Best Employee Engagement Software
Choosing the best employee engagement software is no longer just an HR decision; it’s a business-critical strategy that requires careful consideration.
Successful employee engagement programs influence retention, productivity, culture, and performance across distributed, hybrid, and frontline teams.
But today’s market is crowded with tools and features that make sense for some businesses but less so for others. While some employee engagement software focuses on recognition and rewards, others specialize in quick-pulse surveys and continuous feedback loops.
And a growing number of platforms embed employee engagement directly within a full-scale employee intranet, alongside knowledge, resources, documents, and other key information to deliver a unified experience.
Not all employee engagement tools solve the same problems, so it’s important to understand the platforms available and the factors most essential to your organization.
In this comprehensive guide, you’ll find clear comparisons, ideal use cases, and key strengths to help you choose the right software for your employee engagement strategy.
Compare the Best Employee Engagement Software
Before we dive into each employee engagement solution, here is a quick comparison of the 10 software options we’ll discuss. We selected the following platforms based on adoption, capabilities, engagement measurement, and fit for modern workforce types.
1. LumApps: Best for Engagement Inside a Unified Digital Workplace
What It Is: LumApps is an employee engagement platform that combines intranet, communications, and digital workplace tools into one connected hub where engagement happens in the flow of work. Organizations often use the platform not just for news but also for structured engagement initiatives, including onboarding journeys, change management campaigns, benefits education, and culture programs.
Best For: Organizations that want to reach desk, frontline, and remote employees from a single platform while embedding engagement into communication and daily workflows.
Key Strengths:
- Engagement happens without requiring new behavior or separate apps.
- Communication, knowledge, and culture live in one unified experience.
- Personalized content and journeys increase relevance and participation.
- Reaches desk and frontline workers through web and mobile access.
- Reduces tool sprawl by centralizing engagement touchpoints.
Engagement Measurement: LumApps measures employee engagement through content interactions, campaign performance, employee journeys, and platform adoption metrics, connecting communication to outcomes. Robust built-in analytics give leaders visibility into engagement, adoption, and content performance across business units.
Frontline and Remote Support: The platform offers a strong mobile experience for distributed and frontline teams.
Things to Consider: LumApps is best suited for enterprise organizations seeking a comprehensive intranet solution with a broad engagement foundation rather than a single-purpose recognition or survey tool.
2. Workvivo: Best for Social and Culture-Led Engagement
What It Is: Workvivo is a social employee engagement platform that brings together communication, recognition, and community-style interaction.
Best For: Organizations looking to drive culture through social interaction, storytelling, and peer engagement across distributed teams.
Key Strengths:
- Social feed for visibility and peer connection.
- Built-in recognition and shout-outs.
- Leadership communication tools.
- Community-building features.
Engagement Measurement: Workvivo’s strength lies in making engagement visible and participatory through post activity, interaction rates, and sentiment-style engagement indicators. Employees don’t just receive top-down communication. They contribute stories, reactions, and conversations that help shape company culture.
Frontline and Remote Support: The platform features a mobile-friendly design, making it accessible for remote and deskless workers.
Things to Consider: Workvivo is more socially driven than operationally embedded and may function best alongside other workplace systems. However, because this engagement occurs in a familiar social format, participation can feel more natural than email-based communication.
Read more: See how Workvivo compares to LumApps.
3. Microsoft Viva Engage: Best for Engagement Within Microsoft 365
What It Is: Viva Engage is Microsoft’s community and conversation platform (evolved from Yammer) designed to foster dialogue across organizations with deep Microsoft 365 environments. It can help surface knowledge that might otherwise remain siloed in email threads or private chats, creating more transparency across the organization.
Best For: Microsoft-centric organizations wanting community engagement within their existing digital ecosystem.
Key Strengths:
- Native integration with Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint.
- Communities for knowledge sharing and peer connection.
- Leadership communication tools like ask-me-anything (AMAs) and announcements.
- Familiar interface for organizations standardized on Microsoft.
- Supports large-scale conversations across departments.
Engagement Measurement: Viva Engage community analytics track posts, replies, reactions, and engagement trends across groups.
Frontline and Remote Support: The platform is accessible via mobile and Microsoft apps, though adoption often varies by workforce type.
Things to Consider: Viva Engage is primarily conversation-focused. It may require additional tools and implementation resources for broader employee engagement strategies.
Read more: See how Microsoft SharePoint compares to LumApps.
4. Bonusly: Best for Recognition-Driven Engagement Programs
What It Is: Bonusly is a recognition platform that enables employees to give small, frequent rewards and appreciation to peers in real time.
Best For: Organizations aiming to strengthen culture through consistent peer-to-peer recognition and acknowledgement.
Key Strengths:
- Frequent and straightforward peer recognition model.
