Our top virtual employee engagement platforms of 2023

You know you want to be *that* sort of leader. The sort of leader who always has a team of happy, hard-working employees onboard and who know they’re valued. Right? 

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But you also know you could do with a helping hand in how to actually keep your employee engagement up. You’ve got one-hundred-and-one other tasks to focus on!

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You’re in the right place, my friend. 

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Here are our top virtual employee engagement platform picks worth trying ASAP

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1. Gomada - measure team health, engage with activities, and offload the busy work.
2. Kudos - peer-to-peer recognition at many levels so you can reward the goals met and the culture created.
3. Switchboard - a remote collaboration platform that recreates the feeling of being in a room with all the resources you need.
4. Lattice - to empower leaders with the tools to develop and oversee the employee cultures they’re striving for.
5. Bonusly - helping coworkers and managers alike dish out tangible employee engagement rewards.
6. 15Five - equipping HR teams with the tools to take a holistic approach to employee engagement.
7. Motivosity - a system that makes handing out rewards & recognition easy and removes the discomfort from seeking team feedback.
8. HiveHR - giving employees a voice to make smarter organizational decisions.
9. TINYpulse - collecting employee feedback within medium-large organizations and making the most of expert support to do so. 
10. Leapsome - for a complete HR package that provides performance, alignment, engagement, learning, and recognition tools.
11. Synergita - goal setting & performance management to help you scale fast.
12. Confetti - increasing employee engagement through virtual team building experiences.

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Keep reading for pricing, features, and further thoughts on each platform.

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Want to discover more platforms? Read our articles on employee engagement solutions and the best employee engagement apps.

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What is a remote employee engagement platform?

Remote employee engagement platforms help remote leaders to:

1. collect feedback & ideas
2. recognize employee contributions
3. build remote teams that feel connected

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6 features to look out for when picking the right platform

What you’ll need from a remote employee engagement platform depends on your goals. Here are six key features to consider:

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1. Virtual team building - to establish team relationships that boost morale, productivity, and profits.
2. Performance management - to keep on top of employee performance & achievement.
3. Goal management - to delegate tasks and motivate employees to reach specific goals.
4. Employee recognition - to ensure employees feel valued for their contributions.
5. Negative feedback management - to help leaders address negative employee feedback.
6. Pulse surveys - to collect frequent employee feedback with minimal hassle. 

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We've picked platforms to cover a variety of these features. Each provides an innovative solution to make remote businesses more effective.

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How we put together this list

When it comes to employee engagement solutions, the competition is tough. So to pick from the masses, we've focused on a mix of upcoming and established tools to make business more effective and help remote workers feel connected.

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Most importantly, we don’t get paid by any company on this list. Our reviews are 100% independent.

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Let’s start with a closer look at up-and-coming employee engagement software

1. Measure engagement and take action with Gomada 

Price: Free Basic plan. Premium costs €7 per user per month.

Website: https://www.gomada.co/ 

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Gomada is an online platform that measures engagement, provides activities to connect your team, and helps you regularly schedule team sessions. Developing activities with the University of Coventry School of Psychology, Gomada provides expertise in employee engagement and relationship building that works.

Top 3 features:

• Measure how your remote team is doing
• Run online activities to improve your team
• Get assistance for scheduling regular activities

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Reviews mention:

• It makes fun face-to-face team building activities possible remotely
• Matches your team’s needs with suitable activities
• It helps make team building a habit by reducing time spent scheduling, moderating and researching
• No need to do the planning, and you can tailor how much time you want to spend on the platform
• Still in beta, but new features are in the pipeline with the Gomada team attentive to customer needs
• Great Gathertown and Gatheround alternative

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Other top virtual employee engagement platforms

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2. Make sure your employees feel appreciated with Kudos

Price: from $5 per person per month

Website: https://www.kudos.com/ 

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Kudos is a platform enabling peer-to-peer recognition on many levels. First, it allows leaders to gain insight into performance, workplace culture, and employee experience. Then, it guides how to use this data to improve company culture.

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Kudos also helps leaders observe and recognize behavior patterns to shape company inclusion and belonging.

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Top 5 features:

• Pulse surveys & reporting
• Performance benchmarking
• Goal & challenge creation
• Science-based templates
• Peer recognition & social feedback portal

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Reviews mention:

• Great tool for recognizing coworkers publicly and translating into real-world awards
• Very dynamic software with the ability to see other co-workers progress
• The algorithm to remind members to praise the rest of their team could be better
• The mobile version is not as intuitive as the web version
• Lacks actionable ideas on how to encourage lower-level staff or bring team members together

3. Make team work the best part of work with Switchboard

Price: Currently free

Website: switchboard.app

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Switchboard is a browser-based collaboration platform that lets users work together on documents and apps inside a room without having to share their screens.

