14 employee recognition software used widely across the globe

“If you don’t create a great, rewarding place for people to work, they won’t do great work.” – Ari Weinzweig

Using employee recognition software can do wonders for your team members, workplace environment, and business.

How? We will get to that later in the article.

First, let me put forward a few questions for all you project managers and business owners out there.

• Is your organization experiencing a high employee turnover rate? 
• Are some of your most productive employees’ performance has dipped in recent times? 
• Is your employee engagement on the lower side?
• Does your organization have an effective employee recognition program in place?

If most of your replies are “yes” then I believe it’s time you give an effective employee recognition program its due importance in your organization. 

63% of employees who feel recognized are unlikely to look for a new job. 

I am sure you would want your employees to be among them. 

Let’s move ahead and understand what employee recognition software is. 

What is employee recognition software? 

Employee recognition software application is a program that allows businesses to recognize and reward their employees from time to time. Employee recognition programs help create a positive work environment where people feel valued and appreciated for their good performance.

Using an efficient employee recognition tool can boost employees’ morale, self-confidence, and productivity, which is an auspicious sign for any organization. 

Next, we will have a look at the importance of this type of application software for any business. 

Best employee recognition software for business in 2024

1. ProofHub

ProofHub is an award-winning work management and team collaboration software that is used by more than 85,000 teams and businesses across the globe. Intuitive, easy-to-use, yet powerful, ProofHub offers a comprehensive suite of features under one virtual roof to help users manage various aspects of their work without switching multiple tools. 

ProofHub ranks among the top employee recognition programs in 2022. It allows project managers, leaders, and employees to closely track and monitor work performance at every stage. Companies can use the data and recognize and reward their top performers on time, which further motivates their employees to give their best efforts at work. 

Let’s see which features of ProofHub can help companies to use this best peer-to-peer recognition system to recognize their employees.

Standout features include: 

1. Profile view

Project managers can use the Profile view to visualize an individual’s work activities, assignments, and projects in one place. A clear view of an individual’s profile makes it easy for the top management to monitor progress easily and determine the level of performance. 

2. All tasks

The all tasks feature in ProofHub allows project managers to check which tasks assigned to the individual are in progress, completed, or due across all the projects. This feature helps project managers to assess the individual progress across projects. 

3. Forms

ProofHub forms enable you to accumulate requests from both internal and external users who are not part of your account. These forms help you to create a definite communication channel between teams, external clients, and stakeholders.

4. Resource reports

Resource reports in ProofHub give a Bird’s eye view of your team’s performance and see a default report for a chosen employee to get an overview of his/her work. 

5. Project reports

Project reports allow project managers to visualize the performance of their current projects and team members. You can see the number of completed tasks in an individual project. 

6. Announcements

Announcements are a crucial feature in ProofHub as organizations can use it to convey information that celebrates significant team/individual accomplishments, or other special events such as employees’ birthdays, work anniversaries, wedding anniversaries, etc. 

For example, on the 10th work anniversary of a particular employee, a special message can be put up on ProofHub through Announcements. This message can convey how his/her hard work and sincere efforts have helped your business grow and succeed over time. You can also mention how your business plans to reward this employee for achieving this significant milestone in his/her professional career. 

You can add subscribers to this announcement, which notifies every individual about this announcement so that they can also post their congratulatory messages on the board. 

Some reputable clients of ProofHub are:

• NASA
• Nike
• Cricket Australia
• Boeing 747
• Netflix
• Google

Pricing: ProofHub offers affordable, fixed pricing plans. Fully loaded, The Ultimate Control plan is priced at $89/month, billed annually, for unlimited users.

2. Assembly 

Assembly ranks high among the best employee recognition software available today. This employee recognition and rewards application program is designed to drive employee engagement, increase retention, and boost company culture. The platform is designed for teams of all sizes and is also an economical solution for the long term. 

Work smarter, not harder, is the tagline of Assembly, and it allows teams to build their custom workflows. You can save up to one day per week, and more than 3,000 companies have achieved 95% employee engagement with Assembly’s engaging, seamless workflows. 

Assembly lets companies put employee recognition at the heart of their work culture through automated birthday and anniversary celebrations, an extensive catalog of rewards, additional engagement features, employee nominations, etc.