- Rewards marketplace for redeeming points.
- Recognition tied to company values and behaviors.
- Integrates with collaboration tools like Teams and Slack.
- Encourages visibility of appreciation across the organization.
Engagement Measurement: Bonusly tracks recognition frequency, participation rates, and trends in reward distribution. Over time, recognition data can provide insight into collaboration patterns and highlight employees who consistently contribute to team success.
Frontline and Remote Support: Works well for distributed teams through integrations and mobile accessibility.
Things to Consider: Bonusly focuses specifically on recognition rather than broader communication or employee engagement strategy.
5. Culture Amp: Best for Engagement Surveys and Employee Feedback
What It Is: Culture Amp is an employee experience platform known for engagement surveys, feedback tools, and people analytics.
Best For: HR and people teams seeking structured engagement measurement and action planning.
Key Strengths:
- Research-backed engagement surveys.
- Lifecycle feedback tools, like for onboarding, performance, and exit.
- Strong analytics and benchmarking capabilities.
- Action planning tools to support managers.
- Integrates with human resources information systems (HRIS) and performance platforms.
Engagement Measurement: Provides scores, trends, and benchmarking insights across teams and departments, revealing employee engagement patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Frontline and Remote Support: Culture Amp is designed primarily for desk-based environments with digital access.
Things to Consider: While the platform is strong in measurement, it relies on other systems to drive day-to-day engagement and communication. Culture Amp is most valuable for organizations that treat engagement as an ongoing strategic metric rather than a one-off survey.
6. Leapsome: Best for Engagement and Performance Management
What It Is: Leapsome combines engagement surveys with performance management and learning tools to clarify expectations, provide regular feedback, and highlight growth opportunities. The resulting alignment between engagement and development can be especially useful in fast-growing organizations where career progression is a key retention factor.
Best For: Organizations aligning employee engagement with performance, feedback, and development.
Key Strengths:
- Engagement surveys are linked to performance cycles.
- Continuous feedback and praise tools.
- Objectives and key results (OKR) and goal alignment features.
- Learning modules to support development.
- Manager dashboards for coaching insights.
Engagement Measurement: Connects engagement survey results with performance data, development progress, and goal achievement.
Frontline and Remote Support: Primarily optimized for desk workers.
Things to Consider: The platform’s broader focus on HR makes it less suitable as a standalone engagement communication tool for entire organizations.
7. 15Five: Best for Manager-Led Engagement and Feedback
What It Is: 15Five is a performance and engagement platform centered around check-ins and feedback between employees and their managers. It provides structured space for employees to share wins, challenges, and concerns, giving managers visibility into morale and workload issues.
Best For: Organizations building engagement through manager relationships and coaching.
Key Strengths:
- Weekly check-ins that encourage consistent dialogue.
- Pulse surveys to gauge team sentiment.
- 1:1 meeting tools and coaching support.
- Performance and goal tracking features.
- Insights into manager effectiveness.
Engagement Measurement: Tracks engagement through pulse surveys, manager check-ins, interaction metrics, and feedback trends.
Frontline and Remote Support: Best suited for desk-based teams that regularly interact with managers.
Things to Consider: The engagement approach is manager-driven rather than organization-wide and communication-based.
H2: 8. Kudos: Best for Peer-to-Peer Recognition Programs
What It Is: Kudos is an employee recognition and culture platform focused on appreciation, shared celebration, and values alignment.
Best For: Companies that want to provide employee recognition tied to cultural values and behaviors.
Key Strengths:
- Values-based recognition framework.
- Social recognition feed is visible across teams.
- Rewards and milestone celebration tools.
- Culture analytics tied to recognition activity.
- Integrations with workplace collaboration tools.
Engagement Measurement: Measures recognition participation, cultural alignment trends, and engagement in appreciation programs.
Frontline and Remote Support: The platform is accessible to distributed teams via web and mobile.
Things to Consider: Kudos is recognition-centric and often needs to be paired with other platforms to meet an organization's broader employee engagement strategy.
9. Quantum Workplace: Best for Enterprise Engagement and Performance Insights
What It Is: Quantum Workplace provides engagement surveys, performance tools, and workforce analytics.
Best For: Large enterprises that need robust engagement benchmarking and advanced data insights to improve performance and retention goals.
Key Strengths:
- Enterprise engagement surveys.
- Performance review and goal tools.
- Advanced analytics and custom reporting.
- Industry benchmarking data.
- Action planning support for leaders.
Engagement Measurement: Provides deep engagement analytics, predictive insights, and benchmarking across industries and organizational segments, enabling large organizations to better understand how sentiment influences outcomes.
Frontline and Remote Support: Primarily designed for desk-based environments.
Things to Consider: Focuses heavily on measurement and HR processes rather than everyday employee engagement experiences.
