Features an employee engagement software must have

A guide to buying the right employee engagement software

Chapter 3

Introduction

What is employee engagement software?

Why should you invest in employee engagement software?

What features should you look for when buying employee engagement software?

What does an employee engagement software not do?

What is the cost of employee engagement software?

What all should you take into consideration when buying employee engagement software?

What organizational assessments should you make before buying this software?

What are the red flags to watch out for when choosing employee engagement software?

What features should you look for when buying employee engagement software?

Now that you’ve got a fair idea of why employee engagement software might be the answer to your employee woes, let’s walk you through a list of features that your chosen software must have.

Pulse surveys: Helps collect feedback by creating short surveys and sending them out to employees at a regular interval, which could be weekly, monthly, or fortnightly.

Why the pulse survey feature?

The first step in knowing how engaged or disengaged your employees are is to ask them about it. Short surveys sent out on a regular basis can help HR personnel identify problem areas before employee turnover hits home. Shorter surveys take lesser time and chances of an employee completing it are a lot higher.

Also, pulse surveys can be a lot more specific and by virtue of being sent out at shorter intervals, they can provide near real-time insights into employee morale and satisfaction.

Feedback management: Allows organizations to store employee feedback in a secure database that can be searched and filtered based on specific criteria, such as department, or level of employee satisfaction.

Why employee feedback management matters?

After the feedback has been collected, the feedback management feature ensures none of it is lost. Employee anonymity is maintained and name-based searches are not allowed.

For managers, receiving feedback is as important as giving it. A centralized repository of employee feedback is important to help managers understand what their teams expect of them and how retention can be ensured within teams.

Dashboard and reports: A centralized, real-time dashboard visualizes the feedback pattern of the employees, diagnoses common pain points, and creates standardized reports for stakeholders and managers.

Why pay attention to the features of the dashboard?

Simply taking feedback and storing it does not do much. An ideal employee engagement dashboard is where all the feedback is visible in real-time to managers, HR personnel, and other stakeholders. This feedback is essential to understand which areas of the company culture need to be improved.

The reports-building feature of this software can help get an idea of employee engagement rates, pulse survey completion rates, engagement rates by department, and sometimes even employee mood scores. Employee engagement trends can be established through analysis of these reports and it is also possible to see whether things are improving or deteriorating.

Negative sentiment analysis: Analyzes the feedback and highlights the employees who are consistently showing high levels of disengagement.

Why go for negative sentiment analysis?

When the goal is to retain employees, it is essential to go for software that helps predict attrition and helps retain talent. By pointing out departments or employees that seem unhappy, actively disengaged, or willing to quit, this feature helps HR personnel act on things before employees are lost.

The insights provided by this feature can help HR personnel develop a retention strategy that saves you the additional cost of hiring and training a replacement, and also promotes a positive company work culture.

Benchmarking: Provides data to compare key employee engagement metrics with other players in your industry, as well as with the organizations that are top players in terms of employee engagement.

Why is benchmarking an essential feature?

One has got to learn from the best if they can, and that applies to employee engagement as well. Organizations that have a high employee retention rate and a highly productive workforce must be doing something right.

Receiving data and insights into how you fare in comparison to these organizations can ensure your HR department moves in the right direction when it comes to improving employee engagement. Benchmarking can help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your engagement strategy and make changes accordingly.

Inline translations: Allows you to communicate with and receive feedback from your employees in their preferred language.

Why go for inline translations?

With the workplace and workforce becoming more diverse, it is also important for organizations to be inclusive. Language is a common barrier for those coming from non- English speaking regions and countries.

Inline translation helps make these employees feel at home by speaking and listening to them in their preferred language. This ensures no employee is missed out or left unheard because an organization needs their employees regardless of the language they speak.

Employee recognition and rewards: Helps streamline employee recognition initiatives and track rewards.

Why do recognition and rewards need tracking?

Perks and pay raise aside, it is natural for employees to expect recognition for their efforts and to be rewarded for the same. When employees work hard and get overlooked, what we have is a recipe for employee disengagement.

Investing in software that tracks employee recognition initiatives and suggests what changes can be made to it is essential to ensure an engaged workforce.

Discover what matters to your employees in their own words