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Named one of TIME’s best inventions of 2022, Switchboard’s users communicate in real-time with video, audio, and chat—and work side by side so everyone can scroll, type, and browse at the same time.

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Top 5 features

• A dedicated digital HQ for remote teams to gather
• Unlimited virtual conference rooms with huge canvases for content
• Video, audio, and chat in each room to keep teams connected
• Multiplayer browsers that everyone can add and see without taking turns sharing screens
• Meeting memory that saves all documents and apps in the room, just like in a real-world office

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Reviews mention

• Being able to quickly drop a link to something that comes up in a meeting is a game-changer
• Nobody has to "drive" the meeting, and there is no switching around between tabs or Slacking URLs back and forth
• Demoing features with multiple shared screens, private one-on-one channels with persistent resources, and the ability to embed reference materials to a meeting, in general, are features I can no longer imagine living without

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4. Empower leaders to create a winning culture with Lattice

Price: from $11 per person per month

Website: https://lattice.com/ 

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Lattice was built to help leaders put people first to retain company talent and create winning cultures. This comprehensive solution combines the tools required to collect data, manage workflows, and develop high-performing employees.

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Top 5 features:

• Team & individual OKR creation
• Performance benchmarking 
• Pulse surveys & reporting
• Peer recognition 
• Social feedback portal

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Reviews mention:

• Weekly reminders are great for aiding one-to-ones with leaders
• Weekly reviews quantify work achieved and help employees reflect on progress
• Allows for fluid conversations & feedback on progress so leaders know where team members are at
• It can be cumbersome when trying to give feedback about someone to their manager quickly

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5. Recognize workers with tangible rewards using Bonusly

Price: from £2.20 (approx. $2.50) per person per month

Website: https://bonus.ly/ 

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Bonusly is a rewards & recognition platform designed to help employees connect with their work in meaningful ways. It provides leaders with the tools to create deeply engaged teams who feel their efforts are appreciated and feedback valued. 

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With rewards that can be redeemed ‘in real life’, the Bonusly platform gives team members a fun reason to do their best work and recognize others for doing the same. 

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Top 5 features:

• Corporate discounts & rewards
• Social feedback portal
• Performance tracking & reporting
• Content library
• Integrations

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Reviews mention:

• The ease and simplicity of this software make it easy to share, appreciate or create bonus opportunities for team members
• Fun to be able to include GIFs in recognition messages
• Lots of redemption options for rewards
• There are limits on how much praise can be given, so participants may hold back their praise so as not to run out

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6. Take a holistic approach to employee engagement with 15Five

Price: from $4 per person per month

Website: https://www.15five.com/ 

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15Five is a holistic performance management tool. It equips HR teams with a complete solution to improve manager effectiveness, drive employee engagement and improve staff retention. Alongside evidence-based assessments and analysis tools, it supports how leaders can take action to meet their engagement goals and elevate performance.

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Top 5 features:

• Performance tracking & reporting
• Strengths discovery & career planning
• Surveys
• Goal & challenge creation
• Coaching hub

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Reviews mention:

• Very effective for tracking personal and organizational objectives and shaping more productive team meetings
• Gives transparency to each team’s goals without interrupting others’ team goals
• Unable to edit goal templates to reflect better a company’s core values and methods of operation
• Employees can become bored with repetitive questions or view providing feedback as an administrative burden

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7. Nurture team happiness with Motivosity

Price: from $4 per person per month

Website: https://www.motivosity.com/ 

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Motivosity is a modern employee engagement platform to make people happier at work. It focuses on three drivers of employee satisfaction: appreciation, community, and meaningful relationships - all factors particularly hard to implement when working remotely.

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There’s also the ‘ThanksMatters’ card. An employee reward card scheme allows employees to choose how they spend bonuses. Both managers and other team members can allocate these bonuses.

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Top 5 features:

• Peer-to-peer recognition
• ‘ThanksMatters’ rewards card
• Collaborative agendas 
• Personality mapping & profiles
• Surveys & reporting

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Reviews mention:

• Easy to give and receive thanks or recognition for individual and group efforts
• Can tweak the user interface according to company values
• Does rely on team members remembering to use it to show recognition
• Pop-up surveys can be frustrating

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8. Give your employees a voice with HiveHR

Price: bespoke pricing, from $4 per person, per month

Website: https://www.hive.hr/ 

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Hive is an employee voice platform with occupational psychology support. It aims to promote an open and honest culture for organizations, driving employee experience and company performance on a large scale. They’re all about helping you to give your employees a voice, enabling you to make smarter decisions and retain your best people.

