7 Best Employee Engagement Software Tools for 2024

An employee engagement system is a set of tools HR uses to measure and encourage engagement among employees in the workplace. It utilizes software and integrates performance management to increase employee morale, productivity, and retention.

A lot of pieces have to come together in order to manage an effective team of employees. One aspect of performance management that is often overlooked is employee engagement.

Employee engagement is how involved and enthusiastic employees are in the workplace. Paying attention to engagement is vital, as disengaged employees result in an average of $1.9 billion lost in productivity every year. Not to mention its negative impact on work culture and staff turnover.

The solution is an employee engagement system, which is a program for tracking and managing employee engagement. This kind of system allows HR to keep tabs on the attitudes and participation of employees.

But what are the benefits of employee engagement platforms, and what is employee engagement software used for?

Here’s what you need to know so you can implement employee engagement software in your workplace.

What Are the Three Types of Employee Engagement?

The three types of engagement include cognitive engagement, emotional engagement, and behavioral engagement. Cognitively engaged employees are intellectually involved in their work, emotionally engaged employees have a strong bond with other employees and the organization they work for, and behaviorally engaged employees demonstrate behaviors that are aligned with the values, goals, and expectations of the workplace.

Before you get hung up on employee engagement software in HRM, it’s important to understand the three types of employee engagement. They include:

• Cognitive engagement
• Emotional engagement
• Behavioral engagement

Cognitive engagement

Cognitive engagement involves the intellectual involvement of employees. That includes using their skills, knowledge, and expertise on challenges that interest them.

It includes opportunities for continuous learning, career pathing, and the autonomy to make their own decisions. It also means knowing, understanding, and feeling motivated to help achieve the larger goals and objectives of the company.

Emotional engagement

One of the benefits of employee engagement software is that employees who are emotionally engaged have a strong bond with other employees and the organization as a whole. They feel happy when they do their job well and invest emotional energy into figuring out how to do things differently when they experience failure. Emotionally engaged employees contribute to an atmosphere of collaboration, purpose, and fulfillment.

Behavioral engagement

Behavioral engagement aligns employee behaviors with the values, goals, and expectations of the organization where they work. Performance management systems, goal-setting, and continuous feedback software are important parts of behavioral engagement. They ensure performance reviews are transparent and focus on accountability, taking a results-oriented approach that enables you to build a high-performance culture.

What is Employee Engagement Software Used For?

Employee engagement software is used to monitor employee engagement levels while simultaneously supporting growth. It is designed to enhance communication and facilitate feedback while supporting performance management tasks and allowing for rewards and recognition.

Keeping track of employee engagement requires a comprehensive strategy that can monitor employee engagement levels while simultaneously supporting growth and improvement. The best employee engagement software can help make the process so much easier by:

• Enhancing communication
• Facilitating feedback
• Conducting performance management tasks
• Highlighting recognition and rewards

Enhancing communication

A dedicated platform makes communicating about performance and engagement easier and more clear. For example, 360 feedback software is able to organize feedback from peers as well as management. It can help you talk about performance in real time, while quarterly performance review software can help support a more frequent review cadence.

Facilitating feedback

Getting and organizing feedback can be a challenge that’s made easier with employee engagement software. Feedback can be requested and reminders sent automatically to make sure everyone is participating in the process.

You can also customize what type of reviews and feedback you require. For example, project-based review software allows you to gather feedback after the completion of a project, while annual performance review software allows you to create a system of giving and receiving feedback on a yearly basis.

» How to Build an Effective Employee Engagement Feedback Model

Completing performance management tasks

Employee engagement software can do more than enhance communication and facilitate feedback. It should be able to integrate a variety of performance management tasks as well.

For example, new hire assessment software can help you understand an employee's previous experience and how motivated they are in their new role. Goal check-in software can support employees to meet their goals in between performance reviews, but more importantly, it provides support so employees feel more emotionally engaged in their work.

Highlighting recognition and rewards

Recognition is hugely important to employee engagement, with 81.9% of employees reporting that meaningful recognition improves their engagement at work. It can reduce turnover and improve productivity too.

A good software platform allows you to focus on accomplishments so that they can be rewarded. Goal achievement, engagement, and performance can be intertwined so employees feel accomplished and recognized for a job well done.

How Much Does Employee Engagement Software Cost?

Costs for employee engagement software can vary widely. Some platforms offer free basic or trial services, and some offer custom solutions. Prices generally start at $2 per month per user and can cost as much as $11 per month per user or more, with some platforms offering flat monthly fees and custom pricing.

It’s important to consider cost when deciding on employee engagement software. There are a few things you’ll want to think about.

First, you might want to consider using free tools. Just keep in mind that free tools offer limited functionality. If you decide to go this route, try signing up for a free trial or a free version of a software platform that you think you might like enough to upgrade in the future, should you decide you’d like to utilize all of its features.

You will want to pay attention to pricing models too. For example, some platforms offer pricing per user. This type of pricing model might be a great option for small organizations, but costs have the potential to get out of hand for large organizations. In addition, you might want to consider a platform with flat pricing if you anticipate growing your organization in the near future and you want to keep costs in check.

Costs can also change depending on whether you sign up for basic, standard, or premium services. Many platforms also offer custom solutions with custom pricing.

It’s a good idea to conduct a cost-benefit analysis to find the best program for you. It allows you to measure the benefits of each particular platform and compare them to financial metrics to determine if it will provide you with the most bang for your buck.

7 Examples of Employee Engagement Software

There are a lot of employee engagement software examples to choose from. Just a few include:

• PerformYard
• 15Five
• CultureAmp
• TINYpulse
• OfficeVibe
• Lattice
• Leapsome

PerformYard

PerformYard is unique because it offers a two-in-one solution. It is one part performance management software and one part employee engagement software. 

Personalized engagement surveys allow you to track employee sentiments according to the seven factors that are most closely tied to performance. Data is displayed visually, so you can see responses over time as well as by cohort. Actionable data can then be integrated into your review process to drive change in your organization.

CultureAmp

Founded in 2009, CultureAmp offers a suite of tools that combine employee engagement, performance management, and employee development. Using analytics and actionable tools, it allows users to work on building high-performance teams. However, it can be a bit difficult to use, as it takes some time to get to know the platform and how best to use it in order to get the most out of what it has to offer.

Leapsome

Leapsome is an employee engagement platform that is sometimes included in top 10 reviews because it enables a continuous cycle of engagement, linking it with feedback and personalized learning. It contains the ability to customize your surveys with privacy settings so you can determine who sees what. It does have some shortcomings that include the inability to document one-on-one discussions or integrate it with some project management tools.

Does Your Organization Need Employee Engagement Software?

Every organization, no matter how big or small, can use software to implement employee engagement initiatives. Not only can it improve company culture and productivity, but it can also reduce turnover, as employees are more likely to stay with a company long-term when it cares about their cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement.

The trick is to choose software that combines employee engagement with performance management. Get a PerformYard demo to see the platform in action and you can start encouraging greater engagement among the employees within your organization today.