10 Best Employee Experience Software to Boost Retention in 2025

You’ve done everything right—sent out engagement surveys, set up Slack channels for open communication, rolled out recognition programs, and organized offsites.
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But despite your efforts, the team still feels disconnected. Turnover is rising. Participation in your last survey was underwhelming. And the feedback you did gather was vague—difficult to interpret and even harder to act on.
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Now leadership is looking to you to turn things around, fast.
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You’re not failing. But your tools are. 
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That’s when you need an employee experience software. One that goes beyond traditional surveys to help you capture honest feedback at scale, surface actionable insights, and build a culture where people feel heard, valued, and motivated to stay.
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In this guide, we’ll walk you through the top employee experience tools worth exploring in 2025 and the best ways to implement them.

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What is Employee Experience (EX) Software?

Employee Experience (EX) software helps organizations understand, manage, and improve how employees feel about their work—from onboarding to exit. 
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While traditional HR tools focus on admin tasks like payroll or time tracking, EX software zeroes in on how people feel about their work. You can think of it as a personal guide that helps maintain workplace satisfaction throughout an employee's stay with your company.
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It captures real-time sentiment through surveys, feedback channels, and behavioral signals, then translates that data into clear insights and recommended next steps.
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The software creates continuous feedback loops, empowering companies to shape a culture where people want to stay.

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What Makes a Great Employee Experience Tool?

Here’s what the best employee experience tools have in common (and, as an HR manager, what you should look for when evaluating your options):
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1. Built on behavioral science

Top EX platforms use proven psychological models to measure and improve engagement, not vague ‘feel-good’ metrics. 
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For example, a tool like Engagesoft is grounded in frameworks like the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), which measures key emotional and cognitive states, such as vigor, dedication, and absorption.

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2. Offers actionable insights

A great tool helps you figure out what to do after conducting employee engagement surveys. Look for platforms that:

• Use AI to recommend action plans to boost employee satisfaction
• Prioritize which areas to focus on based on impact
• Offer templates and best practices for implementation

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‍3. Covers the entire employee journey 

The best EX tools track sentiment and feedback across the employee’s lifecycle—from onboarding, probation, promotions, performance reviews, to exits. 

A continuous feedback loop helps you identify pain points before they snowball into massive problems.

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4. Real-time, segment-level analytics

HR leaders need visibility across departments, demographics, and locations. Top EX platforms provide:

• Heatmaps and engagement dashboards that show org-wide trends and let you drill down by team, tenure, or role
• Sentiment analysis to gauge employee satisfaction based on their written feedback
• Comment analysis tools that surface key themes from open-ended responses, helping you understand what’s driving engagement or holding it back
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5. Encourages high participation

Great tools remove friction from surveys with:

• Mobile-friendly design
• Multilingual support (especially in global or regional teams, like in MENA)
• Reminders and smart nudges
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6. Localized support and advisory services

Technology is only part of the equation. HR teams also need:

• Help with survey strategy and design
• Advisory support during employee service initiative rollouts
• Localized onboarding and support channels

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7. Customization and flexibility

The EX platform should let you: 

• Build custom surveys for special initiatives (e.g., mergers, return-to-office, restructuring)
• Adapt templates to your organization’s tone, policies, and goals
• Control frequency and audience segmentation

That way, every survey feels intentional and aligned with what’s actually happening in your organization, not just another generic ask for feedback.

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The Best 10 Employee Experience Tools at a Glance

Let’s go over the top employee experience software we’ve shortlisted for you.
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1. Engagesoft

‍Best for: Mid-sized to large organizations (with over 300 employees) across both the private and government sectors looking for a comprehensive employee experience platform.

Engagesoft is an employee experience platform designed to continuously improve every experience employees have with your company. Through regular check-ins, it extracts insights to refine workplace experiences and identify pain points in workflows and daily operations.
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Rooted in decades of research in organizational psychology, Engagesoft uses proven frameworks such as Kahn’s Personal Engagement and Schaufeli’s Work Engagement—both widely supported by extensive academic studies.
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Features

These are the key features of Engagesoft that contribute to improving employee experience: 
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1. Survey employees across critical touchpoints 
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Engagesoft helps you deliver consistent, high-impact, positive experiences by checking in with your team at every key stage of the employee lifecycle. 
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From the first interaction to the last day, you’ll gather actionable feedback that helps you attract, engage, and retain top talent.
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With ready-made customizable survey templates for onboarding, learning and development, performance, promotions, and offboarding, Engagesoft makes it easy to collect real-time feedback across key moments.
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The platform also integrates with your HRIS, so you can automate check-ins based on milestones—for example, triggering an onboarding survey a few days after a new hire joins.

