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isolved is the most-trusted HCM technology leader, providing the best combination of software and services to meet the needs of today’s People Heroes – HR, payroll, and benefits professionals. From talent acquisition to workforce management to talent manag...Read more about isolved
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Bob is a modern HR platform for modern HR challenges. Simplify complexity Bob lets you manage people globally and thrive through change. From culture and connections to performance and payroll, Bob is the HCM built for everyone in your company, for everyt...Read more about Bob
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Darwinbox is a new-age and disruptive mobile-first, cloud-based HRMS platform built for large enterprises to attract, engage and nurture talent. It is an end-to-end integrated HR system consisting of modules like performance, leave, attendance, recruitment...Read more about Darwinbox
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Advantage Club is a one-stop-shop for employees' engagement and financial wellness needs. Advantage Club offers a range of benefits, including automated incentives, exclusive deals, early wage advantages, and interactive engagement and recognition activiti...Read more about AdvantageClub.ai
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Motivosity is a software for employee recognition that helps connect and unify your company. From peer to peer recognition to top down, we make recognizing and rewarding your employees easier than ever. We go beyond rewards too as we help build community ...Read more about Motivosity
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Connecteam was designed and built as a true all-in-one solution. Easily engage and manage non-desk employees with a true all-in-one mobile app. Connecteam offers a powerful, mobile-first platform that helps improve communication, enhance daily processes an...Read more about Connecteam
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Bucketlist is a cloud-based reward and recognition platform that helps enterprises of all sizes assess, as well as acknowledge employee performance via gamification, point-based leaderboards and award badges. The platform enables users to create multiple t...Read more about Bucketlist
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ThriveSparrow is a cloud-based employee success platform designed to drive growth, amplify performance, and create a thriving workplace environment. With a comprehensive suite of features, ThriveSparrow enables companies to engage, understand, celebrate, a...Read more about ThriveSparrow
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Abundantly is an employee recognition platform that helps companies engage, recognize, and reward their employees in a way that's more personalized and efficient than ever before. Supervisors can acknowledge and validate team member's achievements and prov...Read more about Abundantly
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Trusted by industry-leading global brands, The Achievers Employee Experience Platform combines Achievers Recognize & Rewards Marketplace, an employee recognition and rewards solution, with Achievers Listen, an end-to-end employee engagement software that a...Read more about Achievers
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ClayHR is a comprehensive cloud-based human resource management solution that helps mid to large enterprises manage the entire employee lifecycle, from onboarding to comprehensive employee records to performance management to team retention, in one integra...Read more about ClayHR
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Quantum Workplace helps make work better every day. We empower organizations to improve the employee experience, inspire impact, and create a magnetic culture of employee success that attracts and retains top talent. Our all-in-one employee success platfo...Read more about Quantum Workplace
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Bonusly is the engine that powers employee engagement, recognition and rewards, and performance enablement. When employees are happy and engaged in their work, they perform better—individually and as teams—and help drive business wins. That’s why 3,400+ o...Read more about Bonusly
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Nectar is a people platform that bundles social recognition, rewards, employee discounts & swag management to create connection and appreciation across your organization. With Nectar, employees and managers can publicly recognize each other based on core v...Read more about Nectar
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Mirro helps leaders better understand their teams and let colleagues grow alongside each other, building positive and ever-evolving team journeys. The platform comes with an activity feed, which allows users to view project updates and share thoughts with ...Read more about Mirro
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Encourage managers and employees to give each other positive feedback with Bullseye’s easy-to-use social recognition system. All employees can be given rights to show appreciation to others throughout the company, which helps build stronger working relatio...Read more about BullseyeEngagement Employee Recognition Software
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Guusto makes it easy for HR Leaders at companies with 200+ employees to consistently reward great work and shape amazing culture. Now the #1 HIGHEST RATED recognition platform on G2! Start with a FREE ACCOUNT and being sending rewards in minutes, not mon...Read more about Guusto
Awardco boosts productivity, reduces spend, and builds culture through value-driven recognition and rewards. It’s the only employee recognition and total rewards platform to be a featured partner with Amazon Business. Awardco provides the largest reward ne...Read more about Awardco
Recognition matters! Unlock employee potential through recognition with Kudos. Kudos is an employee engagement, culture, and analytics platform, which harnesses the power of peer-to-peer recognition, values reinforcement, and open communication to help o...Read more about Kudos
Introducing Mo, an innovative platform designed to simplify the process of rewarding and acknowledging employees, enabling busy managers to connect with their teams in a meaningful way. Traditional recognition tools often fall short by focusing solely on ...Read more about Mo
BRAVO is an employee engagement and rewards platform that allows peer to peer recognition in a smart and easy way. Employees can celebrate each other's achievements by giving each other BRAVO points. These points can be redeemed at the BRAVO store from an ...Read more about Bravo
WorkTango revolutionizes how the world's most forward-thinking companies engage and inspire their people. We offer the only Employee Experience Platform that enables meaningful recognition and rewards, offers actionable insights through employee surveys, a...Read more about WorkTango
Bizneo HR is a software with more than 16 tools for self-management and operational optimization of: Recruitment, Absences, Time and Shift Control, Appraisals, Reports, Surveys, Training and more that you can customize in the portal of each worker. It red...Read more about Bizneo HR
Wrenly is an employee engagement software that drives employee experience to new heights. Designed to transform workplaces and cultivate thriving teams, Wrenly leverages AI technology to simplify employee feedback, surveys, recognitions, and more. By integ...Read more about Wrenly
JobPts is an employee recognition solution that helps businesses streamline operations related to talent growth, incentive distribution, performance tracking and compliance management, among other processes. It comes with a leaderboard that uses social rec...Read more about JobPts
Software Advice uses reviews from real software users to highlight the top-rated Employee Recognition products in North America.
