14 Best Employee Engagement Tools in 2024 I Boost Employee Engagement

To invest or not to invest in employee engagement software is an eternal battle for leaders like you. While you may be intrigued by the thought of managing it on your own, employee engagement often tends to spiral out of hand.

Without proper tech support, leaders find themselves in a situation where they have no proper updates, less or unreliable employee feedback, less bandwidth to conduct the research, or simply a lack of staff who could gather employee feedback. It can be challenging for an organization.

Every leader deserves the assistance provided by employee engagement solutions. But what exactly are these solutions? Let’s take a look.

1. Employee Listening Software

You need this employee engagement solution to give your employees a voice, and fuel growth. There are several surveys to choose from.

1. Pulse survey:

It comprises a few straightforward questions and is pretty easy to implement. It helps gather the pulse of your workforce to ascertain what the majority think of your leadership and business functioning.

2. Lifecycle survey:

This survey connects with an employee at every stage of their life cycle or tenure in the company. AI-enabled tools like Amber can help you design and run surveys to monitor employee lifecycle, analyze their results, and identify corrective measures.

3. Onboarding survey:

It gathers feedback from new employees who have recently been onboarded. The aim is to gauge the onboarding process's effectiveness and look for improvement areas.

4. Employee exit survey:

Contrary to onboarding surveys, these surveys are taken while your employee is on their way out. It tries to reveal what went wrong, why they are leaving, what you could have done better, and identify the areas of improvement to prevent more exits.

For instance, inFeedo's employee exit surveys are designed to capture the real reasons your employees might be on their way out.

5. Return to office survey:

This employee engagement tool gained traction when companies resumed normal working scenarios after the pandemic. This survey evaluates your employees' genuine feelings and willingness to physically return to work. It covers areas like their thoughts on remote working, child and elderly responsibilities, and any transportation challenges.

6. Employee well-being survey:

It aims to map an employee's job satisfaction and productivity in the workplace. It ascertains your employees' well-being related to job, social and workplace environment, physical health, and intellectual and career challenges.

2. Recognition and Rewards (R&R) Programs

Recognizing and rewarding well-performing employees is essential to keep them motivated and engaged. There are several solutions to form an effective R&R program.

You can take these steps for company-wide employee recognition:

• Peer appreciation tools like a personalized Thank You card
• Birthday and achievement celebrations where their families are invited too
• Monthly notice board or newsletter to give a shout-out to the best performers
• Recognizing them on social media or the company's website
• Introducing them to top management or the board

You can incentivize them with:

• Monetary rewards like a Performance Linked Bonus or a gift card
• Creative rewards like revamping their workstation or giving them a day off
• Growth rewards like enrolling them for a course to upgrade their skillset
• Tickets for events, a paid vacation, or a lunch for top performers

3. Gamification platforms

This latest trend in employee engagement makes their work seem like a competition or a game. It involves their intellectual capabilities, offers a way to keep score, and thoroughly engages them in target or goal achievement.

The best way to implement gamification is by

• Effectively using technology to track their progress, involving everyone, and announcing the winners
• Using rewards as a surprise to recognize your employees' efforts
• Communicating timely and properly to keep your employees engaged

You can use an app or create a separate gaming format depending on your goal behind gamification. Deciding your business goals, understanding what motivates your employees, and continuously evolving the game plan helps devise the best-suited gamification strategy.

4. Communication platforms

Communicating with employees personally can be challenging, especially if your workforce stands in the thousands. That's where AI-enabled tools like Amber come in to help you connect with each employee individually and boost employee interaction. They provide a platform for employees to chat with each other, collaborate on projects, and enhance the team's performance.

Most employee communication platforms offer some basic features:

• Information exchange in real-time
• A platform for employee interaction
• Options to make an audio or video call
• Share documents via the platform
• Overall workflow management
• Third-party integrations to allow syncing with your HRMS, payroll, or cloud storage systems

5. Employee wellness platforms

If this was a concern for organizations three years ago, the pandemic escalated the need manifold. As a leader, you may identify with the need for investing in employee wellness.