10. Officevibe: Best for Lightweight Engagement Measurement
What It Is: Officevibe simplifies and standardizes engagement measurement with pulse surveys that deliver quick insights.
Best For: Smaller or midsized teams wanting simple, frequent engagement measurement without complex setup or analytics.
Key Strengths:
- Easy-to-use pulse surveys.
- Anonymous feedback channels.
- Real-time sentiment tracking.
- Manager dashboards with suggested actions.
- Lightweight implementation requirements.
Engagement Measurement: Provides continuous pulse insights, engagement trend data, and team-level sentiment analysis in an easy-to-interpret dashboard, enabling leaders to identify areas needing attention and take action quickly.
Frontline and Remote Support: Officevibe works well for remote teams with desk access.
Things to Consider: Officevibe is best for measurement and feedback, not full-scale communication, recognition, or cultural engagement programs.
How to Choose the Right Employee Engagement Software
Choosing the best employee engagement software features can feel overwhelming because “engagement” means different things to different organizations.
Some companies focus on recognition and morale, while others prioritize communication, feedback, or employee development. Other enterprise organizations may want an all-in-one digital intranet solution that includes employee engagement as a built-in feature.
The key is to align your technology choice with your specific engagement goals, workforce structure, and existing digital ecosystem, not just the most popular features. Here are key factors to consider when selecting the right employee engagement software for your business.
Match Engagement Tools to Your Goals
Start by defining what engagement means in your organization. Employee engagement can mean:
- Improving recognition.
- Strengthening communication.
- Gathering better employee feedback.
- Guiding employees through journeys, such as onboarding and change initiatives.
It can also involve a combination of those factors. Different tools may specialize in different outcomes, while all-in-one engagement tools address employee engagement within a broader ecosystem of resources, knowledge, and workflows.
Consider Your Workforce Type
Desk employees, frontline workers, and hybrid teams engage with technology differently. Mobile access, ease of use, and integration with daily workflows matter just as much as features.
Consider your workforce type and which engagement software makes it easiest for them to participate within their current workflows.
Look Beyond Surveys
Measurement is important, but employee engagement doesn’t improve from surveys alone. The best software to improve employee engagement and culture connects insights to communication, recognition, and action.
Avoid Adding Another Isolated Tool
Disconnected apps often struggle with adoption. Employees want to integrate engagement software into their day-to-day workflows easily. Tools that create a fragmented experience tend to have lower overall adoption.
To improve employee experience, more organizations are choosing software that integrates with existing digital workplaces and consolidates multiple engagement touchpoints.
Why Engagement Platforms Are Moving Toward Unified Employee Hubs
Employee engagement is increasingly happening in the flow of work, not in separate HR systems. When communication, knowledge, recognition, and culture tools are fragmented, participation drops, and messages compete for attention.
Unified platforms bring engagement into the same place employees already go for information and collaboration.
Organizations that look to increase employee engagement with an intranet often find that a consolidated platform improves visibility, reduces tool fatigue, and creates a consistent experience across desk and frontline workers.
Platforms like LumApps reflect this shift by combining intranet, communications, productivity, and engagement tools into a single employee hub.
Instead of layering engagement programs on top of daily work, these platforms embed engagement directly into how employees communicate, learn, and connect.
Choosing the Right Employee Engagement Software With Confidence
There is no single best employee engagement software for every organization. The right choice depends on your workforce mix, engagement maturity, and whether you prefer quick solutions or a consolidated intranet platform that scales with your business.
If your strategy centers on communication, culture, and connection across desk and frontline teams, engagement works best when it lives where employees already work.
Explore modern employee engagement solutions designed to unify communication and culture. To learn how a connected employee hub within a broader intranet solution like LumApps can support engagement across the entire workforce, watch a video demo.
FAQ: Employee Engagement Software
What Capabilities Should Employee Engagement Software Include?
Strong platforms include communication tools, feedback mechanisms, recognition features, and analytics to measure employee engagement and sentiment. The best solutions connect engagement activities directly to daily work rather than operating as isolated tools.
How Is Employee Engagement Measured?
Engagement is measured through a mix of surveys, participation data, communication analytics, and behavioral signals, including content interactions, recognition activity, and feedback trends. Modern platforms combine quantitative data with qualitative insights.
What Engagement Tools Work Best for Remote Teams?
Remote teams benefit from mobile-friendly platforms that combine communication, recognition, and feedback in one place. Tools that support asynchronous communication and community-building tend to drive stronger engagement in distributed environments.
Can Engagement Software Support Frontline Employees?
Yes. Mobile-first platforms and employee hubs designed for frontline access can deliver communication, recognition, and feedback tools directly to deskless workers. They help organizations reach the entire workforce, not just office-based staff.
