10 best employee engagement survey vendors & providers

Employee engagement isn’t just a buzzword—it’s the foundation of any thriving organization. Studies show that engaged employees are more productive, have higher levels of retention, and experience fewer workplace accidents. Companies with more engaged workers even report 21% higher profitability than companies with workforces in the lowest quartile of engagement, according to Gallup. 

Understanding the true level of engagement across your workforce isn’t always easy. That’s where employee engagement surveys come in. Surveying your workforce allows you to gain actionable insights directly from your team, helping you identify strengths and find areas for improvement. 

But running effective surveys takes time and expertise. That’s why many companies turn to specialized employee engagement survey providers. By partnering with a dedicated vendor, businesses can streamline the process, collect meaningful data, and ultimately drive engagement in ways that make a tangible impact.

In this guide, we’ll introduce you to some of the top survey companies, explore the features that set them apart, and help you decide which vendor best suits your needs. Let’s dive in.

What is an employee engagement survey?

An employee engagement survey is a structured questionnaire designed to gauge how connected, motivated, and satisfied employees feel within their organization. Engagement surveys typically cover topics like workplace culture, management or leadership, job satisfaction, and opportunities for personal and professional growth. By collecting anonymous feedback from employees, organizations can gain a clearer understanding of how engaged their workforce is and identify potential areas for improvement.

Employee engagement surveys help companies measure more than just job satisfaction. They also reveal how emotionally invested employees are in their work and whether they feel aligned with the company’s mission and values. When done correctly, surveys can provide actionable insights for HR teams and executives to use to boost morale, improve retention, and create a more positive, productive work environment.

For organizations that want to foster a strong culture of engagement, regular surveys can be a powerful tool to track progress, address concerns, and help employees feel valued.

Top 10 engagement survey vendors

With so many tools available, choosing the right employee engagement survey vendor can easily start to feel overwhelming. 

To help narrow your search, we’ve compiled a list of the top 10 employee survey companies and below, we’ll explore each one’s key features, top benefits, and more. 

1. Rippling

Rippling is more than just an employee engagement survey tool—it's a comprehensive HR platform that unifies HR, IT, and finance into one powerful workforce management system with surveys built in.What’s more is that all of Rippling’s apps—from Surveys to Payroll, Time & Attendance, Recruiting, Benefits Administration, Performance Management, and more—are built on top of a single source of truth for employee data, which allows you to automate the entire employee lifecycle and build any report based on any employee data across your entire organization.

Key features:

• Employee pulse surveys
• DEI surveys
• Exit surveys
• Compensation surveys
• Employee engagement surveys
• Experience surveys
• Survey automation tools

Benefits:

• Set up any employee survey and select the right audience for it in minutes
• Automatically send surveys based on events that happen within your organization
• Automatically trigger notifications and workflows based on survey responses
• Uncover trends easily in survey results with unified analytics (based on any employee data)

2. Culture Amp

Culture Amp is designed to elevate workplace culture through its powerful survey platform. It offers a powerful set of employee engagement tools, from AI analytics to practical action plans based on your results. By benchmarking survey results against industry standards, Culture Amp enables companies to not only gauge employee sentiment but also implement targeted improvements.

Key features:

• Pre-built and customizable survey templates
• Analytics and reporting tools
• Continuous employee feedback options
• Benchmarking against industry standards
• Built-in action plans

Benefits:

• Offers the ability to compare your survey results to industry benchmarks that include over a billion survey responses across different regions, segments, and industries
• Continuous feedback survey options foster a dynamic, growth-oriented culture
• Benchmarking, analytics, and other tools can help create a data-driven strategy for improving engagement

3. Workday

Workday offers employee engagement tools as part of its broader HR and financial management suite, which means companies can gather and view engagement data alongside other important HR metrics. Workday also uses built-in machine learning to provide assistance and recommendations to businesses using the employee experience tool.

Key features:

• Integration with HR and performance management tools
• Employee access to dashboards and data
• Continuous listening platform for gathering real-time insights

Benefits:

• Built-in AI tools to power analytics, recommendations, and more
• Real-time feedback and data collection via Workday Peakon so organizations can take swift action on employee concerns

4. BambooHR

BambooHR offers a user-friendly platform that’s tailored to small to mid-sized businesses that want to streamline HR processes, including employee engagement. It’s well-known for being straightforward and easy to use, making it ideal for companies looking to get quick, meaningful results without a steep learning curve. BambooHR takes a unique approach, combining a Net Promoter-based survey with AI-analyzed, open-ended feedback to deliver satisfaction scores alongside insights and reasons for each score.