Health and wellness trackers have emerged as essential tools for employee engagement. These tools monitor your employees’ physical activity, diet, medical treatments, existing ailments, and other metrics to give you an exhaustive picture of how your employees fare on the health barometer.

What to consider when choosing employee engagement tools

Picking the right software is crucial. A wrong selection can jeopardize the engagement levels of your employees.

Here are a few reasons that make the choice difficult for leaders like you:

1. Overwhelming number of options 

The availability of a plethora of employee engagement tools in the market can make it difficult to decide the best fit for your organization. As an HR leader, you have to research and evaluate multiple options before picking the best-suited software.

2. Identify your organizational needs

Depending on your business model, the software should resolve your biggest challenge in engaging your employees. The problems could include issues in connecting with your employees remotely.

3. Complex features and functionality

Software’s wide range of features and functionality can make it difficult for HR leaders like you to understand how the platform works and how effective it will be for your company.

4. Integration with other systems

Many large corporations have a complex IT setup with multiple systems and platforms in use. The employee engagement platform you pick needs to be easily integrable with your existing systems. That can be a complex and time-consuming process.

5. Customization requirements

One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to employee engagement software. Every company has specific needs that cannot be met by an off-the-shelf tool. Evaluating the platform’s customization ability is critical when making a selection.

6. Data security and privacy concerns

Employee engagement platforms often collect and store confidential employee data. As HR leaders, you strive to ensure that the platform meets your organization's data security and privacy standards.

7. Value for money

There is an employee engagement platform available to suit every budget. What matters is their value for money and usability for your organization. Evaluate if the product offers its money’s worth when shortlisting.

8. Consider the user experience

The interface should be user oriented and mobile-friendly to enable your employees to access them remotely.

Below is a list of top employee engagement software.

14 Best Employee Engagement Software

Employee Listening Software

1. Amber by Infeedo.ai

With a horde of features to resolve all your employee engagement woes, Amber can be your Chief Listening Officer. She is an AI-enabled chatbot that serves you as tools for employee engagement and people analytics.

Features

• Automated surveys like pulse surveys, eNPS, and exit and anonymous surveys
• Fully customized to suit your business needs. 
• Personalized engagement with your employees to identify the at-risk employees and offer areas for improvement for you, the leaders, to work on
• Analytics dashboard that gives you access to critical insights in real-time

Pricing

Connect with inFeedo or book a demo to know more.

Customer reviews

Trusted by over 700,000 employees globally, Amber boasts a 4.7 rating on G2. Companies in 60+ countries vouch for Amber's abilities to sound like a human and connect with employees on a deeply personal level.

2. Qualtrics

Qualtrics is a simple, convenient, free-to-use tool that lets you create customized surveys.

Features

• Receive summarized reports with the option to use a filter for customized analysis, analyze the results from their online tool
• Create and share surveys. Choose from 50+ survey templates, 8 question types
• Analyze up to 500 responses

Pricing

You get unlimited access to Qualtrics’ free-of-cost online survey creator tool without creating an account or sharing your credit card details.

Reviews

Qualtrics has a 4.4 rating on G2 and 4.6 on Gartner.

3. Cultureamp

Cultureamp offers employee engagement, development, and employee performance management tools accessible from one platform.

Features

• Powerful insights on your at-risk employees, organizational performance and employee engagement score
• Facilitate private conversations between managers and employees
• Skills Coach integrates with Slack, emails, MS Teams, and your performance management system to deliver daily two-minute interactive activities to upgrade your managers' leadership skills

Pricing

CultureAmp has three plans for each of your goals:

• Engage starts at USD 7 per person per month
• Perform starts at USD 16 per person per month
• Develop starts at USD 6 per person per month

Reviews

CultureAmp enjoys a 4.6 rating on G2 and 8.7 on TrustRadius. 

4. Understand Better

This GDPR-compliant, powerful employee engagement tool keeps managers hooked on many features. UnderstandBetter comes with a horde of features.