Here are some of the critical touchpoints Engagesoft covers:

• Candidate experience: Understand what candidates think of your brand, application process, and interviews so you can improve the hiring experience
  
  
• Onboarding: Use onboarding surveys to evaluate how well new hires integrate and identify ways to speed up time-to-productivity
  
  
• Service interactions: Day-to-day support from teams like HR and IT can make or break the employee experience. Track how these touchpoints impact satisfaction and smooth out pain points quickly
  
  
• Key development experiences: Track how employees perceive areas like training programs, benefits, and performance reviews. It’ll  help you understand whether your growth opportunities align with evolving employee needs
  
  
• Promotions and advancement: Promotion surveys offer a glimpse into how employees view their career progression. Use this feedback from employees to make advancement paths clearer and more equitable
  
  
• Exit and offboarding: Exit surveys uncover the real reasons people leave. Spot trends early, address root causes, and use data-driven insights to reduce attrition
  
  
• Ad hoc experiences: Not every moment fits a standard survey. EngageSoft lets you gather feedback around unique events or organizational changes that may impact morale and engagement
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For ad-hoc experiences, Engagesoft offers custom surveys. You can design surveys around specific topics or challenges and gather focused feedback from the teams or employee groups most affected. 
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For instance, you may want to conduct short pulse checks (regular check-ins that measure engagement and track the success of initiatives) before or after events like technology rollouts, organizational restructuring, or policy updates to understand how employees are feeling and respond quickly.
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2. Use visual analytics to comprehend survey data 
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To help you make sense of the feedback, Engagesoft offers a suite of people insights tools:

• Organization-wide analytics: Track engagement levels, NPS trends, and focus areas across your entire workforce. These insights help you recognize what’s working and address areas that need attention at the company level.

• Employee segment analytics: Go beyond high-level metrics with deeper analysis by team, department, or location. Use tools like heat maps, organizational charts, and lifecycle tools to uncover priorities within specific employee groups.

• Sentiment and comment analytics: EngageSoft uses automated tagging to analyze open-ended comments, surface key themes, and link them to associated sentiments. Visual tools like word clouds help you identify what’s driving employee opinions and emotions. 

• Diagnostics and alerts: A real-time alert system flags potential issues (e.g., sudden drops in engagement or signs of turnover risk) so you can investigate the root causes and take timely action before minor problems become bigger. 

Together, these tools give you a granular view of your workforce, leading to decisions that truly improve the employee experience.
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3. Turn insights into action with integrated action planning
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Engagesoft turns your employee feedback insights into practical action plans tailored specifically to each department or team. Here's how:

• AI-powered recommendations: The platform uses AI to suggest next steps, outline necessary resources, and highlight expected outcomes. It enables organizations to take targeted, data-driven actions with confidence.
• Manage all your action plans in one place: Engagesoft provides a central hub for creating, assigning, and tracking employee engagement initiatives. HR teams and managers can easily coordinate plans, track responsibilities, and ensure accountability throughout the organization.
• Real-time tracking and follow-up: Managers can instantly update the status of action plans, add comments, and document milestones, keeping everyone on the same page. Regular pulse surveys help you quickly measure how well your actions are working and create a continuous feedback loop for steady improvement.

4. Get end-to-end survey support with real people by your side
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From sending surveys to collecting responses and pushing smart reminders, the platform takes care of the logistics of survey management while adapting to local needs. For example, it offers SMS follow-ups in Saudi Arabia to boost survey participation.
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But what truly sets Engagesoft apart is the partnership you get along the way. The team works closely with you from day one. Support is personal, fast, and human—Engagesoft’s advisors are a quick WhatsApp message away. They help you plan your surveys, align them to your objectives, and offer consultation after the results come in to help you take meaningful actions.

Want to see Engageoft in action? Book a demo today for a personalized walkthrough. 
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Price

Contact us for customized pricing
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Pros

• Choose from Engagesoft’s vast survey library or customize them based on your organization’s goals, culture, and specific requirement
• Regular check-ins on factors like work-life balance, inclusiveness, and stress levels with organizational health surveys
• Supports multiple languages to engage your global workforce 

Cons

• May not be a good fit for small companies with a limited workforce

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2. Workvivo

Workvivo by Zoom is an all-in-one employee experience platform that brings together internal communication, engagement, recognition, and intranet features. 
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Accessible on both desktops and mobile devices, it’s built to support everyone, from frontline employees to office-based teams, no matter where or how they work.
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Best for‍

Mid-market and enterprise organizations with distributed or frontline teams.
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Key Features

