The Best Employee Communication Software
Here’s a shortlist of the best employee communication software I’ll discuss in this article:
- monday.com
Best for employee communication around tasks & projects
- PeopleOne
Best for comprehensive corporate communications
- Workmates
Best newsfeed and announcements system
- Hub
Best for employee communications within an intranet
- Staffbase
Best for a mobile-first intranet
- Blink
Best for reaching a deskless workforce
- SnapComms
Best for mobile-friendly employee communication and engagement
- Happeo
Best channel-based communication
- Jive
Best for mapping team relationships
- HubEngage
Best for engagement and deep insights
Good communication between team members is critical to the productivity and success of any organization. Yet 60% of companies don’t have a long-term internal communication strategy in place. That's a risky position to be in, considering poor internal communication can reduce morale, lower employee productivity, and increase employee turnover.
Thankfully, there are many employee communication tools designed to help. Using them will improve your employee satisfaction and engagement, while also reducing inbox clutter. However, with so many options available, selecting the right fit for your team can be a challenge.
In this article, I'll review the top internal communication tools to help you find the right functionality for your needs.
Related Read: 10 Best Intranet Software Solutions To Connect Teams In 2023
Team Communication Software: Comparison Criteria
What do I look for when I select the best employee communication software? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- User Interface (UI): Employee communication tools will be used by every level of every department (ideally) so it must prioritize intuitiveness and user appeal that speaks to the masses.
- Usability: Will employees find it easy to use both in the office and while on the move? Does the onboarding, training and support work for employees at all levels?
- Integrations: Does the software connect easily to productivity and collaboration tools employees use every day? Are there existing integrations with popular workforce apps?
- Value for $: Does the pricing make sense on a per-employee basis for both small and large organizations? Is pricing clear, transparent, and easy for everyone to understand?
Internal Communication Software: Key Features
- Instant Messaging: the core feature of any communication software today is direct, instant messaging that allows team members to interact one-on-one or in groups
- Notifications: employees need clear notifications when messages are received or when relevant messages are posted in a group
- File sharing: this allows users to distribute files by sharing from the cloud or uploading from their device
- Status updates: team members should be able to leave a clear indication of their current availability
- Activity feed: this keeps employees up to date with messages sent to them personally or in their groups
- Search: users must be able to search for old messages by keyword and find them quickly
- Surveys and polls: managers can use interactive tools to canvas opinions and make informed team decisions
- Knowledge base: access to a company-wide knowledge base reduces repetitive questions and helps people find the information they need faster
Overviews Of The 10 Best Employee Communication Software
Here’s a brief description of each employee communication software to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the interface.
monday.com
Best for employee communication around tasks & projects
monday.com is marketing mainly as a workflow tool for scaling an organization, but they’ve also built in several HR features. They are not a pure HR software but it’s a useful tool with a lot of the basics, particularly when it comes to internal communications and collaboration (in which they very much excel).
monday.com can be your day-to-day workflow management tool for deadlines, HR workflows, and resource tracking with built-in communication features like commenting, approvals, @-tagging, notifications & alerts, customizable dashboards, a built-in inbox, social media-esc 'likes,' and email integration.
For the best employee communication functionality, take advantage of their 'docs' system, where you can build collaborative or read-only company manuals, checklists, or wikis. You can also build 'request forms' so that your employees have an easy way to report issues or new ideas right in the platform.
monday.com’s integrations include project management apps like Slack, Google Workspace, Gmail, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Typeform and many more, accessible through a paid plan with Zapier.
monday.com costs from $8/user/month and offers a free trial.
PeopleOne
Best for comprehensive corporate communications
PeopleOne is an employee communication and engagement platform that aims to improve internal communications. It comes with pre-defined features for HR, IT, facilities, and business teams, helping to deliver tailored news, holiday calendars, wellness information, events, and leadership communications. The software ensures clear ownership of content creation, permissions, and approval mechanisms.
This solution is a solid choice for corporate communications, as it can accommodate custom workflows to help organizations operate more effectively. Using Microsoft Office 365’s SharePoint, PeopleOne enables the distribution of corporate news, events, and announcements, while the document management system provides access to processes, policies, and procedures. Leaders can also use the software to connect with employees to share information, thoughts, and insights.
PeopleOne lets you customize your corporate branding, including the colors, logo, and themes, to create a sense of association with your organization for your employees. In addition to this, there are built-in themes available for different occasions and festivals to bring holidays cheer to every employee.
PeopleOne has pre-built integrations with major email and messaging platforms, Office 365, and social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. They also have an iOS and Android app that empowers teams to communicate, collaborate and engage seamlessly, anywhere and anytime.
PeopleOne offers customized pricing upon request, as well as a free demo.
Workmates
Best newsfeed and announcements system
Workmates, by HR Cloud, is an employee engagement platform with a built-in org chart and customizable communications channels to facilitate cross-departmental collaboration. It comes with a content management system (CMS) to make managing and sharing company information easier. Additionally, you can push through important announcements to segmented audience lists and even flag them as mandatory reads.