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Top 5 features:

• Direct lines for employees to give their feedback and share ideas or concerns
• Surveys & reporting
• Integrates with your chosen HRIS
• Science-backed tool for gathering, analyzing, and using employee data
• ‘Hive Fives’ tool to give peer recognition every day

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Reviews mention:

• Easy-to-use interface
• Active customer service team providing ongoing support
• Clear graphs for visually presenting data
• Lack of flexibility in being able to report all angles

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9. Extend your organization & be empowered with TINYpulse

Price: from $5 per person per month

Website: http://tinypulse.com/ 

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TINYpulse is another recommended employee listening platform created to drive positive organizational change. It looks at employee data and provides actionable recommendations to HR leaders. Their goal is to act as an extension of your organization, helping you to feel supported and empowered. 

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Top 5 features:

• Pulse surveys
• 360-degree feedback
• Rewards & recognition
• Performance management & benchmarking
• Goal management 

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Reviews mention:

• Highly personalized customer support
• Small teams may find leaders are left to guess who is unhappy, and employees fear anonymity will be kept
• The interface can be confusing

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10. Speed up company growth with Leapsome

Price: Free 14-day trial and then from $8 per person per month

Website: https://www.leapsome.com/ 

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Leapsome focuses on helping your company make leaps in performance growth, closing the loop between performance management, employee engagement, and learning. 

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Top 5 features:

• Goal & OKR management
• Performance reviews & skills frameworks
• Surveys & reporting
• 360-degree feedback
• Employee onboarding & personal development

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Reviews mention:

• It helps in aligning all company goals and visualizing where you’re heading
• Trend analysis makes it easy to decide which areas to focus on
• Integrates well with other HR tools
• As Leapsome has so many features, it can be hard to explain to a broader team quickly, making implementation tricky

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11. Set SMART goals and scale with Synergita

Price: from $4 per person per month

Website: https://www.synergita.com/ 

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Synergita is a virtual employee engagement platform that supports performance, engagement, and OKR. It’s about creating high-performing teams by motivating employees and retaining the best talent. Its three products are Synergita Engage, Synergita Perform & Synergita OKR.

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Top 5 features:

• Smart goal setting
• 360-degree feedback
• Engagement & performance analysis and reporting
• Peer recognition 
• Performance improvement plan (PIP)

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Reviews mention:

• User friendly
• Easily scalable
• The building of reports from the front-end is limited 
• Turnaround on service requests is slow

The benefits the right remote employee engagement software provides

According to research of over 600 US businesses, employee engagement statistics reveal that 63.3% of companies say retaining employees is more challenging than hiring them. 

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The reason many businesses can’t keep their team members onboard? They’re not focusing on the importance of employee engagement and creating environments that value their team’s needs.

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And it’s not just employee retention that the right employee engagement strategies can benefit. With the right employee engagement software, you can also expect to:

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1. Build stronger team relationships - Employees with strong relationships stay longer in teams and experience more effective team communication. 
2. Shape a healthier company culture - When team members know and trust each other, there’s more room for flexibility that benefits everyone. 
3. Develop a sense of purpose - Valued employees who share feedback and make decisions feel more purpose in their work. And with greater purpose comes greater motivation.
4. Increase team productivity - With happier, healthier, and more motivated team members (who communicate effectively too) it makes sense that you’ll get more stuff done!
5. Grow profitable, faster - Because when more of the right stuff is getting done, more money is being made.
6. Have more fun - Let’s not forget it’s not all about the money, is it? You want to enjoy your work and so do your teams. The right tools will help you achieve this too.

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Ready to try a virtual employee engagement platform with your team?

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There’s a wealth of remote employee engagement software out there, and our top picks are just a handful of the options impacting remote teams globally! 

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If you are interested in furthering your team building efforts alongside employee engagement, you might want to do research on best team building companies.

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How to pick the right remote employee engagement software for you

It’s safe to say you’re spoiled for choice. All you need to decide now is which one to try first. Here’s how to go about it:

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1. Get clear on your goals - make sure you know exactly what you want an employee engagement platform to help you achieve and be specific as possible.
2. Define your budget - how much can you afford per employee, per month?
3. Put a shortlist together - many of these platforms have crossover features, so make a shortlist you can compare.
4. Test it out - Make the most of platform demos and free trials so you can see the features you’ll need in action.
5. Get feedback - Oh, the irony. You’ll need to get feedback on your employee feedback systems before you commit to them (and the rest). Does the platform help employees achieve more, communicate better, and, most importantly, leave work feeling happier?

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Remember:

If a platform sounds impressive but doesn’t give employees an improved experience? It’s not worth the investment. 

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Gomada knows the benefits of building strong team relationships remotely as a remote team. We want you to reap the same rewards. Give it a try for free now.

Looking for more ideas on how to improve employee engagement? Make sure you take a look at our article on free virtual team building activities and even more activities on Confetti.