Learn how products are chosen“Usability” includes user ratings for Functionality and Ease of Use.
“Customer Satisfaction” includes user ratings for Customer Support, Likelihood to Recommend and Value for Money.
Reviews analysis period: The reviews analysis period spans two years and ends the 15th of the month prior to publication.
This detailed guide will help you find and buy the right employee recognition software for you and your business.
Last Updated on March 16, 2023According to an SHRM survey, the top employee management challenge of HR managers is employee retention/turnover. About 68 percent of them believe that an employee recognition program can reduce the employee turnover rate because employees stay in an organization where their work is appreciated or rewarded.
Rewards and recognition should be a key component of your HR strategy since they can improve employee engagement, performance and the organization's growth. However, you need to strategically design and deploy your employee recognition program with the help of technology in order to ensure that your managers and employees use it well.
The right software will make it easy for you to reward your employees' achievements, efforts and behaviors that align with your business goals and values. But understanding the myriad employee recognition tools and their features is necessary to getting the right solution for your business.
This Buyer's Guide will help you understand employee recognition software and its features and benefits. Armed with this knowledge, you'll be able to make an informed purchase of the right solution.
Here's what we'll cover:
What Is Employee Recognition Software?
Common Features of Employee Recognition Software
Benefits of Employee Recognition Software
Employee recognition software helps HR managers and supervisors reward their employees' contributions in the form of awards, e-gifts, additional time-off etc. These could be based on exceptional performance or when they exemplify a business value, such as being a great team player.
The software allows HR managers to set the metrics and track employee progress. It's important to know that a typical employee recognition solution should have the following functionality:
Provide survey tools to incorporate peer feedback.
Include analytics functionality to identify top talent and award recipients based on different metrics.
Integrate gamification elements—such as leaderboards and badges—to ensure user engagement.
Offer templates to create employee recognition programs and timelines for rewards distribution.
Rewards catalog management in Bonusly (Source)
This section looks at some of the common features that you can expect to find in most employee recognition solutions. Here are the details of these features:
Peer-to-peer recognition | Allow employees/managers to give feedback for their peers/reportees; the feedback is stored in a centralized database. |
Activity tracking (goal management) | Create and assign employee goals for a specific time period (month, week etc.) and track the status of goals in real time. |
Built-in survey tools | Create surveys and questionnaires to gauge workforce performance; send these to employees for their feedback. |
Rewards catalog management | Search a catalog of rewards such as vouchers for travel, merchandise, e-gifts or non-monetary rewards (e.g., praise cards). |
Nominations management | Allow employees or managers to nominate candidates who demonstrate business values and behaviors such as collaboration, integrity and innovation. |
Analytics and reporting | Create customized analytics reports (charts or graphs) to track and analyze employee (or whole team) performance. Compare this with team averages to identify underperforming employees. |
Gamification | Increase peer engagement in recognition programs by integrating gamification elements such as leaderboards, badges and contests. |
Social recognition | Allow employees to post/share their recognition scores on social media platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn etc.) |
Different organizations use different methods to recognize their employees such as offering micro-bonuses, verbal praise or certificates of appreciation. With employee recognition software, business can efficiently—and fairly—find out the top performers or outstanding employees who should be rewarded.
However, before purchasing the software, you should assess your buyer type. Most buyers fall into one of the following categories:
Best-of-breed software buyers: These buyers may already have HR software in place, but need a niche solution for a specific functionality. They want simple-to-use tools that will automate the process of employee recognition at varying levels (i.e., peer-to-peer or peer-to-manager).
Such buyers can opt for software-as-a-service (SaaS) or cloud-based solutions, which usually have monthly service fees. This way you won't have to purchase proprietary software.
Integrated suite buyers: These buyers require a single software suite to implement a range of applications. A suite saves integration costs and stores all data in a single database. If you are in this buyer's category, choose a solution that offers employee recognition as a core feature.
And if you want to integrate third-party apps with your existing software suite, ensure that you have the in-house expertise to integrate the apps. If you don't, you'll need external IT help for the integration and ongoing maintenance.
Small businesses are most likely to buy best-of-breed systems as they perform specialized functions in a niche category (in this case, employee recognition). On the other hand, midsize and large enterprises are more likely to opt for full suites to handle multiple business requirements.
Sixty-six percentof HR managers feel that a recognition program at their workplace has boosted their reputation as an employer. And 90 percent of employees feel that such programs have a positive impact on employee engagement.
In this section, we've called out the most important benefits of employee recognition software. The key benefits are:
Increased employee productivity: Seventy-eight percent of employees would work harder if their efforts are better recognized at work. When employees are recognized, they are motivated to be efficient and proactive, resulting in increased productivity.
Higher employee loyalty and customer satisfaction: When employees are motivated, they are more likely to promote and sell your brand in a positive way. This leads to increases in customer satisfaction and your net revenue.
Across the world, employee recognition programs are gaining popularity as employers realize the importance of keeping their employees engaged. Here are some of the important market trends you should be aware of:
Employee recognition increases retention: Being a large part of the workforce, millennials expect regular attention and recognition from their employers. Without both, they end up quitting pretty quickly. That's why businesses with employee recognition programs tend to have a 23.4 percent lower turnover rate than businesses that don't.
Increase in employee recognition through mobile: With the increasing adoption of mobile devices among workers, apps are playing a big role in employee recognition. These apps are often free or low-cost, offering you a cost-effective, innovative way to recognize your peers, irrespective of time and location. Tap My Back, LifeWorks and gloodoo are some of the popular mobile apps in this category.