Employee Experience Software for Heightened Engagement and Productivity at Work

How happy are your employees?

According to Gallup’s 2022 State of the Global Workplace report, many employees aren’t happy at all. 60% of people are emotionally detached at work. Worse, 19% are miserable. 

This means that only 21% of employees are engaged. And as you can imagine, employees who don’t care about their jobs and don’t want to be there won't produce the kind of work that moves your business in the right direction.

If you find that your team members are disengaged, consider employee experience software to pull them back on board. This type of software is specifically designed to get employees engaged, motivated, and doing better work. Here's what to look for in a good employee experience platform – plus our top nine software picks.

What is employee experience software?

Employee experience software is a comprehensive platform that offers everything you need to provide a better experience for your employees. 

This kind of software is hugely beneficial for human resources team members. Good employee experience software boosts employee engagement and satisfaction – which, in turn, boosts productivity and overall business performance. Gallup finds that businesses with engaged workers have 23% higher profits than companies with unhappy workers. 

Employees who are happy with their experience are engaged, productive, and constantly improving. These are the kind of employees you want – and an employee experience software can help you get there. 

Benefits of employee experience software

Employee experience software platforms hold many benefits for companies. These include:

• Better communication: Communication between your employees, managers, and other stakeholders will improve. This leads to increased collaboration and productivity. 
• Higher efficiency: 65% of people say they often have trouble finding files they need. Use employee experience software to streamline your processes, get everything in the same place, and improve efficiency within the organization.   
• Improved employee retention: By providing employees with a positive and supportive work environment, employee experience software can help to improve retention rates within the organization. Over a third of businesses say they’ve lost an employee due to poor internal communication. 
• Happier workers: Workplaces are more successful when team members feel psychologically safe, appreciated, and that they can bring their whole selves to their job. Remember: A happy employee is a productive employee. Research from the University of Oxford backs this up, revealing that happy workers are 13% more productive. 

Key features to look for in employee experience software

So, you know what employee experience software is and why it's valuable for businesses. But what makes one platform better than the next? How can you be sure you've chosen the right one for your organization? Here are a few must-have features to look for to help you reap the greatest benefits from your employee experience software.  

User-friendly design

First up, the software’s ease of use and overall design. You don’t want to spend time and money training employees to use a new tool. So pick a platform that’s intuitive and easy for people to navigate – something that’s familiar, simple, and empowers users to hit the ground running from day one.

Accessibility on multiple devices

The next feature we recommend is accessibility across multiple devices. This increases convenience and flexibility for users. And accessibility becomes especially important now that so many workers are remote or hybrid. An Upwork study finds that by the end of the 2025, 87% more Americans will be working remotely than before the pandemic. Remote workers need the ability to access everything they require on the go.

Workvivo is accessible on both desktop and mobile devices. This means employees can access it from anywhere, at any time.

Social intranet

A social intranet is a closed network that allows employees to communicate internally. Social intranets help improve your overall communication and collaboration by improving the flow of information from company to employee and employee to company. You can also analyze and measure employee behavior to refine your communication even more, plus keep data in a centralized, secure location.

Workvivo’s intranet includes a personalized feed that offers insights across the organization and one central communications hub that integrates with all your tools.

Communication channels

Communication is everything. Research from McKinsey shows that employees who feel included in communication are nearly five times more likely to report increased productivity.

Keep employees engaged with a personalized activity feed; get the right information to the right people at the right times; and create an overall enhanced team experience.

Every employee experience software should have strong tools that encourage two-way communication. Workvivo makes executing your internal comms strategy easy via Campaigns and rich media content like Podcasts and Live Streaming. 

Platforms for open communication

Employee experience software should be based on open comms – where every employee has a voice and is encouraged to use it. Your goal is to break down barriers between people at every level of the organization.

Create an environment where people feel comfortable speaking up, whether to recognize a colleague or share feedback on something they feel isn’t working.

Employee feedback insights and analytics

Use your employee experience software to gain insight into what your employees are thinking, feeling, and doing. After all, you can’t improve their experience if you don’t know where things stand. Analytics can help you keep track of impressions, reach, and interactions, while surveys and polls offer a more straightforward way to ask your employees how they’re doing.

Employee recognition capabilities

If you don’t already make a habit of intentionally recognizing your employees, now is the time to start! Research from Workhuman and Gallup finds that an effective employee recognition program makes employees four times as likely to be actively engaged at work. However, only 36% of organizations have a recognition system in place.

A good employee experience software will provide the resources you need to make employee recognition easy. With Workvivo, you can build a culture of recognition and boost employee engagement using features like Shoutouts, Awards, and Badges.

Little to no strain on IT resources

IT departments are already overloaded. Don’t add to the strain. An employee experience software should be self-sufficient, rarely requiring IT support. Workvivo, for example, requires very little support from IT, and user provisioning is made highly manageable. 

Integrations with multiple tools

In this day and age, most companies are already using at least a handful of digital tools for internal communication, project management, and similar goals. That’s why the final feature we recommend for your employee experience software is easy integration with your other favorite resources. 