• Monitor communication reach with read receipts and content analytics
• Automatically translate messages into employees' preferred languages
• Broadcast key updates instantly to office lobbies, canteens, or factory floors via Workvivo TV

Price

• Business plan: Custom pricing
• Enterprise plan: Custom pricing
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Pros

• Intuitive, consumer-style interface makes it easy for employees to get started
• Built-in shout-outs and kudos foster a culture of peer recognition
• Integrates smoothly with most productivity and HR systems for a unified workflow

Cons

• Mobile experience could be better
• Content filters and notification settings could be more customizable to better serve users based on their roles or geographic locations
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Also Read: 5 Best Employee Feedback Software for Actionable Insights and Happier Teams in 2025

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3. Qualtrics XM

Qualtrics offers a comprehensive employee experience solution that combines expertly designed surveys with passive listening tools. 
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The platform helps you gather meaningful feedback across the employee journey with intelligent scheduling and self-initiated 360 reviews, keeping you updated with relevant employee insights at every stage.
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Best for‍

Enterprises seeking to bridge skill gaps with feedback-driven learning and training.
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Key Features

• Boost response rates with automated feedback invitations sent on a consistent schedule
• Access pre-built methodologies, best-in-class I/O practices, and a library of 300+ benchmarked survey questions to get meaningful insights
• Instantly analyze every interaction, uncover key themes, sentiments, and focus areas using AI

Price‍

Contact sales for custom quotes 
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Pros

• Identifies precise skill gaps across departments, leadership levels, and functions to target development investments
• Interactive dashboards let you drill down into insights by team, role, and demographics for precise analysis
• Integrates with Servicenow, Slack, Oracle, Zpier, WhatsApp, and more

Cons

• The platform feels overwhelming because of its wide range of features
• Dashboards could be more customizable 

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4. Culture Amp

Culture Amp provides valuable insights across the employee lifecycle to better understand their experience and improve workplace practices. 
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Best for‍

Small, mid-size, and large enterprises that want to gather meaningful feedback from new hires and exiting employees.
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Key Features

• Quickly launch onboarding and offboarding surveys using pre-built, customizable templates
• Combine lifecycle feedback with engagement data to uncover why top talent stays—or leaves
• Get unbiased summaries of employees’ comments 

Price‍

Contact sales for custom quotes
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Pros

• Improve employee experience and engagement with science-backed frameworks grounded in organizational psychology and data
• Seamlessly integrates with all major HR software platforms
• Join the Culture First Community—a global network of HR leaders, people managers, and change-makers driving workplace transformation

Cons

• Survey reporting features could be more customizable 
• Primarily focused on employee feedback and engagement, places less emphasis on tracking progress and productivity in a measurable way
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5. Zendesk

Zendesk is a popular help desk tool that has extended its core functionalities to serve internal teams. From self-serve modules to automated HR and IT flows—Zendesk unifies knowledge base, communication, and productivity to get the best out of employees.
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Best for‍

Mid-market and enterprise clients with a large workforce dealing with varied projects. 
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Key Features

• Organize and simplify the internal ticketing system to escalate and fix issues quickly 
• Allow employees to learn at their own pace with a self-serve knowledge base and AI copilot 
• Keep a bird’s-eye view on support trends and bottlenecks to improve customer experience 

Price

• Suite Team: $55/agent/month (billed annually)
• Suite Growth:  $89/agent/month (billed annually)
• Suite Professional:  $115/agent/month (billed annually)
• Suite Enterprise:  $169/agent/month (billed annually)

Pros

• Fleshed out features for both HR and IT teams to roll out a unified employee experience strategy 
• Close integration with Zendesk’s customer support system to bring employees and customer management together 
• Scale up with Zendesk’s extensive collection of third-party applications 

Cons

• Steep learning curve for new users to extract value 
• More expensive than competitors for base features

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6. Workday

Workday is an employee experience software platform designed to support employee journeys. From day 1 onboarding to everyday tasks, Workday makes your employees feel supported and valued at every step.
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Best for‍

Large enterprises that need scalable human capital management while staying compliant across territories.
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Key Features

• Personalized AI-driven lifecycle management so employees can access tasks, schedules, leaves, and career development paths 
• Continuous listening to understand employee sentiments, improve engagement, and benchmark against global standards 
• Individualized, self-serve content to help employees solve challenges based on their roles and experiences

Price‍

Contact sales for custom quotes
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Pros

• Stay compliant across regions while managing global teams 
• Create low and no-code apps to address custom challenges within Workday 
• Comprehensive integrations to modify and scale Workday’s impact

Cons

• Generally unintuitive and complex interface, even for advanced users 
• The cost-to-value ratio makes it unappealing for SMBs and startups
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7. Lattice

