Best Employee Experience Software Shortlist
Here’s the list of the best employee experience software solutions I’ll cover in this article, with detailed summaries below:
- 5. Motivosity — Best employee experience software for linking employee recognition to company culture
- 7. Awardco — Best employee experience software for recognizing employees with a point-based reward system
In any business, your employees are your most valuable asset and probably your biggest expense. It costs a lot to recruit and train employees, so you naturally want them to be happy, productive, and committed for the long term.
But in today’s competitive environment, retaining good staff is hard. That’s why more and more companies are turning to employee experience software for help. These software apps help you increase employee satisfaction, leading to employees who love their jobs—and bottom-line profits that take care of themselves.
In this article, I’ve reviewed the premier employee engagement software systems on the market today. I’ll show you my top picks and explain what each does best.
Comparison Criteria
Wondering what I look for when selecting the best employee engagement software for this list? Here’s a summary of my evaluation and selection criteria:
- User Interface (UI): I look for employee experience software that fits naturally into the flow of a typical workday.
- Usability: I’m seeking software that team members at all levels can get to grips with easily.
- Integrations: I look for tight integrations with popular business platforms.
- Value for $: I chose software that makes economic sense for companies both large and small.
Employee Experience Software: Key Features
Here are the key features I look for when evaluating employee experience software:
- Employee surveys: Polling employees to get a better understanding of their feelings and viewpoints
- Real-time feedback: Rapid two-way communication to accelerate improvement and problem-solving
- Multi-channel capabilities: Connecting with employees via both desktop and mobile, using channels they are familiar with
- Staff segmentation: The ability to send communications to individual employees, whole teams, or the entire organization
- AI-driven content recommendations: Providing topic suggestions based on employee interests and engagement data
- Enterprise-wide search capabilities: Enabling employees to find the information they need, from HR department policies to product data
- Branding: The option to incorporate the company’s branding to reflect values and identity
- Reporting tools: Analytics that give management clear insights into issues that need attention
Overviews of the 10 Best Employee Experience Software
Here’s a brief description of each employee experience software system that showcases each system’s best use case, and their noteworthy features. I've also included screenshots to give you a snapshot of their user interface too.
Trakstar
Best employee experience software for linking employee engagement and performance
Trakstar is a cloud-based talent development platform for HR professionals. It's equipped with a variety of tools and features designed to help attract and retain top talent, as well as engage with and develop the entire workforce. Trakstar is comprised of different modules, including performance management (Trakstar Perform), applicant tracking (Trakstar Hire), learning management (Trakstar Learn), and workforce analytics (Trakstar Insights).
Trakstar’s performance management software has the required features to serve multiple purposes, including managing performance and engagement. With Perform, HR teams and managers can use tools like performance reviews, 360-degree online feedback, employee surveys, and goal setting tools to measure engagement, evaluate performance, and find solutions to improve their employee experience in general. Other key features include self-reviews, tracking with real-time reporting, and flexible reporting stacked with rich data to help determine the top performers. The software also comes with automated email notifications, check-ins, and note taking features.
Their 360-degree performance review module allows managers to pre-select who will have access to 360-degree feedback by incorporating it directly into the performance review workflow. With this tool, managers are able to set and update goals while keeping track of the progress and performance of employees throughout the year.
Trakstar’s employee survey software is another tool that plays a significant role in measuring and improving employee engagement and performance. It offers a library that contains a broad range of survey questions that are ready to use. HR managers can create and automatically send surveys on various topics or they can choose to create custom surveys to fulfill a specific data requirement.
Trakstar integrates with 25+ popular software systems including ADP Workforce Now, BambooHR, Google Workspace, Namely, Office365, Okta, OneLogin, Salesforce, Slack, UKG Pro, and Zoom.
Trakstar offers customized pricing details and a free demo upon request.
Mo
Best employee experience software for enabling peer-to-peer recognition
Mo, which is short for Moments, is an employee experience platform that helps organizations bring people together, improve their engagement levels, recognize their top performers, and build high-performing teams. Their core features include peer-to-peer recognition, a wide variety of rewards, and tools to help managers promote team-wide engagement. It's also available across 26 countries and in 12 languages, making them a great choice for multi-national organizations.