If your goal is to improve your employee experience, give them tools that simplify their day – rather than forcing them to hop back and forth between programs. Integrations do just that! If an employee experience platform doesn't integrate with your existing tech stack, skip it.

1) Workvivo

Workvivo is an employee experience software that serves as the digital heart of your organization. It’s purpose-built for employee experience – as opposed to companies that reposition existing software to fit a new audience.

Packed with useful features, this software is thoughtfully designed to amplify culture and engagement in the workplace – improving communication, engagement, productivity, and more. 

Standout features and benefits 

• Includes campaigns and content calendar for deploying effective internal comms
• Offers mobile accessibility so employees can access the software from anywhere
• Integrates with HR and productivity systems
• Focuses on company values
• Makes employee recognition easy via shoutouts and other features.

2) Simpplr

Simpplr’s employee experience software helps you build a better workplace where everyone can flourish. An AI-powered solution, Simpplr lets you design a unique experience tailored for every employee by gathering real-time insights, then act with personalized content at the right time. 

Standout features and benefits 

• Personalized home feed with fresh content (thanks to AI that automatically unpublishes stale intranet content)
• Feedback on the employee experience
• Smart search and no-code third-party app integration (Google Drive, Microsoft Office, etc.)
• Native video for hosting, streaming, securing, and indexing.

3) Kudos

Kudos is an employee recognition platform that creates empowered teams who produce powerful results. Unlock your employees’ potential by celebrating and acknowledging important moments and wins. Then use People Analytics and Sentiment Surveys to help you rinse and repeat – but better next time.

Standout features and benefits 

• Send peer-to-peer recognition messages
• Create awards that reflect your culture, goals, and business objectives
• Keep track of important moments and anniversaries so you can celebrate them
• Use People Analytics to make sense of complex relationships
• Post monthly, anonymous Sentiment Surveys.

4) WorkTango

WorkTango (formerly Kazoo) enables meaningful recognition and rewards, offers actionable insights through employee surveys, and supports alignment through goal setting and feedback. Bottom line? Creating the employee experience you’ve always dreamed of is easier than ever.

Standout features and benefits 

• Amplify and incentivize key values and behaviors through different types of recognition
• Use pulse surveys and analytics to measure engagement and get authentic feedback to support action
• Champion employee success with continuous conversations around goal setting and feedback.

5) Kallidus

Kallidus is a powerful tool designed for HR managers, offering people-focused solutions that help you develop employees and unlock their full potential. Keep great talent on your team by allowing them to learn and grow – and increase satisfaction to increase productivity. 

Standout features and benefits 

• Automate workflows for a better onboarding experience
• Nurture a culture of continuous professional development and self-led learning
• Easily manage the employee lifecycle with full visibility.

6) Happeo

Happeo connects growing teams with the knowledge, news, and tools they need to do their best work. This software’s integrations, automations, and analytics are designed for fast-growing companies that want to keep moving without relinquishing control. 

Standout features and benefits 

• Well-organized, easily searchable intranet pages
• Advanced news publishing and retargeting to get information to the right people
• Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Slack integrations
• Advanced analytics to help you understand who’s seeing what.

7) Staffbase

Staffbase recognizes that communicators move companies – and every feature of this employee experience software is designed with that truth in mind. Use the communication channels to maximize your reach and engagement, and enjoy utilizing a single platform to access all of the oversight and insight you need.

Standout features and benefits 

• Employee email that makes it easy to share relevant corporate news 
• Employee app that lets people engage with their company and with one another
• Front-door intranet that holds the information needed for employees to do their jobs effectively.

8) SharePoint

SharePoint is a Microsoft team-collaboration app that serves as your mobile, intelligent intranet to enhance the employee experience. Make life easier for your employees by using SharePoint to share and manage content, knowledge, and applications. This will empower teamwork as people are better able to quickly find information and collaborate across the organization.

Standout features and benefits

• Personalized, targeted news on the web and the SharePoint mobile apps
• Rich content management tools to help guide decisions
• Automation that transforms processes and accelerates productivity
• Keep all communications safe and secure, even with people outside your organization.

9) Lattice

Lattice is an HR technology that drives your people and your business forward via features that help you develop high-performing teams. At Lattice, the goal is to turn managers into leaders, employees into high-performers, and companies into the best places to work.

Standout features and benefits

• Performance management via reviews, 1:1s, updates, feedback, and praise
• Additional features for HR leaders, such as engagement surveys, to help understand how your employees feel about work
• OKRs and goal management to drive performance.

Inspire and engage your employees with Workvivo

You can’t provide a good customer experience unless you have a good employee experience, too. And the best way for your HR team to drive better company culture and create the best employee experience is an employee experience platform.

Workvivo makes employee experience management easier by providing everything you need in an employee experience solution. From visualizations to dashboards to metrics, it’s all there, and this digital employee experience boosts employee satisfaction like never before. Learn more with a free demo.