Key features:

• Employee Satisfaction Scores based on the popular Net Promoter model
• AI-generated topic summaries and analysis of responses
• Filter survey results by key data for qualitative analysis

Benefits:

• Employee Satisfaction Scores are unique, combining a Net Promoter-based survey with AI-analyzed, open-ended feedback
• Employee engagement survey software is completely anonymous to encourage open and honest responses from employees
• Ability to filter data in many unique ways allows stakeholders to do deep dives and gain valuable insights

5. CultureMonkey

CultureMonkey offers employee engagement survey tools designed to help you create a feedback-driven workplace. It puts much of its focus on frequent, real-time pulse surveys, making it an excellent choice for companies that want to address employee concerns proactively. CultureMonkey is also a platform that focuses on culture-building (it’s in the name, after all), and offers tools for measuring and improving employee morale and engagement.

Key features:

• Pre-built survey templates and customizable options
• Real-time pulse surveys
• Automated surveys at specific points in the employee lifecycle
• Metrics on employee engagement survey participation, industry benchmarks, and more

Benefits:

• Strong focus on maintaining and enhancing the employee experience
• Real-time feedback allows for immediate improvements and taking a proactive approach to maintaining company culture
• Could be a good platform for organizations interested in long-term cultural improvement

6. Qualtrics

Qualtrics sets itself apart from many other employee engagement survey vendors by offering advanced data analytics and comprehensive survey customization options. These features make it a particularly attractive option for organizations that need a high degree of flexibility in designing surveys tailored to their specific needs. Qualtrics’ reporting tools can help you find actionable insights in your survey results and drive significant changes based on employee feedback.

Key features:

• Highly customizable survey design
• Advanced data analytics and reporting tools
• Predictive analytics to forecast engagement trends

Benefits:

• Qualtrics’ high degree of flexibility and customization means it can fit many unique business needs
• Robust reporting tools—including predictive analytics—help turn survey results and employee engagement data into actionable insights that can drive organizational change

7. ADP Employee Experience

ADP is a legacy vendor in HR, and its Employee Experience platform leverages the company’s offers a complete engagement toolset that integrates with ADPs other HR tools, like payroll and benefits management, allowing companies to tie engagement data directly to other core HR functions.

Key features:

• Customizable survey templates
• Survey analytics and industry benchmarks
• Automated surveys at specific times in the employee lifecycle

Benefits:

• Comprehensive HR platform with apps for payroll, benefits, and other functions, all available from the ADP Marketplace
• Survey templates that are fast and easy to configure and deploy
• Analytics capabilities so survey results can be used to drive insights and organizational change

8. Leapsome

Leapsome is a platform that combines employee engagement, performance management, and learning tools, but one of its standout features is the ability to link engagement results to performance data. This makes it a powerful tool for companies to unlock a deeper understanding of their employees and take a data driven approach to boosting employee engagement.

Key features:

• Pulse surveys
• Integration with performance and learning tools
• Customizable survey templates

Benefits:

• The ability to link survey results directly to performance and development goals is powerful for organizations who want to take a data-driven approach to boosting employee engagement
• Continuous feedback through pulse surveys can help businesses foster a culture of growth

9. Paylocity

Paylocity offers an employee engagement survey tool as part of its more comprehensive HR platform, which includes payroll, recruiting, benefits administration, and other HR functions. It offers survey templates developed by expert data scientists and built-in tools to share survey results and insights with team members across departments.

Key features:

• Built-in employee engagement and pulse surveys
• Integration with payroll and other HR systems
• Customizable survey templates

Benefits:

• Provides a shareable, data-rich view of employee engagement
• Provides action plans based on survey results so your organization knows the next steps to take after conducting employee engagement surveys

10. Paycom

Paycom includes employee engagement survey tools in its broader suite of HR management features. With Paycom Surveys, you can automate employee engagement surveys, use pre-built survey templates or create your own surveys from scratch, turn feedback from employees into easy-to-interpret graphs and charts, and more.

Key features:

• Customizable templates and survey tools
• Data visualization through graphs and charts
• Anonymous surveys to encourage honest employee feedback

Benefits:

• Automation of survey distribution allows businesses to schedule surveys at intervals as needed, from daily pulse surveys to monthly, quarterly, or yearly sentiment checks
• Survey results and feedback can be formatted into easy-to-read charts and graphs and exported in multiple formats for easy sharing across the organization

Choosing the right employee engagement survey vendor

Selecting the right employee engagement survey provider is one way your company can gain valuable insights into their employees’ experience—and then use those insights to drive meaningful change.

With so many options available, it’s important to know which features and capabilities will help a vendor stand out. The right tool will go beyond just facilitating employee surveys. It should also help you interpret the data and take actionable steps toward improving employee engagement.

Here are some of the key features to look for when choosing an employee engagement survey vendor.