Busy managers will appreciate their performance-enhancing automation called Boosts, which prompts them to post wins, recognition, and key results, on a regular basis. This works in tandem with their Assistant tool, which reminds leaders of upcoming employee occasions like birthdays and work anniversaries. Together, these features help your leaders create a more consistent employee experience across your company.
Staff at any level can create and share a Moment to celebrate peer or team achievements or communicate important company updates. You can also tag each Moment with your company's core values to help celebrate your corporate culture and incentivize positive behaviors with on-the-spot rewards.
An optional add-on is their rewards offering, which you can use to create a customizable rewards & recognition program internally. Mo offers rewards from a wide variety of top brands, including Amazon, Doordash, Uber, Starbucks, and ASOS, which are easily redeemable online.
Other features include sophisticated budget management functionalities and analytics, so you can control your spending, run reports, keep your accounting team happy, and analyze the success of your employee engagement efforts. Employees can also create vibrant personal profiles where they can share their working preferences, hobbies, and interests, enabling employees to connect over common ground.
Integrations are available with popular communication tools and email systems, as well as with Microsoft Teams, Slack, and single sign-on providers. Mo is also GDPR compliant and secure (ISO 27001 accredited).
Pricing for Mo Work starts at $3/user/month. You can also request a free demo through their website.
Trinet
Best for its robust mobile app
TriNet offers HR software designed to help small to medium-sized businesses manage their HR functions. It's best for businesses looking for an all-in-one HR platform that includes benefits administration, payroll, compliance, and employee engagement tools.
I picked TriNet as the best Employee Experience Software because it offers a comprehensive suite of features that help businesses take care of their employees, from onboarding to offboarding. TriNet's focus on compliance and benefits administration also sets it apart from other HR software providers.
As a comprehensive HR platform that includes compliance management and benefits administration, its employee engagement tools and performance management features are also great for businesses looking to improve their employee experience. While there are other HR software providers on the market, TriNet's focus on compliance and benefits administration really sets it apart.
Features include an employee perks program, global payroll solution, compliance with local tax laws and regulations, vendor perks and deals, payroll management system, custom rewards, a variety of payment options, and recognition programs.
Integrations include QuickBooks, Oracle NetSuite, Sage Intacct, BambooHR, Lattice, Greenhouse Software, Carta, and Xero
PerformYard
Best employee experience software for fostering quality feedback and conversations
PerformYard’s employee experience and evaluation software provides flexible features that help HR teams create a simple employee experience. With PerformYard, your HR team will get the tools they need to build out their employee evaluation strategies and employees get a streamlined experience so they can focus on quality feedback and effective performance discussions.
PerformYard focuses on providing a flexible employee evaluation solution that you can customize to fit the strategy that’s right for your organization: 360s, project-based reviews, ratings scales, continuous feedback, and/or cascading goals.
PerformYard facilitates feedback and quality conversations and doesn’t try to insert itself at every opportunity or replace important conversations. PerformYard provides dedicated customer success managers for every customer. From onboarding, to employee training, to ongoing support, you’ll have someone at your side to help.
PerformYard integrates with most major HRIS/payroll systems including ADP, BambooHR, Gusto, Rippling, UKG, Paycom, Workday, and Paylocity.
PerformYard costs from $5-$10/user/month.
Motivosity
Best employee experience software for linking employee recognition to company culture
Motivosity is a cloud-based employee experience tool that offers various recognition and evaluation features to help improve engagement, overall performance, and satisfaction.
The cloud-based solution provides users access to staff engagement, P2P recognition, incentives, and rewards within a unified platform. There is an intuitive dashboard that can be customized to track multiple teams' and individuals' performance and progress. With peer-to-peer recognition, the software provides a social platform for employees to recognize each other’s efforts and performance, enabling organizations to increase employee engagement and satisfaction.
