Top 8 employee experience platforms & solutions

Employee experience software includes comprehensive features to enhance employee engagement and satisfaction.

Key functionalities of these platforms include the following:

• Employee feedback tools: Platforms offer tools to conduct surveys, polls, and pulse checks to gather valuable employee insights, enabling businesses to gauge sentiment and identify areas for improvement.
• Performance management capabilities: These platforms streamline performance reviews and goal-setting sessions, help managers offer meaningful feedback, and facilitate conversations focused on continued development.
• Communication features: Employee experience tools enable seamless communication across departments and locations through chat functionalities, forums, and company announcements.
• Onboarding modules: These platforms help businesses onboard new hires efficiently with structured programs that provide them with a smooth transition into their roles and the company culture.
• Recognition systems: These platforms allow you to recognize and reward employee achievements, fostering a culture of appreciation and boosting morale.

• Integration capabilities: These platforms will offer integrations with existing HR, productivity, and collaboration tools to ensure smooth data flow and create a unified user experience.

Several factors are worth considering when selecting the ideal employee experience platform, including the following:

• Needs: Identify your specific needs and pain points and prioritize features that address them.
• Ease of use: Choose a user-friendly and intuitive platform for technical and non-technical employees to ensure widespread adoption.
• Scalability: Consider future growth and choose a platform that can scale to accommodate additional users and evolving needs.
• Customization: Consider customization because platforms allow teams to align useful features with the uniqueness of the company's culture and brand identity.
• Integration capabilities: Ensure smooth integration with existing HR and productivity tools to create a unified user experience.
• Vendor support: Ensure that robust vendor support is available, crucial to facilitating successful implementation and ongoing maintenance.
• Security: Ensure the platform adheres to industry-standard security protocols to protect sensitive employee information.
• Cost-effectiveness: Choose a platform that balances features and functionality at a price point that aligns with the budget.

Jira Service Management extends the functionality of Jira, the popular project management tool, to cater to the needs of employee service desks and internal IT teams.

Jira Service Management empowers businesses to deliver a superior employee experience by streamlining interactions, automating tasks, and fostering self-service capabilities through user-friendly portals. In addition, the integrations with other products, such as Confluence and Atlas, create smooth information flows and service processes.  

Some of the key features of Jira Service Management that support the employee experience include the following:

• Effortless request submission: Employees can use familiar channels like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or email to get support directly within their workflow, eliminating the need to navigate complex internal systems or wait for phone support.
• Self-service empowerment: The knowledge base is a central repository for FAQs, resources, and company policies. The machine learning-powered search functionality guides employees to the most relevant answers so they can independently find solutions, empowering them to take ownership of resolving minor issues.
• Virtual assistant efficiency: Businesses can configure the virtual assistant to answer FAQs to handle routine inquiries, saving employees time and reducing the HR workload.
• Automated onboarding: Jira Service Management’s automation capabilities streamline the onboarding journey by automating tasks like routing requests to the appropriate IT personnel for equipment setup or automatically assigning onboarding steps to relevant teams, creating a smoother new employee process.
• Dynamic forms for faster resolution: Jira Service Management's dynamic forms adapt to employee input, capturing only the necessary information for specific requests and reducing the back-and-forth communication that results from static forms.

• Data-driven insights: Jira Service Management generates reports that provide valuable insights into employee service requests. HR personnel can then analyze these requests regarding request volume, successful onboarding completion rates, and team workload. This data empowers HR teams to identify areas for improvement, optimize internal processes, and enhance the employee experience.

Workday is a powerful solution for streamlining HR processes. By unifying core HR functions like payroll, talent acquisition, onboarding, and performance management within a single platform, Workday eliminates data silos and manual tasks. 

This translates to faster onboarding times, improved accuracy in payroll processing, and a more efficient system for tracking employee time and performance. In addition, Workday's cloud-based architecture allows for easy access and scalability, making it a reliable and robust option for businesses seeking a comprehensive HR management solution.

Qualtrics EmployeeXM champions automation as a key driver for enhancing employee experience initiatives. The platform automates tasks across the employee lifecycle, from streamlining survey distribution and feedback collection to triggering targeted actions based on responses. 

This frees HR professionals' time, allowing them to focus on strategic initiatives and personalized employee engagement. Qualtrics EmployeeXM also leverages automation to ensure timely feedback analysis and reporting, enabling data-driven decision-making to continuously improve the employee experience.

Culture Amp uses a data-driven approach to fostering employee engagement. Its platform offers features designed to gather employee feedback through surveys, analyze sentiment, and identify key drivers while tracking engagement metrics over time. 

These capabilities allow companies to gain a clear understanding of employee sentiment and pinpoint areas for improvement. Culture Amp further empowers businesses with action planning tools, facilitating the creation and implementation of targeted initiatives to address employee concerns and boost overall engagement.

Blink excels at driving internal communication and collaboration. This mobile-first platform centralizes communication channels with features like a personalized news feed, which delivers relevant updates, provides real-time instant messaging for quick exchanges, and is a central hub for easy access to files and shared resources. The focus on mobile accessibility promotes a collaborative and engaged workforce, ensuring employees stay connected and informed regardless of location.

Bonusly is an excellent option for cultivating a culture of appreciation and recognition. This peer-to-peer platform empowers employees to acknowledge and reward colleagues for their contributions. 

By providing an easy-to-use interface focused on social engagement, Bonusly encourages frequent recognition, fosters community, and reinforces positive behaviors that align with company values. Additionally, Bonusly offers various reward options, allowing employees to choose their preferred rewards and gifts.

Lattice is a champion for performance management and employee development. Its platform streamlines the process by centralizing goal setting, performance reviews, and feedback mechanisms in one unified spot. 

This fosters a culture of continuous feedback, inviting managers to provide ongoing coaching and development opportunities for their teams. Lattice further empowers employees by helping create individual development plans aligned with company goals and equipping them with the tools to take ownership of their career growth.

Glint stands out for its ability to capture real-time employee feedback collected through several methods, including short and frequent pulse surveys and anonymous feedback options. The continuous data stream gives businesses a constant pulse on employee sentiment. 

Glint's advanced analytics translate the feedback into actionable insights, allowing businesses to identify areas for improvement and implement targeted initiatives that drive engagement and boost overall performance.

The employee experience includes all aspects of an employee's journey within a company, such as the work environment, company culture, opportunities for growth and development, work-life balance, recognition programs, and overall satisfaction throughout their tenure. These elements impact employee satisfaction and, in turn, productivity and overall performance. 

Employee engagement focuses on employees' emotional commitment to work and the company. It includes their mindset, motivation to work, and ability to perform their responsibilities. The employee experience is broader, encompassing all the interactions and touchpoints an employee has throughout their time with the company.

The cost of an employee experience platform depends on several factors, including the size of the company, the features, the vendor, and the subscription model. Costs can range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars annually and are determined based on the full scope of what the company needs and the platform’s level of support for customizations.