Expertise and specialization

Choose a vendor with a proven track record in employee engagement and workplace culture. These providers have the experience to design surveys that focus on the most relevant factors affecting engagement, from leadership to work-life balance. Their expertise will help ensure that they offer survey designs that are tailored to your industry and workforce, and they can also offer specialized guidance on when and how to survey your employees to get the most effective data.

Customization and comprehensive survey design

Every company is different, which is why survey customization is crucial. Look for a platform that allows you to design surveys—or, at the very least, customize survey templates—to suit your organization’s needs. 

Customizable survey templates allow you to ask the right questions and focus on the areas that matter most to your employees. The ability to tweak survey frequency—such as choosing between annual engagement surveys or regular pulse checks—is also a necessary feature.

Advanced data collection and real-time feedback

In today’s fast-paced work environment, the ability to gather real-time feedback is increasingly valuable. Choose a provider that offers comprehensive data collection tools, including instant reporting. 

Real-time feedback loops allow HR teams to quickly spot issues and address concerns before they escalate, which fosters a culture of transparency and responsiveness.

In-depth analysis and benchmarking

The data you collect is only as useful as the insights you can derive from it. Look for vendors that offer advanced data analytics and benchmarking tools. These features allow you to compare your engagement results against industry standards or similar companies, giving you a clearer sense of where your organization stands and what improvements you might need to make. Comprehensive reports and data visualizations can also make it easier to share your survey findings with company leadership, employees, and other stakeholders.

Flexibility and scalability

As your company grows and changes, your survey needs may evolve. Choose a vendor that offers flexibility in survey design, delivery, and data analysis. A scalable solution means you won’t outgrow the platform as your workforce expands, allowing you to continue to capture meaningful feedback and adapt your engagement strategy.

Integration with existing systems

Select a platform that integrates easily with your existing HR tools, such as payroll, performance management, or learning management. This not only saves time by automating data collection, but also provides a more holistic view of your employee engagement, linking feedback with other key metrics like retention, productivity, and development.

Alternatively, you can choose a unified workforce management solution like Rippling, where all your apps, from surveys to payroll, benefits, learning management, performance management, and more are natively built on top of a single source of truth for employee data—no integrations required (though 600+ integrations with third-party tools are also available).

Streamline employee engagement surveys with Rippling

Rippling is the easiest way to keep your finger on the pulse of employee engagement and sentiment.

Build any type of survey in minutes using a template—even customizing it with your own questions—or build your own survey from scratch. Then, send your survey to your entire organization or to a carefully curated group of team members based on their role, location, or other attributes. You can even automate surveys so they trigger on a particular cadence, like every 90 days, or based on any event, like when an offer is accepted or on an employee’s last day of work.

When your survey results are in, uncover trends by blending survey data with employee data to build powerful reports. Filter them by any attribute—from compensation to gender and beyond.

That’s the power of using a survey tool that’s built on top of a single source of truth for all your employee data. You can analyze, automate, and orchestrate anything with Rippling.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an employee engagement survey cost?

The cost of an employee engagement survey can vary widely depending on the provider, the complexity of the survey, and the size of your organization. Some platforms offer basic plans that start as low as $2 to $5 per employee, while more advanced solutions may cost $10 to $15 per employee or more. Enterprise-level solutions with comprehensive features can run into several thousand dollars annually. Some vendors also offer free or trial versions, though these often come with limited features.

Are employee engagement surveys worth it?

Yes, employee engagement surveys are absolutely worth it. They provide invaluable insights into how employees feel about their work, the company culture, and their overall satisfaction. With this information, organizations can identify areas of improvement, address concerns early, and take targeted actions to improve morale, productivity, and retention. Companies that prioritize employee engagement often see higher performance, reduced turnover, and increased employee loyalty—making these surveys a smart investment.

What defines a good participation rate in employee engagement surveys?

A good participation rate for employee engagement surveys typically falls between 70% and 90%. This range indicates that the majority of your workforce is engaged enough to share their feedback. Achieving a high participation rate requires clear communication, making sure employees feel their responses are anonymous and will lead to meaningful changes. If participation falls below 60%, it may signal a lack of trust in the process or survey fatigue, and you might need to revisit your approach.

What are some key questions for an employee engagement survey?

Questions on an employee engagement survey should cover a variety of topics that impact workplace satisfaction and productivity. Some examples include:

• How satisfied are you with your current role and responsibilities?
• Do you feel like the company’s culture aligns with your values?
• How confident are you in the leadership team’s ability to make sound decisions?
• Do you feel like there are sufficient opportunities for career growth within the company?
• Do you feel that your contributions are recognized and valued by your manager and peers?
• Do you feel you have a healthy balance between work and personal life?

This blog is based on information available to Rippling as of September 16, 2024.

Disclaimer: Rippling and its affiliates do not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide or be relied on for tax, accounting, or legal advice. You should consult your own tax, accounting, and legal advisors before engaging in any related activities or transactions.