There is a mobile app and Slack/Teams integration that is easy to use and equipped with a user interface that works similarly to most enterprise software solutions and/or social networks. It adds to the overall user experience, which impacts engagement and satisfaction. It also means employees are getting recognized and rewarded monetarily by their colleagues.
Core features include employee feedback collection, peer-to-peer social recognition, gift card management, and monetary reward management.
Motivosity has four main products: Connect is free, Recognize starts from $4, Lead at $5, and Listen at $2 per person/month, all billed annually.
Leapsome
Best employee experience software for employee surveys on job satisfaction topics
Leapsome is a cloud-based platform that offers employee performance management, engagement surveys, and personalized learning and development solutions for businesses.
Leapsome is a comprehensive HR platform that helps businesses enhance employee performance, engagement, and development. The platform offers a range of tools, including performance management, engagement surveys, and personalized learning and development solutions, that are designed to support HR teams and managers in creating a positive workplace culture and empowering employees to reach their full potential. With Leapsome, businesses can set and track goals, provide regular feedback and recognition, conduct surveys to gather employee feedback and insights, and offer customized learning and development programs.
Leapsome offers several features that make it a valuable tool for improving employee experience and engagement, including performance management tools that enable employees to set and track goals, receive regular feedback and recognition, and access personalized learning and development opportunities. Additionally, the platform offers pulse surveys and engagement surveys to gather employee feedback and insights, as well as analytics and reporting tools that enable businesses to identify areas for improvement and track progress over time. Leapsome also provides customizable employee development plans, career pathing, and skill assessments to support employee growth and development.
Leapsome offers a range of employee engagement surveys that enable businesses to gather feedback and insights from their employees. These surveys are customizable and cover various topics, such as job satisfaction, communication, leadership, and work-life balance. The platform provides pre-built templates for different survey types, including pulse surveys, employee satisfaction surveys, and 360-degree feedback surveys.
Leapsome integrates with Workday, BambooHR, Personio, Slack, MS Teams, Jira Software, calendar apps, and more.
Leapsome costs from $8/user/month and offers a 14-day free trial.
Awardco
Best employee experience software for recognizing employees with a point-based reward system
Awardco brings everything you love about Amazon into a platform for recognition, culture, and experience. Having an official partnership with Amazon Business, Awardco provides millions of reward choices, lower vendor fees, and dollar-for-dollar spend to your organization.
Many companies are dealing with high turnover in an ultra-competitive labor market. Customers like Ford, JPMorgan Chase, Pinterest, and Chick-fil-A use Awardco to build culture and retain the people they can’t afford to lose. Awardco is best for organizations with over 100 employees, Awardco helps build world-class programs that make a big impact on the bottom line.
With Awardco, companies cut down on expensive vendor costs, admins save time on manual tasks, and employees have better experiences—from onboarding to anniversaries.
Awardco integrates with many tools including SAML 2, and has various integrations with OKTA, Google, and single sign-on is an option.
Awardco offers customized pricing upon request.
Hub
Best for employee engagement within an intranet system
Hub is an employee engagement solution within a broader intranet system that includes communications management and other workplace management tools. The engagement platform is designed to support team collaboration, gather employee feedback, facilitate employee recognition, and build social connections.
Users can create personalized employee profiles, send out surveys and quizzes to measure engagement levels, design automated onboarding processes, and implement recognition programs using the software. The goal-setting feature helps track employee growth and performance, and the internal communications features keep information streamlined across teams and departments. Pre-built management reports offer an overview of employee engagement levels so company leadership can adjust internal processes as needed.
Standout features of the platform include an activity feed, group forums and workspaces, messaging, task management, and employee rewards and recognition. The platform integrates with Gmail, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Outlook, and Sharepoint.
Pricing is available upon request and a free demo can be requested through the website.
Kudos
Best employee experience software for multiple levels of employee recognition
Kudos is an employee culture, engagement, and analytics tool for creating a more engaged workforce. Based on peer-to-peer recognition, it aims to reinforce values and enhance internal communications. Managers can analyze core metrics on performance, equity and inclusion.
Distinct levels of recognition and gamification are used to highlight incremental levels of performance. Each recognition message is linked to the organization's core values for maximum alignment. Incentives can be personalized to celebrate key individual or team achievements.
