Every business wants a highly engaged workforce, but increasing engagement isn't always straightforward. In these instances, employee engagement software can make a real difference to your engagement goals.
Simply put, an effective employee engagement solution supplies you with the necessary data to boost engagement and productivity. But, if you're unsure about investing in employee engagement software, the following points from a Deloitte survey may help you reach a decision.
Fortunately, there's engagement software for every industry, budget, and niche. However, the choice can be daunting, so to help you determine the best employee engagement platform for your needs, we've broken down our top 15 picks in this article.
As a bonus, we've also discussed why we at Perkbox think that employee engagement software is a must for every modern workplace.
We've split the software into four categories: recognition, wellness, employee engagement surveys, and perks. Keep reading to discover which one aligns best with your business.
Perkbox is a fantastic all-around employee experience platform that's guaranteed to help take your engagement up a notch. Our platform is made up of multiple employee engagement solutions, but here we're going to be talking about our recognition tools.
If you're looking to motivate employees with rewards and recognition, Perkbox is the perfect tool for you. Our goal is to make employee recognition anything but boring by offering exciting activities and rewards that people actually want.
We offer a variety of different ways for every employee on your team to be congratulated for a job well done, including:
Perkbox customises the offerings and pricing according to your business's needs, so we're a great choice for companies of any size. Click here to request a free demo without any strings attached.
Key features:
Perkbox is great for:
Just about everyone, managers benefit from a simplified reward process and individual employees receive real-time recognition from their peers. Perkbox is ideal for both local and international organisations as the platform also includes perks and deals from global brands.
Bonusly is another great human resources platform that makes it easy to engage with and recognise employees. Whether you're an executive, a manager, or a junior colleague, Bonusly provides a solution to celebrate the work happening around you. Remote employee celebration is no longer impossible, with tools like this!
Bonusly works by rewarding employees with points. Once someone receives enough points, they can redeem them for a meaningful reward of their choice. They've got a global catalogue filled with digital gift cards from brands in over 122 countries worldwide, so there's truly something for everyone. Some of the most popular examples include:
Additionally, the software allows points to be cashed out through PayPal or donated to non-profit organisations like the WWF, Habitat for Humanity, and The Trevor Project, which we think is a great touch.
Employees earn points via peer recognition they receive from their colleagues. Each month, employees also receive a small monthly allowance of points that they can reward to others by using Bonusly's easy-to-navigate interface.
Key features:
Bonusly is great for:
Companies who want to boost employee engagement by focusing specifically on peer-to-peer recognition. It's a fun and creative solution that helps organisations understand their employees better.
As you can probably tell from the name, Gifted is an employee engagement software that's all about... gifting! It helps companies send out the perfect gifts for every occasion, whether they're being given to employees or clients. It achieves this by providing a fully branded gifting platform that's sleek, easy to use, and downright handy.
Here are some of the Gifted features that we're loving:
Best of all, Gifted is a free employee engagement software. All you have to do is pay for the gifts you choose.
Key features:
Gifted is great for:
HR teams who want a simplified gifting process. Because Gifted is able to reach employees in over 100 countries it's very useful for organisations with a global workforce. Gifted also integrates well with other HR platforms such as Workday and HiBob.
Our last tip for employee recognition solutions is Blueboard. They are one of the employee apps that has truly taken a different approach to how they congratulate employees for a job well done. Rather than using more tried-and-tested methods such as points, gift cards, and other virtual gifts — they offer experiences.
All you have to do is send a lucky employee a Blueboard reward (either manually or automatically). Then, they can browse through their experience options and select the one that jumps out at them the most. All the logistics and planning will be taken care of by Blueboard, so all they have to do from there is get ready for a truly memorable experience.
Blueboard serves over 70 countries globally and is working with over 300 enterprise clients. Some of their unique reward options include:
With such a wide variety of interesting, special experiences on their list, there's an experience to suit everyone’s tastes.
Key features:
Blueboard is great for:
Businesses who want to offer their employees an alternative corporate gift experience. Experiences range from gourmet cooking classes to thrilling getaways. There are plenty of experiences for every occasion, including work anniversaries and awards.
Your teams' health and wellbeing should be your top priority regardless of where they work, be it remotely or in the office.
When companies provide additional wellbeing resources for their employees it reduces absenteeism and boosts productivity. In other words, it's essential to overall business success.
Perkbox offers unlimited wellbeing content, available 24/7 from a smartphone, tablet, and laptop and includes:
Overall, healthy employees are happier, more engaged, and loyal. If you want to learn more about Perkbox, you can request a free demo here.
Key features:
Perkbox is great for:
Organisations who want to make mental and physical wellbeing resources accessible to everyone. When employees feel empowered to take care of their health they're more resilient, focussed, and happier.
Unmind is a human resources tool and mental health platform that touches on all aspects of employee wellbeing. They've created their employee engagement platform because they recognise the value in prioritising mental health in the workplace.
Since one in six employees experience mental health issues each year, they dedicate themselves to focusing on all employees' mental health. This helps prevent problems before they arise, leading to better results for everyone involved.
