Monitoring and improving employee engagement is easier than ever. There are lots of employee engagement tools, software and platforms that you can implement to keep tabs on your workforce engagement. From instant messaging platforms to automated employee engagement surveys, we’ll cover the top employee engagement tools to implement in your strategy.
Benefits of Employee Engagement Tools
Employee engagement tools allow organizations to proactively improve the workplace so that employees look forward to work and feel fulfilled in their jobs. Using these tools, employers can send out periodic surveys and track the progress of initiatives to address employees’ feedback.
Employee engagement tools open new communication channels and enhance collaboration. Checking in on team members helps them feel valued, appreciated and respected. Demonstrating compassion will help you win over and retain top talent; roughly 70 percent of employees and HR professionals surveyed said empathetic organizations make employees feel more motivated.
Employee engagement software can also make teams more efficient. Many of these platforms give teams the ability to set and track goals, as well as hold themselves and others accountable for the project tasks they’re assigned. They can even help with morale and relationship building by establishing systems for managers to recognize and reward employees and for coworkers to celebrate one another’s personal and professional achievements.
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Best Employee Engagement Survey Software
When organizations collect and act on employee feedback, they show employees that their voices matter and encourage them to remain active participants in the workplace. This, in turn, can lessen the risk of employees being burned out or seeking out another job.
Annual reviews are not enough. Fortunately, soliciting feedback from your employees no longer requires a town hall meeting or hours of your managers’ time. Below are seven well-known software examples for administering and analyzing employee engagement surveys.
1. Culture Amp
Culture Amp helps employers understand what matters to employees and immediately take action. It allows employers to create custom employee feedback programs, administer employee engagement surveys and compare results against top companies in their industry.
Templated questions make it easy to develop surveys, but employers also have the ability to tailor questions to specific teams. Culture Amp then analyzes responses to quantify results for the entire workforce and provides recommendations on how employers should prioritize their efforts. The platform’s reporting feature makes it easy to identify your team’s drivers of employee engagement and act on them.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.6/5 (677 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.7/5 (106 reviews)
2. 15Five
15Five allows employers to send weekly check-in engagement surveys that help identify points of weakness within the company. The data can then be leveraged during one-on-ones. 15Five was named as such because it takes 15 minutes for employees to complete a survey and five minutes for managers to review and comment on the responses. Employers can utilize the platform’s prompts to customize the survey specifically for their team.
The platform helps managers prioritize employee reviews and recognition. Additionally, managers are prompted to set team priorities at the start of each quarter, and then track progress weekly to keep their reports on target. The “Best-Self Review” urges managers to focus on their employees’ growth and development quarterly, which fosters their engagement.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.6/5 (1,759 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.7/5 (881 reviews)
3. Betterworks
Betterworks gives employers the tools to conduct regular surveys and pulse polls to stay informed on their team’s engagement levels. The Bettworks Engage product uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to extract insights from employee responses, and there are visualizations for analyzing the data to make informed decisions about employee engagement strategy.
The company’s Conversations product allows for discussions between managers and their direct reports as part of the performance review process. It also offers a view of employee goals, progress, feedback and engagement to complement the dialogue. There are templates and best practices to help managers ensure quality conversations.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.3/5 (187 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 3.9/5 (19 reviews)
4. Officevibe
Officevibe allows employers to automatically send weekly anonymous surveys to gather data on employees’ engagement levels, what they’re dissatisfied with and how leadership can take steps to improve. Managers can analyze their team’s data and are offered advice from experts on how to address problem areas.
The employee engagement survey questions can be formatted as a numerical scale, a Likert scale or open-ended questions. Employers also have the opportunity to create custom polls that pertain to specific company events or projects.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.3/5 (706 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5 (51 reviews)
5. TINYPulse
TINYPulse interacts with employees at every stage of the employee lifecycle to gather feedback and offer suggestions to improve communication, employee recognition and engagement levels. The platform sends a weekly, anonymous, one-question survey to the entire team to help employers regularly measure employee engagement. The platform collects and analyzes responses as soon as they are submitted.
Employees have the opportunity to offer anonymous suggestions to the company. Employers can respond directly to these messages without revealing the employee’s identity, which promotes problem-solving without compromising anonymity.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.4/5 (214 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5 (46 reviews)
6. Achievers
Achievers offers employers a comprehensive employee engagement solution through Achievers Listen and Achievers Recognize. Achievers Listen makes it easy to send regular employee engagement pulse surveys and check in on your team members through visual polling features. The platform then offers up suggestions for improvement.
Achievers Recognition uses a points-based program to engage employees and reward them for their contributions. It integrates with social channels to promote recognition with employee spotlights, which helps build your employer brand.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.6/5 (170 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 (13 reviews)
7. 6Q
Using 6Q, leaders can ask their employees six questions — hence, 6Q — each week, making it easy to keep a pulse on employee engagement without significantly cutting into work time. Questions can be answered anonymously, or responses can be tracked individually.
After 24 hours, 6Q analyzes and reports on the survey responses and offers segmentation based on location or department. Leaders then have the opportunity to compare their results against other organizations and access a resource library for tips on how to make improvements. 6Q also includes an employee recognition feature to encourage peer-to-peer appreciation.