This employee engagement tool integrates with popular business tools such as Slack, Workday, and Microsoft Teams.
Kudos offers customized pricing on request.
Workday Peakon
Best employee experience software for intelligent employee listening
Peakon by Workday is an employee success platform focused on converting feedback into actionable insights. Feedback is collected in real-time, analyzed, and delivered to management. Other features include personalized training, pulse surveys, and recommended action plans.
This intelligent employee listening platform helps team members voice their opinions and frustrations. Managers can monitor the datasets to surface the most critical issues and streamline operations. Contextualized benchmarks show how the organization is progressing compared to competitors.
The software integrates readily with business platforms such as Personio, Sapling, Azure AD, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.
Peakon by Workday offers customized pricing on request.
Need Expert Help Selecting The Right Employee Engagement Software?
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The 10 Best Employee Experience Software Systems Comparison Chart
This comparison chart summarizes basic details about each of my top employee experience software selections. You can view pricing details and the availability of free trials or demos side-by-side to help you find the best software for your budget.
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Trakstar Best employee experience software for linking employee engagement and performance | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
2 | Mo Best employee experience software for enabling peer-to-peer recognition | Free demo available | From $3/user/month | Visit Website |
3 | Trinet Best for its robust mobile app | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
4 | PerformYard Best employee experience software for fostering quality feedback and conversations | Free demo available | From $5-$10/user/month | Visit Website |
5 | Motivosity Best employee experience software for linking employee recognition to company culture | Free demo available | From $2 to $5/user/month depending on product chosen | Visit Website |
6 | Leapsome Best employee experience software for employee surveys on job satisfaction topics | 14-day free trial | From $8/user/month | Visit Website |
7 | Awardco Best employee experience software for recognizing employees with a point-based reward system | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
8 | Hub Best for employee engagement within an intranet system | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
9 | Kudos Best employee experience software for multiple levels of employee recognition | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
10 | Workday Peakon Best employee experience software for intelligent employee listening | Not available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here are a few more worthwhile options that didn’t make the best employee experience software shortlist:
- 15Five
Best employee experience software for a holistic, growth-focused approach
- TINYpulse Engage
Best employee experience software for continuous, transparent feedback
- Qualtrics Employee Experience
Best employee experience software for gathering continuous feedback from employees
- Fond
Best employee experience software for creating a culture of employee recognition
- Workhuman
Best employee experience software for improving employee retention
- ChartHop
Best employee experience software for visualizing your workforce data
- Lattice
Best employee experience software for developing high-performance teams
- Guusto
Best employee experience software for promoting peer-to-peer engagement
- ClearCompany
Best employee experience software for engagement surveys and performance-based rewards
- Enboarder
Best for experience driven communication workflows
Related Read: 10 Best Employee Evaluation Software For Performance Reviews & Recognition
What Are Employee Experience Tools (EX Tools)?
Employee experience tools help companies retain staff, raise productivity and improve overall business performance. They aim to make team members feel valued and important, while also ensuring that concerns and ideas are noted.
The software may include features to collect feedback and help employees find the information they need. This results in a positive feedback loop that creates a win-win scenario for management and employees.
Related Read: HR Software: What It Costs And How To Decide What’s Best For Your Company
Final Thoughts
Now you’ve seen my choices for the best employee experience software, did I hit the target or miss by a mile? Let us know in the comments section below. Also, remember to sign up for our newsletter, so you get the latest insights on how top professionals manage their teams.
I recommend that you also check out our articles on why now is the time to focus on employee experience and how to maximize the power of HR through the lens of the employee experience. There’s always something new here at People Managing People, so be sure to check back often.
Also Worth Checking Out:
- 35 Employee Engagement Ideas (Including Remote-Specific)
- 10 Best Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Software Vendors
- 4 Fun Ways To Showcase Your Personality Through Employee Recognition
- 10 Best BambooHR Competitors & Alternatives: Compared and Reviewed
- How To Maximize Employee Engagement In This New World
- Essential Performance Review Phrases And Best Practices