times are painfully long. 

Another thing, its reports feature is also limited in terms of the options available. We, however, noted in various online reviews that the company promised to work on the shortcomings. 

Despite its few drawbacks, it's a reliable tool for improving employee satisfaction. It will always keep things in check so you can know where you’re at with engagement.