Unmind improve employee mental wellbeing with a host of features:
Key features:
Unmind is great for:
Leaders who want their employees to feel fulfilled both in and outside of the office. Unmind changes how organisations interpret mental health in the workplace and can contribute to sustainable growth and productivity.
Grokker is certainly one of the best employee engagement tools out there. They aim to help companies nurture workforces that are happy, healthy, and resilient. Their platform is a great way to approach staff wellbeing within your organisation because it can easily be integrated into an existing wellness program, or used as a standalone solution.
Grokkers has five key pillars of health engagement:
Key features:
Grokker is great for:
Employers who want to encourage their teams to support each other in their wellbeing journeys. Because Grokker includes an extensive array of communication tools it's ideal for corporations who want to make health and wellbeing a significant part of their company culture.
Woliba is a very well-rounded choice for employee engagement software. Not only does it cover employee wellness and wellbeing, but it also includes features related to general employee engagement, recognition, and rewards. Employers can access one platform to manage all their programmes and initiatives.
Let's break down their features in a little more detail:
Key features:
Woliba is great for:
Companies who want an all-in-one solution that supports both wellbeing and employee engagement. The reporting functionality provides meaningful insight into what features employees use most.
To finish off this category, Limeade is another good option for employee engagement software. Their platform is all about promoting employee wellbeing through solutions that are tried and tested and grounded in science. Their platform is separated into three sections: wellbeing, engagement, and inclusion.
Let's dive a little deeper into how they keep employees engaged:
Key features:
Limeade is great for:
Businesses who not only want to improve wellbeing but also their overall employee experience. Limeade also facilitates the sharing of company news and even includes a reward and recognition program.
If you work in an HR department, you've probably heard of Connecteam before. It goes much further than simply offering an engagement survey or two though. Their engagement software allows businesses to manage all their employees in one central place, offering features for everything from time management, to daily operations, to internal communications.
Nevertheless, we'd like to feature Connecteam's use of the engagement survey for the purposes of this article. The way they weave it into their programme is truly unique and unlike much of what's currently available on the market. Basically, they prioritise employee communication by helping companies use honest feedback to make the best possible decisions for their business. They do so with the following employee feedback features:
Key features:
Connecteam is great for:
Busy HR departments who need additional support. Connecteam can assist with many processes, such as employee comms, forms, and task management. Because Connecteam can be accessed from an app employees can fill out surveys on the go and stay in the loop when not in the office.
WorkBuzz is an incredibly dynamic employee engagement tool that helps you put data at the heart of your decision making so you can continuously focus on bettering your employee experience.
Its flexibility as a platform means it only takes a few minutes for you to launch an array of multi-language and mobile-optimised surveys that are accessible to all of your employees, no matter where they are in the world.
Choose from a range of survey questions from the best practice question library that cover important topics, such as diversity, hybrid working, and wellbeing. After collecting feedback, you can see what factors are your biggest engagement drivers and any areas that would benefit from extra attention and care.
Because WorkBuzz includes intelligent features, such as customisable dashboards, it’s never been easier for people managers to track the data they’re interested in and take meaningful action. Furthermore, WorkBuzz designed the dashboards with busy managers in mind, not data scientists, and have included advanced algorithms and text analytics so you don’t have to spend hours reading vast amounts of raw feedback.
It doesn't matter if you’re a small local business or global corporation WorkBuzz offers plans to suit every company, regardless of their size. Their pricing model is flexible and the amount you pay depends on the type of solution you want.
Key features:
WorkBuzz is great for:
People managers who want to understand exactly how employees are motivated. WorkBuzz can also provide detailed data on hybrid working, employee wellbeing, diversity and inclusion, and employee retention.
While Typeform is not technically an employee engagement software, it certainly holds its own against most platforms when it comes to engagement surveys. In fact, they're a company that's all about surveys. They specialise in helping people and businesses create and distribute surveys that are actually enjoyable to fill out. If that doesn't make them a perfect tool to measure employee engagement and development, we don't know what does!
If you're wondering how you can use Typeform to help with your human resources and employee engagement needs, all you have to do is browse through the HR section of their website. They've got HR survey templates for just about everything:
...and those are just a few examples! Typeform also has a new feature called VideoAsk that you can use to create interactive video conversations that boost engagement with employees.
Key features:
Typeform is great for:
Both large and small companies who rely on data to manage employee experience. From performance reviews to training and development Typeform is an invaluable tool for gathering high-quality feedback.
When it comes to perks, Perkbox is one of the best employee engagement systems out there for supporting employees with discounts and deals — in addition to a comprehensive benefits scheme. It's a win-win solution.
Employees are happier when they receive perks they can actually use, as it demonstrates you see them as individuals. A good engagement system with plenty of perks keeps turnover low, attracts top talent, and increases employee satisfaction.
Now, let's talk about the 9,000+ perks on offer:
If you think Perkbox can enhance your current employee experience, request a free demo or get a quote today.
Key features:
Perkbox is great for:
Organisations who want to appreciate their employees by offering them a comprehensive perks package. Perkbox have teamed up with the biggest retailers to deliver a remarkable collection of discounts and deals. There truly is something for everyone.