G2 Crowd Rating: 3.8/5 (2 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 5/5 (1 review)
Best Employee Engagement Tools for Project Management
Project management tools empower employees to own their role, providing them autonomy over how they spend their time in the office while ensuring deadlines are met. Utilizing a task management platform also improves communication between team members and gives employees insight into how their work influences the success of larger projects.
Ultimately, this will help employees engage more meaningfully with their work. Below are five project management tools to boost employee engagement.
8. ProofHub
ProofHub is a project planning software that serves as a centralized workspace team members can use to share documents, follow task lists and monitor timelines. The platform streamlines communication, improves accountability, encourages collaboration and makes individual progress visible. Employees can clearly see how their work impacts the project’s success and contributes to the organization’s broader goals.
ProofHub also boasts reporting capabilities so teams can track their success and identify areas for improvement. The software is cloud-based, which eliminates bulky implementation processes and ensures important information is routinely backed up. It also integrates with additional apps to adapt to your team’s needs.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.5/5 (82 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5 (84 reviews)
9. Monday.com
Monday.com’s intuitive work management platform makes it easy for teams to collaborate. Through boards and groups, teams can visually segment projects in accordance with broader goals and objectives.
Monday.com also utilizes automations that allow team members to follow a task’s progress and be notified when it’s their turn to jump in. Clear handoffs between employees hold individuals accountable while simultaneously encouraging teamwork. Employees can also customize how they view a board so it’s intuitive to them.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.7/5 (8,617 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5 (4,169 reviews)
10. Trello
Trello utilizes lists and task cards to outline the workflow for a given project. Cards contain every detail needed to complete the project, including a task list, project description, due date and list of team members. Employees can comment on tasks to share updates or ask questions, housing all relevant communication in one place so each team member stays informed.
Employees manually move tasks from one stage of the production cycle to the next, represented as lists. This urges individuals to take ownership of their role and communicate with one another. Plus, it reinforces the sweet satisfaction of completing an assignment.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.4/5 (13,369 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 (22,698 reviews)
11. Weekdone
Weekdone is a progress and productivity tracking platform that improves communication between employees and their managers. Ahead of each week, employees complete their profile with plans for the week, project statuses and report any recent obstacles to their success, whether internal or client-facing.
Managers can track their direct reports’ progress toward goals and recognize achievements. Weekdone has managers set team goals that align with the company’s vision and inform each weekly plan. This instills a sense of purpose in employees that surpasses standard profit goals, which has a positive impact on employee engagement.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.1/5 (36 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 (60 reviews)
12. Teamwork
Teamwork provides a suite of products that improve efficiency, collaboration, transparency and communication within teams. Employees can include everything from timelines to task details in project outlines, and seamlessly communicate with team members.
Managers get visibility into who’s working on what and can easily track project statuses. They can also view projects at a glance to help with prioritization, hone in on individual responsibilities and collect feedback to ensure the team is set up for success. Real-time and customized reports help you understand what’s working and how you can continually improve.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.4/5 (1,044 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 (821 reviews)
Best Employee Engagement Tools for Recognition
It’s long been known that recognizing employees for their contributions and achievements has a positive impact on engagement levels. When employee recognition is done right, employees are five times more likely to feel connected to the company’s culture.
Whether positive or negative, feedback should be timely, which is why acknowledging an employee’s accomplishments shouldn’t wait until their annual review. The following three platforms offer an easier way to make employee recognition a priority.
13. Reward Gateway
Reward Gateway includes an employee recognition program managers can use to acknowledge their reports’ major achievements and team members can use to congratulate or thank their colleagues on a job well done. This encourages a culture of compassion and shows employees they’re valued by every member of the team.
The platform includes a communication feature for company-wide announcements and private conversations between team members. This helps promote transparency and employee connections. Reward Gateway also offers survey tools so employers can regularly measure employee engagement and track progress.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.5/5 (119 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 (298 reviews)
14. Worktango
WorkTango’s platform allows for peer-to-peer, top-down and bottom-up recognition. Its Recognition & Rewards feature lets employees earn redeemable points and tokens, and people can leave comments, emojis and high-fives to amplify recognition. Points can be exchanged for gift cards, travel, ticketed experiences, charitable donations and more. The platform isn’t just for recognition based on performance or company values — it can also be used to celebrate birthdays and other significant milestones or to establish custom recognition programs.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.6/5 (643 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.9/5 (129 reviews)
15. Kudos
Kudos encourages leaders to celebrate and recognize major wins, as well as their employees’ value-based achievements. Employees earn points for their accomplishments, which they can later cash in for a reward. Employers have the option of awarding gift cards, company-branded swag, local gift certificates, extra PTO and more.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.8/5 (1,263 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.8/5 (1,043 reviews)
Best Employee Engagement Tools for Project Management
The opportunity to provide feedback is important to employees, but they also want to receive feedback from their managers regularly. Again, annual performance reviews aren’t frequent enough to be beneficial: A Betterworks survey found “employees who check in more frequently on goals and growth were less likely to say they are looking for work.” These performance management platforms make it easy for managers to routinely provide feedback and coach their direct reports toward their goals.