Workmates boasts individualized newsfeeds, employee profiles, event and calendar notifications, messaging and chat — basically everything you need to manifest a connected and engaged workforce. You can make their solution as comprehensive of lean as you desire. For example, you could just use their rewards and recognition system for communicating company wins. Or, you could leverage their workplace intranet for a more holistic approach to communications and security.
Workmates can even help you set up an enterprise social network platform, where you can connect with colleagues, share news and updates, and recognize high performers. It works across all devices, either through any web browser on by using their dedicated iOS or Android apps.
Workmates integrates with Staffbase, ADP, Quickbooks, Ultipro, SAP, LEVER, Compas, Greenhouse, JazzHR, Workable, TalentLyft, Smart Recruiters, Checkr, Indeed, Ziprecruiter, Glassdoor, Slack, Twilio, and other tools.
Workmates costs from $3.50/employee/month and offers a free demo.
Hub
Best for employee communications within an intranet
Hub is an all-in-one workplace intranet platform for employee engagement and internal communications. The software provides everything from polls and surveys to messaging and recognition. It allows businesses to create messages quickly, send them out to employees, track who opened them, and measure their impact. Users can manage and distribute content across multiple channels, such as mobile devices, desktop computers, and tablets.
The corporate intranet software hosts document management, employee profiles, and group calendars on the Google cloud. User accounts and target groups or individuals can be sent customized messages. Recipients can be sorted into groups based on role, location, language preferences, or other criteria. The platform provides detailed insights into user engagement, like views, clicks, shares, and likes, which helps companies identify which content resonates best with different audiences and adjust future internal communications campaigns accordingly. Users can export data related to usage metrics for deeper analysis or reporting purposes.
This software integrates with Gmail, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Outlook, and Sharepoint. Users can embed RSS Feeds and Widgets for a customized employee interface.
Pricing is available upon request and a free demo is available through the website.
Staffbase
Best for a mobile-first intranet
Staffbase aims to solve employee communications challenges by uniting diverse teams in multiple locations. This end-to-end internal communications platform helps with distributing important content to employees across an entire organization.
Using the Staffbase Experience Studio, editors can plan, create and publish content, then measure its impact. Distributed editors can add local content with no tech skills required.
Staffbase is a mobile-first solution designed to optimize effective internal communication within larger distributed organizations. The employee mobile app integrates with company intranet software to facilitate company-wide communications. As a result, frontline team members get the fast response they need, while management gets detailed insights and reporting.
Staffbase integrates with Microsoft 365, major HR applications, and other SaaS software.
The software costs from $88/user/month and a free demo option is offered.
Blink
Best for reaching a deskless workforce
Blink is an employee communications software that works on desktop computers, tablets, and mobile devices. It features an extensive directory of employees complete with profile pictures, job title, department, location, skills, contact information, and others to help build professional relationships and foster engagement. Blink has a workplace analytics feature allowing users to assess the effectiveness of internal communication methods through the number of views, likes, comments, and reach, helping you determine which communication methods yield results and which ones need improvement.
Blink is the best employee communication software if you have many remote or field employees. The software allows you to publish updates, news, and schedules that employees can view on their mobile devices, ensuring everybody is always on the same page. It has a Teams feature allowing employees working on sensitive projects to communicate privately with other team members and share files and documents visible only to those with proper access permissions.
Blink supports rich media allowing users to embed videos, images, audios, newsletters, and blog posts into feeds making employee communication multi-faceted and more attractive.
Blink pricing starts at $3.40/user/month, and they offer a free demo upon request.
SnapComms
Best for mobile-friendly employee communication and engagement
SnapComms is an employee communication solution that supports both workplace communications and employee engagement through a single platform. Their software uses visual displays in prominent locations to bypass email, so that key information can be delivered to update teams in the workplace.
All of this is achieved through their branded app that works on any device, including mobile phones, tablets, or desktop devices. You can keep remote employees in the loop and easily connect them to the broader organization.
SnapComms integrates with Slack and Google Workspace.
SnapComms pricing starts from $2/user/month. A 30-day free trial is also available, with no credit card required.
Happeo
Best channel-based communication
Happeo is a social intranet that aims to make employee communications more dynamic and collaborative. The software is designed for businesses that use Google Workspace. Combining a social network with a team collaboration platform, Happeo improves employee engagement, two-way communications, and workflows.
All employee communication happens in Channels, the digital workplaces where team members meet, socialize, and collaborate. Channels offer a secure, social environment where communicators can post messages, share initiatives, and like posts.
Happeo integrations include Google Workspace, Trello, Slack, and Salesforce.
Happeo offers customized pricing upon request. There is no free trial.
Jive
Best for mapping team relationships
Jive is a social collaboration tool that interlinks employees and managers, using ORG mapping to highlight critical connections. PeopleGraph offers data-driven insights into people, their jobs, and their needs by measuring employee sentiment, behaviors and trends. This information allows you to fine-tune employee programs and improve performance across your organization. Team members can easily access data, receive updates, communicate and collaborate across departments.