Features

• Automated reports to identify any loopholes in your business functions. Receive them instantly on the dashboard for managers
• Generate customized appreciation cards; Peek Emails to highlight when an employee needs your immediate attention
• Drill-down reports that make information easy to find and can be exported in multiple formats, including a PPT

Pricing

It is free to use for up to 20 people. No credit card is needed to sign up. Then, there is a charge of USD 2 per person per month after that.

Reviews

UnderstandBetter has a 5-star rating on G2.

5. Energage

This SaaS solution offers four tools from one unified platform to hire and retain the ideal candidates. Energage has studied global organizations for 15 years to know what works for employee engagement.

Features

• Workplace surveys that help you evaluate your company's culture and gather employee feedback
• Gather actionable insights from the collected employee survey data
• Reveal your USPs from employee surveys, form a branding image that draws the right talent

Pricing

Connect with Energage’s team or request a demo.

Reviews

Energage has a rating of 4.6 on G2, 9.2 on TrustRadius, and 4.5 on GetApp.

Communication platform

1. Amber by Infeedo.ai

With a horde of features to resolve all your employee engagement woes, Amber can be your Chief Listening Officer. She is an AI-enabled chatbot that serves you as tools for engagement and analytics.

Features

• Automated surveys like pulse surveys, eNPS, and exit and anonymous surveys
• Fully customized to suit your business needs
• Personalized engagement with your employees to identify the at-risk employees and offer areas for improvement for you, the leaders, to work on
• Analytics dashboard that gives you access to critical insights in real-time

2. Glint

A people-oriented engagement tool with an easy-to-use interface. Glint offers the following features:

Features

• A single platform to capture and display crucial insights from all feedback programs
• Pulse, 360-degree surveys taken and recorded in real-time
• Employee lifecycle, KPI and targets management

Pricing

You can book a demo or contact their team for a quote. They don't charge a setup fee but also don't offer a free trial.

Reviews

Glint enjoys a rating of 5 stars on GetApp and 4.5 on G2.

3. Workday Peakon Employee Voice (Peakon)

A continuous listening platform, Workday Peakon helps you enhance employee engagement and productivity by providing real-time insights that help you take corrective action.

Features

• In-depth information on their feelings and concerns while maintaining complete confidentiality of conversations 
• Fully automated surveys and customized dashboards
• Use your competitors' performance benchmarks to determine your company's KPIs 

Pricing

View Peakon’s demo or connect with their team to get a quote.

Reviews

The platform boasts a rating of 4.6 on G2, 3.86 on SoftwareAdvice, 9.7 on TrustRadius, and 4.5 on Gartner.

4. Zoho HR Analytics

Zoho HR Analytics offers solutions for hiring, onboarding, to exits. You can analyze your screening for quality loopholes and areas for improvement.

Features

• Reduce early attrition with advanced analytics for onboarding
• Observe applicant info with in-depth reports and hire the best candidates who look promising
• Develop strategies and boost employee engagement through personalized incentives

Pricing

Zoho Analytics’ pricing starts at USD 30 for the basic plan going up to USD 575 for the enterprise version for big companies.

Reviews

It enjoys a 4.3 rating on G2, 4.4 on GetApp and Capterra, and 4.37 on SoftwareAdvice. 

5. Phia by Peoplehum

PeopleHum is an award-winning platform for human capital management. Its digital employee-oriented assistant, Phia, covers all modules of HR, from pre-boarding and onboarding to employee engagement.

Features

• Employee engagement AI-powered conversational interface. It offers surveys, ideation campaigns, recognitions, suggestions, and interactive task completion.
• A full-fledged staff portal where your employees can check their leaves, attendance, holiday calendar, and co-worker profiles and apply for leaves
• DocuSense for uploading and searching specific content from documents on policies, compliance, and guidelines. It interprets employee queries and generates appropriate answers.

Pricing

PeopleHum's plans start at USD 2 per employee per month.

Reviews

PeopleHum's easy-to-use software has a rating of 4.5 on G2.

R&R Platform

1. Bonus.ly

Targeted at the disengaged employees who can incur severe losses for your company, Bonus.ly promises to boost your employee engagement rate by up to 60%.