If you're an American company looking for a great way to engage employees by providing them with rewards and recognition, PerkNow is a great option for you. It's a very straightforward platform that's easy to use and is exclusively focused on employee rewards. Their platform is also easy to customise and can be accessed with a handy mobile app.
PerkNow offers hundreds of rewards and discounts that are both location-specific and national. Here's just some of the places they offer rewards at:
Rewards are quick and easy to send, and you can even access usage reports to determine how many employees are using their benefits and how much money they're saving.
Key features:
PerkNow is great for:
HR teams who want to enhance their current perks and benefits offerings. With PerkNow companies can transfer their existing benefits into the platform, so employees can see their new perks and current company benefits.
Perks at Work is another great American company if you're looking for an employee engagement software to offer your workforce perks and rewards. They aim to provide employees with perks that help them live healthier lives.
Perks at Work's offerings go beyond typical discount codes and freebies. Their platform is separated into three unique categories:
Key features:
Perks At Work is great for:
Employers who want to focus on building a competitive perks package that also prioritises wellbeing and development. The program has a community feel and is great for families who want perks their children and teenagers can benefit from.
Employee engagement software is a type of HR software. At face value, employee engagement refers to how connected employees feel with regards to their workplace, and is a vital part of any complete HR checklist.
Businesses use employee engagement software to encourage a number of things from their employees. This includes engaging with their company culture, aligning themselves with its mission and values, promoting a sense of community, and enjoying themselves while doing so. For more information about how employee engagement software can help your organisation, check out how Perkbox can help you recognise and reward your teams.
The best employee engagement software helps companies improve their overall performance. This is because businesses with excellent employee engagement are more profitable, have better employee retention, and see better performance throughout the entire employee lifecycle. Indeed, a 2017 study by The Engagement Institute reported that disengaged employees cost American companies as much as $550 billion each year.
Employee engagement software is usually offered as software as a service (SaaS). This makes it perfect for both remote and office-based teams as it can be accessed anywhere. With the rise of remote work and international teams, this is more important than ever.
There's a variety of employee engagement systems out there. Some of them are marketed as well-rounded solutions that have a variety of features, while others focus on specific facets of employee engagement like perks and rewards, wellness, recognition, and surveys.
The benefits of employee engagement software are so vast it's difficult to list them. Nevertheless, here are our top three reasons why you should absolutely be using employee engagement systems.
Employee engagement software is important because it gives your employees a voice and allows them to feel heard. No one can read minds, so employee engagement software is one of the best tools to get genuine insight into their opinions, likes, and dislikes. You might even be able to bring out parts of their personality you didn't know were there before.
Best of all, when you really listen to employees' voices, they'll feel more valued. In fact, employees who feel their voices are heard are 4.6x more likely to feel empowered to perform their best at work.
Employee engagement software can enrich your company culture in a variety of ways. Perhaps you want to create a company culture that revolves around recognition? Try a recognition solution. Want to give overall performance a boost? Gamification apps could be what you need. What about communication and team building? There’s software for that too.
Whatever the case, engaged employees make for great company culture and create healthy professional communities. This is essential to keep employees happy and enthusiastic.
When you have a rich company culture, your professional team will feel close-knit even if you all work remotely or rarely see each other face-to-face. Company culture is also a great asset in terms of recruiting and onboarding as new workers will feel like they're part of the team right away.
Last of all, employee engagement software has been shown to significantly increase employee retention in the long-term. This is because some of the biggest reasons why employees quit their jobs are closely related to engagement. According to a 2021 The Balance Careers report, the following are the biggest driving forces behind workers looking for new jobs:
Notice how all those driving forces can be easily addressed with employee engagement software?
Because employee engagement platforms allow employees to recognise each other, build relationships, get motivated, add a little extra something to their workday, and connect with higher-ups in their organisation, they help build workforces that people will want to stay in for the long haul.
Companies from pretty much every industry use employee engagement software all around the world. As you've seen, their benefits are numerous and there's an option out there for everyone, no matter what kind of business you work in.
Management staff and human resources professionals are usually responsible for deciding what kind of employee engagement platform best suits their teams' needs. However, no employee engagement app can be successful if the key people aren’t on board. That means everyone on your professional team should be using it.
Employee engagement software is especially important for remote teams (or companies with some degree of remote work) as well as teams that work across different time zones. This is because they don't have the same opportunities to engage face-to-face that those working in a traditional office space might. Nevertheless, at Perkbox we believe that every team can benefit from employee engagement software.
Employee engagement software platforms are becoming a business necessity. So if you're asking yourself when is best to start investing in this technology, the answer is as soon as possible.
It's no secret that many businesses are struggling to keep employees engaged and motivated, especially in wake of The Great Resignation. For this reason, they are turning to engagement tools to supply them with the necessary data to take action.
Hopefully, from reading our article you have a better idea of the different types of engagement tools available to you and the need they fulfil. Some are all-rounders that can optimise performance management and give you real-time data on other key people metrics, such as employee turnover. Whereas others may focus on one or two metrics in-depth, for example, wellbeing or mental health.
Either way, employee engagement software is here to stay and it's up to you to decide what engagement tools are right for your organisation.
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