16. Reflektive
Reflektive serves as a one-stop-shop for performance management and employee feedback. Managers can help their direct reports set individual goals that encourage continuous employee development. They can also set team goals so employees are always aware of what they’re working toward.
Managers can easily create review cycles for performance reviews, 360 reviews and simple check-ins. Frequent conversations build trust between managers and employees and naturally encourage coaching opportunities that can lead to major career developments. Employers can also send quick, anonymous surveys to take stock of their team’s engagement levels.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.2/5 (429 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.2/5 (20 reviews)
17. Lattice
Lattice’s continuous performance management model encourages managers to provide employees with regular feedback. The platform integrates with several commonly used apps so it’s easy for managers to send timely feedback to their direct reports. Managers can work with employees to set goals, track progress, set up one-on-ones and review employee engagement survey results.
For the HR team, Lattice makes it easy to import people data from a human resources information system and track key engagement metrics, as well as set up goal-based review cycles that help evaluate the health of your organization.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.7/5 (3,715 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 (112 reviews)
Best Employee Engagement Tools for Communication
Making it easy for employees to communicate with one another, check in with their manager and receive updates from the company is important to fostering meaningful engagement. From video conferencing software to email platforms, here are some of the best employee engagement tools for internal communication.
18. Slack
Slack equips teams with a single platform for real-time communication. When an email is liable to get buried in an inbox, direct messages make it easy for employees to chat one-on-one with their teammates or manager.
Through channels, employers can send important information to the entire office, a single department or the whole leadership team. Channels also afford the opportunity for concise side conversations that foster personal relationships between coworkers without interfering with business announcements.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.5/5 (31,692 review)
Capterra Rating: 4.7/5 (23,077 reviews)
19. Google Meet
If you’re already using Gmail, Google Meet is a seamless integration for online video calls, making it easy to quickly connect with employees across the office or across the country. Plus, with completely free calls to other users, remote employees can stay connected without paying data or voice coverage fees. Anyone who has a Google account can set up a video meeting of as many as 100 participants who can access the call on their desktop computer or via an app.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.6/5 (1,357 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 (11,602 reviews)
20. Zoom Video Conferencing
With Zoom, teams can connect face-to-face, even if they’re miles apart. The video conferencing software also boasts voice and instant messaging features so teams can communicate through whatever channel suits their needs.
As a cloud-based solution, Zoom Rooms provide organizations with the resources to host conference calls with individuals across different geographical locations and offices. Collaborative tools such as whiteboarding and screen sharing improve communication.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.5/5 (53,530 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5 (13,636 reviews)
21. MailChimp
MailChimp is an all-in-one email marketing platform that’s most frequently utilized for client communications. But its intuitive design features and affordable pricing make it an option for sharing company updates internally.
Whether you choose to deploy quarterly reports about the business or weekly team newsletters, a mass internal email improves top-down communication and boosts transparency. Ensuring all team members are privy to the same pertinent information will also build trust and camaraderie between employees.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.3/5 (12,371 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 (16,302 reviews)
Bonus Employee Engagement Tools
To round out your employee engagement tech stack, utilize the following additional tools to establish a comprehensive strategy to improve employee engagement. These will help you support a team of happy and healthy employees who are passionate about the work they do.
22. Limeade Well-Being
In addition to its employee engagement platform, Limeade also offers Limeade Well-Being, an employee wellness platform that caters to the whole individual. The platform includes a well-being assessment and pulse surveys to better understand your organization’s needs. From there, Limeade provides an activity library, personalized recommendations and rewards. The platform also helps coordinate sponsored activities that support a positive work culture.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.4/5 (45 reviews)
23. Qualtrics EmployeeXM
Qualtrics EmployeeXM offers various tools that enable companies to evaluate their employee experience. Over the course of five stages and the entire employee lifecycle, the platform offers robust pulse survey capabilities, training optimization resources, onboarding assistance and a unique exit feedback system. These features ensure every aspect of your organization remains healthy and productive.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.4/5 (443 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.7/5 (71 reviews)
24. Energage
Energage is a platform intended to assess and improve company culture. Through a comprehensive 10-minute workplace survey, employers can understand what drives and resonates with employees, as well as how they perceive the company’s type of organizational culture. Pulse surveys also make it easy to track how the culture evolves over time. Leverage this data within the platform to build out your employer branding strategy and attract more engaged employees.
G2 Crowd Rating: 4.6/5 (99 reviews)
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 (39 reviews)
Whichever employee engagement tools you choose to implement in your office, it’s vital that your team regularly measures employee engagement. In order to make improvements and engage your team on a deeper level, you must first understand your shortcomings.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is an employee engagement tool?
An employee engagement tool is software that allows companies to monitor and improve employee sentiment by gathering employee feedback and tracking the progress of initiatives meant to address that feedback. These tools range from employee survey software to communication platforms.
Why is employee engagement important?
Employee engagement is important because high engagement levels lead to better productivity, stronger employee retention, reduced turnover and greater company profits.