Lattice helps businesses get rid of operational inefficiencies by surfacing challenges faced by employees and empowering managers to make data-driven decisions. 
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Best for‍

Small to mid-size businesses looking for unified employee management and HR tools.
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Key Features

• Run performance and talent reviews and build a culture of continuous and contextual feedback 
• Automate surveys based on lifecycle events and act on benchmarks 
• Create personalized employee development plans and career tracks to define employee expectations 

Price

Talent Management Foundations: $11/seat/month (Add-ons available)
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Pros

• Allows you to create a consistent and fair compensation strategy 
• Aligns employee engagement with OKRs and goals to drive immediate results 
• Easily customizable plans to pick the services you want, saving you money

Cons

• A few newly introduced features are underdeveloped and tend to break in complex organizations 
• Reporting and analytics lack adequate automation and personalization

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8. BambooHR

BambooHR is an end-to-end HR platform that doubles up as an employee experience management tool. From performance management to employee well-being, it covers all key features you need for an inspired and engaged workforce.
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Best for‍

Small and mid-size companies that want an easy-to-use HRIS and employee experience management tool.
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Key Features

• Manage an internal community so everyone is aligned with company announcements and goals, and employees can connect on shared interests 
• Run surveys and frequent check-ins to know how employees are feeling and ways to make them feel valued 
• The Total Rewards feature allows employees to understand and be transparent about total compensation and equity value 

Price

• Core: Contact for a custom quote
• Pro: Contact for a custom quote

Pros

• Simplified and clean UI that expedites user onboarding 
• Frequent updates and feature rollouts to help users stay up-to-date 
• Native integration with HRIS to extend the capabilities of employee management tools

Cons

• BambooHR rolls out features frequently to extend the tool, which impacts the pricing 
• Few niche features. The lack of features like subfolders and Employee Navigator integration, and document signature limitations may create occasional jitters 

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9. Bonusly

Bonusly is an employee experience platform that focuses on rewards and incentives to improve employee engagement. In addition to managing employee lifecycles, it helps managers be more effective in their jobs.
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Best for‍

Small businesses looking for an easy-to-use rewards platform to create a recognition-based company culture.
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Key Features

• Peer-to-peer recognition system to highlight achievements and strengthen teamwork. 
• Use flexible reward options that allow employees to be motivated in their own ways. 
• Real-time insights and analytics into how teams are performing and suggested steps to fix engagement issues 

Price

• Appreciate: $2/seat/month (billed annually)
• Connect: $5/seat/month (billed annually)
• Achieve: $7/seat/month (billed annually)

Pros

• Affordable and no-fuss employee recognition tool that’s fun to use 
• Automate milestone celebrations to stay up-to-date with events and encourage others to join in
• Comprehensive options to redeem rewards across the globe 

Cons

• Companies requiring continuous feedback might find this tool limited 
• Limited points are allocated every month, forcing users to delay peer-to-peer recognitions

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10. Kudos

Similar to Bonusly, Kudos is an employee experience management software that focuses on rewards and recognition. It has an AI assistant to help you appreciate your coworkers more and prompt you to recognize their work.
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Best for‍

Companies looking to reinforce or tweak their existing company culture based on recognition trends and establish a culture of appreciation.
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Key Features

• Share awards that are tied to company values and use nomination-based reward programs to foster a culture of advocacy 
• Run pulse surveys to gather day-to-day insights on employee wellbeing and act on instantly generated executive summaries 
• Build a digital gallery to share memorable events and automate recognition

Price

Contact sales for a custom quote 
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Pros

• Extensive and diverse options to redeem rewards instantly 
• Fun to use mobile apps to boost employee buy-in
• The ability to tweak company values based on detailed recognition analytics  

Cons

• Limited integration options for a tool that aims to elevate company culture 
• Searching and filtering reward catalogs can be confusing sometimes
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Benefits of Employee Experience Platforms 

1. Turns disengagement into performance (and profit)

With employee experience software, organizations can move the needle from disengaged to high-performing. According to Gallup, engaged teams show 23% higher profitability and 18% more productivity.

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These tools help teams fix what’s broken and double down on what works. That kind of transformation isn't possible with annual surveys or guesswork.
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2. Reduces stress and burnout

Employee experience tools offer real-time visibility into what’s fueling that stress (could be workload, recognition gaps, or something else) so that leaders can respond quickly and effectively.