Standout features include: 

• Employee engagement (celebrate achievements, templates)
• Recognition and Rewards (exciting rewards, gift cards, charities)
• Manager empowerment
• Comms and Productivity
• Workflow automation
• Hybrid work

Some reputable clients of Assembly are: 

• Coca Cola
• Harry & David
• Amazon
• Perforce

3. Vantage Circle

Vantage Circle is a global employee recognition software that provides AI-powered SaaS-based solutions to help companies engage their employees in a meaningful way. It is one of the top global award-winning platforms that is trusted by 700+ corporations with 2+ million active corporate users across the globe.

The user-friendly platform allows companies to cover the recognition needs of a global workforce with flexible monetary and non-monetary employee rewards. Social recognition enables employees to acknowledge each other’s achievements and contributions, making everyone feel valued and appreciated. It also allows seamless integration with tools such as Teams and Slack that organizations use every day.

With a global Rewards Catalog, employees using the platform can exchange their reward points for gift cards from 1000+ brands and products from the Amazon Store, book an experience, or buy merchandise from options available across 59+ countries. The platform also offers a range of benefits for Long Service Award employees, including Anniversary Points, a Digital Service Yearbook, and a dedicated Milestone Catalog.

The platform also has a very intuitive and easy-to-use dashboard that simplifies HR management and provides HR professionals with a comprehensive view of their recognition program with advanced admin roles, budgeting and allocation tools, and rewards and badge configuration. It is also the preferred partner for Microsoft Teams, People Strong, and many other HRMS/HCM platforms.

Standout features include: 

• Comprehensive 360 Social Employee Recognition
• Customizable White-Labeled Platform 
• Amazon Integration for Rewards Access to 10+ Million Products
• Extensive Corporate Discounts & Perks Network
• Global e-Gift Cards, Merchandise & Experiences
• Intuitive Analytics Dashboard with Manager Insights
• Direct Recognition on Teams and Slack
• Listening Tool for Employee Opinion and Feedback

Some reputable clients of Vantage Circle are: 

• Bosch
• Wipro
• Coinbase
• Cognizant
• Wells Fargo
• Infosys

4. Nectar 

Another widely used employee recognition software program, Nectar makes it so easy for companies and employees to recognize peers with superlative work performance. Nectar’s 360 employee rewards and recognition platform supports both top-down and peer-to-peer recognition. 

The tool brings together a host of employee recognition rewards such as employee discounts, swag management, and social recognition to create a positive environment across your organization. 

Whether you manage an in-office or remote workforce, Nectar streamlines your employee incentives program, creating and maintaining a highly engaged and connected work culture. 

Standout features include: 

• 360 employee recognition and rewards program 
• Robust rewards suite 
• Seamless integrations with other software
• Send recognition directly from Slack or Teams
• Integration with Amazon to offer millions of new reward options 
• Company or department-specific awards
• Easy access to thousands of exclusive employee discounts 

Some reputable clients of Nectar are: 

• Heineken
• Teachable
• Redfin

5. Bonusly

Bonusly is an easy-to-use and fun employee recognition software that offers a wide range of employee rewards catalogs and insightful analytics to drive more employee engagement. Created and designed for both users and admins, Bonusly encourages and simplifies the peer-to-peer recognition process that drives company values. 

The tool automates celebrations for birthdays, work anniversaries, and team events, and provides customizable reward options. Bonusly’s 360-degree recognition lets everyone visualize teamwork, which empowers your employees to appreciate each other and foster strong working relationships.

A simple interface and useful features make for a great user experience. 89% of Bonusly users actively participate within their first month, and 79% are recognized for their stellar performance at least once a month. Using this employee rewards software, peers can recognize each other, managers can recognize their reporters, and so forth.

Standout features include: 

• Engaging interface
• Monthly allowance
• Bonus feed
• Employee feedback
• Integrations
• Detailed analytics and reporting
• Digital signage 

Some reputable clients of Bonusly are: 

• Toast
• Survey Monkey
• Zip Recruiter
• Big Commerce 

6. Awardco

Awardco is an all-in-one employee recognition software that simplifies the process of rewarding and appreciating your best performers. The tool allows for automation, customization, and optimization, which enables businesses to create a robust employee recognition program.

The tool offers a wide range of choices to companies to reward their employees as per their interests and avoid taking a one-size-fits-all approach. Awardco’s reward network includes Amazon Business (a mind-boggling range of gift choices) and you can use your reward points for company swag stores, tickets, hotels, gift cards, and charitable donations.

What makes Awardo a unique employee recognition program is that it also takes inputs from other companies across the globe to create employee recognition programs that make your workforce feel good about themselves and their work. 