Features

• Access all your R&R programs from an easy-to-manage platform
• Engages your employees on an individual level and encourage them to recognize their colleagues’ contribution through small monthly rewards
• Bonuses awarded are displayed in a public feed for wider recognition

Pricing

Bonus.ly’s pricing start at USD 2.70 for the basic Core plan and USD 4.50 for Pro per month per user billed annually. You can also request a demo to get a customized plan built for your company.

Reviews

Bonus.ly has a 4.8 rating on G2, SoftwareAdvice, Capterra and GetApp.

2. Empuls.io

Empuls.io simplifies rewards for managers and employees. It is a great tool for organizations facing a low engagement rate.

Features

• An extensive rewards catalog offering 21,000+ gift cards across more than 20 categories and available in over 75 countries
• Easily integrable with MS Teams, Slack, and many HRMS tools like Gusto, Keka, Darwinbox, and Zoho People 
• Digital rewards for your remote teams

Pricing

Empuls’ pricing begins with the Starter plan at USD 2 and Proficient at USD 5 per employee per month billed annually. You can talk to their sales team for a custom-built plan.

Reviews

Empuls.io has a 4.5 rating on Capterra and GetApp and 4.48 on SoftwareAdvice.

3. Joinassembly.co 

You can enhance your employees’ loyalty and engagement and improve their overall experience from a single platform with Joinassembly.co.

Features

• Organize your workflows; add structure, visibility and consistency from a single platform
• Encourage your employees to nominate their peers to recognize their achievements
• Over 1,000 gift cards and personalized culture rewards and reward points

Pricing 

You can enjoy Joinassembly’s free starter plan or select from Lite at USD 2.80 or Standard at USD 4.50 per employee per month billed annually. Or you can book a demo for the custom plan.

Reviews

Joinassembly.co enjoys a 4.7 rating on Capterra and GetApp.

Gamification platform

1. Trivie.com

Trivie focuses on engagement, employee retention, and measuring the effects. They offer a learning platform for upskilling employees.

Features

• AI-enabled personalized training content 
• Attention-grabbing gaming features like badges and leaderboards to keep your employees engaged
• Customization is available for the platform to match your brand

Pricing

Try Trivie’s free trial or a team plan for USD 499, business at USD 999, or a large company plan for USD 1,499 per month billed annually.

Reviews

Trivie boasts a rating of 4.8 on G2, 8.6 on Capterra, and 4.77 on SoftwareAdvice.

2. Engagedly.com

As the name suggests, Engagedly engages your employees at every level. It makes work and learning interesting to boost your employees' job satisfaction.

Features

• Gamification platform that enables badges, points, and a leaderboard to add a streak of healthy competition to the workplace
• Select from system and custom badges, intuitive scoring tool, recognizing the efforts of peers, and rewarding them from the gift card catalog
• Engagement surveys are also available, offering demographic level reporting, engagement index and favorability score to know what your employees think of your initiatives

Pricing

Engagedly’s annual agreement begins at USD 5,000 and offers three plans: Practitioner, Leader, and Champion.

Reviews

Engagedly boasts a 9.1 rating on TrustRadius, 4.7 on Capterra and GetApp, and 4.4 on G2.

What is the need for employee engagement tools?

• Better monitoring leads to enhanced employee productivity.
• Job satisfaction scores improve.
• Enhanced communication among employees and managers leads to better work collaboration and performance.
• Higher job satisfaction improves employee retention.
• Leaders can do better employee performance management.

Organizations using employee engagement tools

Arby's, Cheesecake Factory, and Hyatt are known to be employee-focused organizations. They have empowered their employees and given them the freedom to be themselves in front of customers. Arby's had also taken their employees' views to overcome a challenging time, thus empowering them and generating a sense of belonging.

Besides, Google conducted four experiments to connect with their employees at their workplaces and increased their productivity by 12%.

Only 34% of the American workforce feels engaged today. Knowing that engaged employees are up to 87% less likely to quit has piqued the interest of HR leaders like you in employee engagement tools. Yet, few companies use technology that supports employee engagement. With the onset of employee-focused business functioning, this trend is bound to change.