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Remote and hybrid teams especially benefit from these tools since signs of disengagement or burnout are harder to spot without in-person interaction.
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3. Creates a culture of trust and psychological safety

One in five workers globally reports feeling lonely every day. Feedback tools that are frequent, anonymous, and actionable make people feel seen and heard without fear of judgment. That trust is what transforms a culture. 
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4. Makes managers better

70% of the variance in a team's engagement is related to management. Yet many managers themselves are overwhelmed or undertrained. Experience platforms give them the data, nudges, and coaching support they need to lead well without waiting for HR to step in.

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When managers get better, engagement follows. And when engagement rises, so does retention, performance, and team resilience.
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5. Identifies problems before they become people problems

EX platforms create visibility across departments, locations, roles, and demographics. You can spot gaps in engagement, DEI, recognition, or communication before they become costly churn events or reputation issues. 

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How to Choose the Right Employee Experience Tool 

Start with your organizational goals

Identify the specific outcomes your team wants to achieve. Are you trying to improve onboarding, reduce employee turnover, gather more frequent feedback, or boost engagement?

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When priorities are clear, you can choose a tool that directly supports those goals, and you’re less likely to get distracted by shiny features.
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Consider your company size and structure

The ideal tool for a 50-person startup isn’t always the same as one for a 1,000-person global team.

Think about whether your workforce is remote, hybrid, or in-office. Different setups need different communication channels, engagement tools, and levels of customization.
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Assess the quality of reporting and insights

Great employee experience tools help you collect and act on the data. 

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Look for platforms that provide trend tracking, real-time dashboards, and executive-friendly reports to guide your internal strategy.
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Check for integrations with your existing systems

Does the tool sync with your HRIS, Slack, Microsoft Teams, or other platforms your team already uses?

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 Integrations are crucial for keeping workflows smooth and reducing tool fatigue.
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Review pricing, support, and scalability

Consider how the pricing is structured—by employee, feature, or usage. 

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If the details aren’t publicly available, reach out to get a quote. Check what’s included in each tier. 

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Evaluate the vendor’s customer support options, onboarding assistance, and whether the tool can grow with your team.
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Questions to ask before deciding: 

• Where is our biggest employee experience gap right now? (Is it feedback, recognition, onboarding, or something else?)
• What tools do we already have in place, and are they being used effectively?
• How comfortable is our team with new technology?
• What is our available budget per employee for improving the experience?

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Best Practices for Using Employee Experience Software in Your Company 

1. Start with a pilot group

Instead of launching company-wide immediately, begin with a small team, department, or region. 
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A pilot allows you to test the tool, refine your approach, and troubleshoot friction points before scaling. It also helps you gather initial data and stories you can use to build momentum.
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2. Train managers first

Managers are closest to the day-to-day employee experience, and they’ll often be the ones interpreting results and leading change. 
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Equip them with the right context, training, and tools before you roll out the platform more broadly. If managers aren’t on board, engagement efforts will stall at the team level.
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3. Communicate the ‘why’ to the team

Employees need to know why you’re using the software, what you’ll do with the feedback, and how their input will lead to change. 
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Be transparent about the goals and set clear expectations for what’s to come. When people understand the purpose, they’re more likely to participate honestly.
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4. Make sure feedback feels safe and easy to give

Psychological safety and accessibility are essential. Use tools that support anonymity, mobile access, and local language options. 
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Emphasize that feedback won't be used punitively, and follow through by treating it with care and respect.
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5. Track and share early wins

As you gather insights and implement improvements, make the impact visible. 
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Share quick wins and success stories with employees—this builds trust, shows the platform is working, and encourages continued participation.

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FAQs 

What’s the difference between employee experience and employee engagement? 

Employee Experience (EX) refers to the entire journey an employee has with your organization—from recruiting, onboarding, daily interactions, development, to offboarding. It’s shaped by the workplace culture, tools, policies, physical environment, and leadership style.
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Employee Engagement, on the other hand, is about how emotionally invested and committed employees are to their work and the organization’s goals. It’s the outcome of a positive employee experience.
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How do you measure employee experience?

You can measure employee experience through:

• Pulse surveys and engagement scores
• Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)
• Employee retention and turnover metrics
• Sentiment analysis from feedback and internal communication
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What is an employee engagement tool?

An employee engagement platform helps organizations measure and improve how connected employees feel to their work and workplace. It gives you insights into employee sentiment, identifies areas for improvement, and supports strategies that boost job satisfaction.

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Wrapping Up

The future belongs to companies that listen fast, act faster, and build cultures people genuinely want to be part of.

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The employee experience management platforms we’ve covered here will help you stay in tune with your employees and drive continuous improvement. 

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But if you want a tool that goes the extra mile, Engagesoft stands out. It follows scientific methodologies, adapts to local requirements, offers deep customization, and is supported by real experts every step of the way.

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Book a demo with us today!

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