Standout features include: 

• Millions of rewards to suit your workforce
• Employees can earn points for their contributions
• Value-driven recognition
• Simple, powerful program administration

Some reputable clients of Awardco are: 

• America First Credit Union
• Fremont Bank
• Pacific Life
• Master Brand Cabinets

7. Kudos 

Kudos is a top-rated peer-to-peer recognition program that helps companies build a strong work culture where good performance and top performers are appreciated and recognized for their contributions on time, every time. Kudos is the only employee recognition software to have multiple levels of recognition supporting appreciation and performance.

Robust dashboards of Kudos provide a detailed insight into performance, employee experience, and workplace culture. The tool is particularly useful for large companies and has an intuitive interface, which encourages employees to actively participate in employee recognition programs.

Kudos is one place where all employees of your organization can come together to celebrate teamwork, achievements, and milestones. 

Standout features include: 

• Insightful people analytics
• Value-based recognition
• Flexible employee rewarding
• Reporting and Analytics
• Digital gift cards
• Seamless integrations with tools 
• Record video recognition

Some reputable clients of Kudos are: 

• Werner
• Kids Peace
• Health care
• DHL

8. Kazoo HR

Kazoo HR is a popular integrated employee experience platform that helps to keep all your employees in the workplace connected through recognition, rewards, and performance management in one place. Kazoo HR allows even widely distributed teams to manage their employee recognition programs on a common platform. 

This employee software program aligns your workforce, drives performance, and boosts your workplace culture to create a more engaged workforce. Kazoo HR encourages a strong culture of employee recognition at work and does not keep it limited to only annual performance reviews. 

Standout features include: 

• Employee experience programs
• Continuous performance management
• Rewards engine
• Employee surveys
• Insights and Reporting
• Goals and OKRs 
• Conversations
• Incentives

Some reputable clients of Kazoo HR are: 

• Kia
• Hitachi
• Allianz
• The Motley Fool 

9. Workhuman

Workhuman is a leading social recognition platform that is trusted by the world’s leading brands for over 20 years. This employee recognition program allows peer-to-peer recognition and team awards to empower employees to appreciate anyone in the organization from anywhere. Combining behavioral science with machine learning, workhuman’s 20-plus years of human performance data provides its users with powerful, actionable insights and recommendations about DE&I i.e. diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Standout features include: 

• Social recognition
• Community celebrations
• Life events
• Service milestones
• Peer-to-peer recognition
• Data analytics and insights
• Point-based rewarding
• Inclusion advisor
• Global e-Commerce network

Some reputable clients of Workhuman are: 

• LinkedIn
• Cisco
• Schneider electric
• Biogen

10. Achievers

Counted among the most efficient employee recognition and engagement programs, Achievers helps businesses create a workplace culture that boosts performance and engagement. The tool allows you to bring all your employee engagement programs to a single core culture and communications hub. Achievers facilitate both social recognition and rewards-based recognition, thus enabling organizations to have a solid foundation for employee engagement.

It is more than just an employee engagement program; it labels itself as a culture builder. The tool pioneers HR innovation powered by workforce data and delights your employees through a fulfilling and friendly reward experience, which drives improved engagement and productivity.

Standout features include:

• Social feed 
• Data analytics
• Celebrations and announcements
• Workflow integrations
• Social and monetary recognition

Some reputable clients of Achievers are: 

• Ericsson
• Rogers
• McDonald’s

11. Workstars

Workstars is a leading provider of feature-packed social and peer-to-peer employee recognition programs. This employee recognition software enables businesses to make work more rewarding for their workforce. With Workstars, companies do not need to take a one-size-fits-all approach to employee recognition. Rather, it provides you with a dynamic platform to create highly customizable recognition programs for their employees.

Workstars integrates with various popular apps such as Slack, Yammer, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, etc, that your teams may already be using. This feature allows users to share employee recognition with the whole organization. This next-generation employee recognition platform has dozens of recognition models that are fit for any business, from any industry. 

From simple thanksgiving and offering performance bonuses to rewarding the workforce, Workstars ensures that you can offer a great real-time employee recognition experience.

Standout features include: 

• Peer-to-peer recognition program
• Customizable catalog of incentives and perks
• Social recognition
• Advanced budget tools
• Analytics dashboards
• Secure and scalable
• Fully responsive across various devices
• Smart recognition engine

Some reputable clients of Workstars are: 

• Parsons
• PennyMac
• Salix homes

12. PerkSpot

PerskSpot is a robust employee recognition program that helps businesses to inspire their workforce to love where they work. Using this tool, you can give personalized, exclusive, and private discounts to your employees and rewards to leave a real impact on their morale and self-confidence. These discounts can be curated to their interests, which allows them to save on home goods, electronics, meal delivery, and more. 