Jive analyzes the intricacies of ongoing projects and recommends subject matter experts who may be able to assist. With a better understanding of how employees can best work together, organizations can enhance communication and get more done.
Popular integrations include Gmail, Google Drive, Office, SalesForce, SharePoint, and LucidChart.
Jive costs from $19.95/user/month, and a 30-day free trial is available.
HubEngage
Best for engagement and deep insights
HubEngage set out to offer a better working experience to employees. The software is designed to distribute content such as news, videos and documents to employees, while also allowing team members to submit ideas and stories for consideration. HubEngage is used by organizations ranging from small hospitals to large global manufacturers.
Features such as gamification help maximize employee interaction and engagement while also providing incentives to perform well. Team members can engage with likes, comments, and sharing while earning points and rewards. The software encourages both top-down distribution of company news feeds and other information, plus bottom-up feedback from employees.
The software integrates with SSO, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Workday, ADP, Ultipro, and similar software.
HubEngage costs from $1/user/month. There is no free trial option.
Need Expert Help Selecting The Right Internal Communications Software?
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The 10 Best Employee Communication Software Summary
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | monday.com Best for employee communication around tasks & projects | 14-day free trial + freemium plan available | From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) | Visit Website |
2 | PeopleOne Best for comprehensive corporate communications | Free trial upon request | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
3 | Workmates Best newsfeed and announcements system | Free demo available | From $3.50/user/month | Visit Website |
4 | Hub Best for employee communications within an intranet | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
5 | Staffbase Best for a mobile-first intranet | Free demo available | From $88/user/month | Visit Website |
6 | Blink Best for reaching a deskless workforce | Free demo upon request | From $6.18/user/month | Visit Website |
7 | SnapComms Best for mobile-friendly employee communication and engagement | 30-day free trial | From $2/user/month | Visit Website |
8 | Happeo Best channel-based communication | Free trial available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
9 | Jive Best for mapping team relationships | 30 days free trial | From $19.95/user/month | Visit Website |
10 | HubEngage Best for engagement and deep insights | Not available | From $1/user/month | Visit Website |
Other Internal Communication Software Options
Here are a few more team communication apps that didn’t make the top list:
- Mango Connect
Best for top-down communications
- Appspace
Best for a simple workplace engagement and productivity tool
- Cerkl Broadcast
Best for time-sensitive communications
- Gmail
Best for those already in the Google ecosystem
- Workvivo
Best communication app for building human connection and emotional commitment between employees and your company
- ClickUp
Best for project-specific collaboration and communication
- Empuls
Best for centralized internal communications
- Connecteam
Best for remote or deskless teams
- Bitrix24
Best for a complete suite of social collaboration, communication, and management tools
- Groupe.io
Best for an all-in-one employee app that connects your entire workforce
What Is Employee Communication Software?
Employee communication software is a suite of online tools designed to facilitate messaging, file sharing, and collaboration between team members in any organization. Companies can keep teams in sync and working productively by using such apps, regardless of individual employees’ location or time zones.
Related Read: Thinking About An Employee Intranet? Read This First
What Are Employee Communication Apps Better Than Email?
There are several reasons why employee communication apps are better than traditional email. First off, research has shown that 60.8% of employees ignore emails at work. That explains why you're only getting responses half of the time!
The truth is, email volume can quickly become overwhelming. In fact, 1 out of 2 employees say fewer emails would increase their happiness levels. That alone makes a strong case for avoiding emails altogether (unless you enjoy sending messages into digital black holes).
Team communication apps are better than email because they can inject some fun back into your internal communications. Many of the communication tools reviewed in this article are part of larger employee engagement software platforms focused on improving the employee experience. Features such as tagging, liking, and responding with emojis makes communication feel less like work, and more like engaging over social media.
The nature of app-based communication is also faster and more efficient, thanks to alerts, push notifications, and group chat features. Chances are you’ll get a faster response from a colleague in a direct chat rather than sending a formal email. Furthermore, research has shown that most people do check mobile alerts in real-time, whereas 30% of employees don’t check their work email after hours.
At the end of the day, any tools to help improve your employee satisfaction and engagement will also improve your retention and reduce employee turnover. That alone is another solid reason to move away from email.
What Are The Best Free Employee Communication Platforms?
Facilitating good employee communications doesn’t have to be expensive, as there are many great free options to choose from. Smaller organizations can get along fine with basic Google offerings such as Gmail, Hangouts, and Meet.
Companies that are Microsoft-centric may prefer to choose Outlook and Skype to stay within a single platform. For video communications, Zoom is easy to use and offers meetings up to 40 minutes in length on the basic free plan.
What Do You Think About These Employee Communication Tools?
Do current internal communication tools get everything done, or are we still waiting for the ‘killer app’ to rule them all? Is your team focused on one software, or are you communicating using multiple apps?
Let us know what you think in the comments below. And remember to sign up for our newsletter to get news of the latest developments in employee communication software and beyond.
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