The integrated marketplace in PerkSpot offers hundreds of gift cards to recognize and reward employees for individual or group milestones and accomplishments. The tool offers real-time recognition to ensure hard work doesn’t go unnoticed. 

Standout features include: 

• Spot recognition
• Leaderboard
• Activity wall
• Real-time recognition
• Personalized rewards
• Service awards 
• Celebrating events

Some reputable clients of PerkSpot are: 

• Millennium Health
• Uber
• SouthWest
• Ace Hardware

13. Perkbox

Perkbox is an efficient global benefits and rewards platform that helps companies to have better connectivity with their employees. This employee recognition program lets businesses care for their employees and celebrate them, no matter where they are working in the world. 

Perkbox believes that even companies with a complex workforce can keep their employees healthy, happy, and motivated through a harmonized employee value proposition (EVP). The tool offers companies a personalized recognition experience to show how much they value their employees’ personal and professional interests. 

Standout features include: 

• Global perks and benefits
• Centralized company updates
• Supports employees’ well-being through curated resources
• Personalized recognition and rewards 
• Polls and Voting
• Peer-to-peer recognition
• Manager-to-peer recognition

Some reputable clients of Perkbox are: 

• Purple Bricks
• Bosch
• Trainline

14. Workvivo

Workvivo is a leading employee experience application that brings your entire company together on a single platform. By doing so, Workvivo aims to connect every team member through seamless and swift communication. This employee recognition software enables teams to communicate through news articles, livestreams, videos, and podcasts.

Workvivo harnesses the power of your enterprise social network to make recognition and rewards visible. Your employees can interact in the social feed, post motivating and appreciating messages, and hand out awards and rewards for displaying stellar performance at work. Polls and Surveys make it easy for companies to measure general feedback and team morale. Employees can nominate colleagues for badges and awards. 

Standout features include: 

• Employee communication
• Employee engagement
• Employee experience
• Social intranet
• Workplace insights
• Events calendar
• Employee social advocacy 
• Collaboration spaces

Some reputable clients of Workvivo are: 

• Amazon
• Netgear
• Mercedes Benz  

Why using employee recognition software is crucial? 

Think about the last time you invested countless hours on your desk to efficiently execute and successfully deliver projects to a client. You were over cloud nine over your team’s achievement and your organization and peers wasted no time in recognizing your earnest efforts at work.

You were rewarded in more ways than one, and this recognition further motivated you to continue to work harder and smarter for your organization. This is why using the best employee recognition programs is crucial.

Let’s find out how this employee recognition software solution can help your organization in more ways than one. 

1. Improves company culture

Recognizing your deserving employees helps to create and maintain a positive and productive company culture. Improved culture shows in the form of more efficient workers, quality work, and increased revenue for businesses.

2. Timely recognition of employees

Timely recognition of employees is important. It works wonders for their self-confidence and morale. Delay in recognizing your employees’ good work can adversely impact their performance and might even make them consider quitting their current job.

3. Data-driven performance management

Employee recognition programs provide managers and other leaders with accurate data on employees’ work performance. Hence, you are in a better position to make transparent, performance-related decisions.

4. Simplified processes

Employee recognition programs make the whole process organized and simpler. Earlier, HR professionals used to invest a lot of time in planning recognition programs. However, the use of this software has helped leaders, managers, and even peers to directly recognize their employees. 

5. Improved employee engagement

Increased engagement plays an important role in improving employee engagement, which is beneficial for everyone involved – employees, managers, leaders, and organizations as a whole. 

6. Increased employee retention

Many companies struggle to retain their top performers. People switch jobs for better payouts as well as due to lack of recognition. 76% of employees who do not feel valued look for other job opportunities. Employee recognition programs help companies to appreciate people, which can help them to prevent attrition.

7. Improved employee productivity

Employees say that being appreciated drives them to work harder, which leads to improved productivity. Recognized employees are happy and engaged employees, which is something that many organizations strive for.

The final word

Your employees are the most valuable asset of your organization. Unsatisfied employees with low morale and self-confidence are an ominous sign for any business, irrespective of its type and size. 

Use the best employee recognition software with other powerful capabilities, like task management, communication, time tracking, file management, etc., to make sure that your team has the best technology at their disposal. 

This will empower them to be more efficient at work minus unnecessary manual efforts and excessive stress. 

ProofHub is one such tool that offers a suite of comprehensive features in a centralized location, which encourages organized work management and enhanced team collaboration.