COMPARISON OF SOLUTIONS
Best solution for employee engagement
Why we need to take a critical look into employee engagement approaches
All recent research points to a state of affairs whereby employees don't feel heard or valued, and management remains overwhelmed.
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Evidenced Experience
Read more“Only 22% of companies obtain meaningful results from their employee engagement surveys.” (Enodo Global, 2022)
"60% - 80% of employees are disengaged" (Gallup)
Truth to be told, these results are not unexpected. They are a result of two key factors:
- The best of human-centric leadership techniques are not wide-spread enough
- Traditional systems and methods of engaging with people have taken a route away from facilitating a genuine dialogue
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Positive Vision
Multiple research initiatives and experiential stories told by thought leaders prove that:
- when modern leadership practices are employed, employee engagement thrives
- employee enggement has direct impact on organizational strategy and performance
History to date says "only three in 10 employees strongly agree with the statement that their opinions count at work". Gallup calculated that by “moving the ratio to six in 10 employees, organizations could realize a 27% reduction in staff turnover, a 40% reduction in safety incidents, and a 12% increase in productivity.”
Employees who feel their voice is heard are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work (Salesforce).
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How to Know What You Need
Consider these principles when navigating through options for boosting effectiveness and culture:
- Systems thinking says that everyone's context is unique - super / wicked problems cannot be solved by cookie-cutter solutions; This is why generalised surveys have resulted in poor outcomes
- "Best practice" is a dangerous term - many commonly used practices have been discovered to backfire in ways that well-intentioned leaders did not expect (360 degree reviews and open-door policy are some of such practices)
- Repeating the same thing but expecting new results is a road to nowhere
- Your people are diverse - embracing neuro-diversity and psychological safety requires daring to experiment with non-transactional methods of hearing people in their own words
Above all, no employee engagement solution can truly claim to be "performance boosting software". It is people who improve productivity and culture, not software. If we want change, we need to empower people through modern and innovative ways.
The landscape of approaches and solution options
25 Employee Engagement Solutions Compared to Neelix Live Pulse System
01
HRIS Systems
HR operations matters are the core purpose. Surveys are non-specific and solicit little trust from employees.
02
Analytics & Surveys
Core focus is on research-based methodologies and out of the box templates. Surveys always become latent and even a chore.
03
Kudos Systems
Core focus is celebrations. Data has no or very little impact on efforts to improve environment.
04
Live Pulse
Live Pulse method aims to do away with the need for surveys, whilst still being data-driven, impactful for effectiveness and culture.
List of all solutions compared via relative scoring matrix:
Neelix, Elmo, Lattice, HiBob, Humanforce, BambooHR, Lanteria, Teamflect, EmploymentHero, CultureAmp, Survey Monkey, Prosperex, Qualtrics, Perceptyx, Quantum Workplace, Surveysparrow, DecisionWise, Microsoft Forms, Google Forms, Happily.ai, OneModel, Kudos, Kudoboard , Nectar HR, Motivosity, Augeomarketing
Core requirements for comparing employee engagement solutions
Data Quality
Data has to be something that people actively want to share, something that can improve effectiveness and culture. Lag has to be minimal and overheads very low.
Democratisation
People have to trust that they are not being gamed. It is not a performance management process but an exercise in collective intelligence. In this process everyone is an equal participant (leaders, managers and grassroots). No hidden corners and mutation of data points allowed. Real-time and immutable nature of feedback are key.
Inclusivity
Given that the primary purpose of feedback loops is to build bridges between perspectives in joint pursuit of excellence, it is important to involve all stakeholders in the loop. The approach should be simple and smart to ensure useful exchange without oversharing across teams, departments, with customers and partners.
The Status Quo
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Saturation
The market is oversaturated with employee engagement solutions. Most of solutions double-down on engagement via surveys.
Despite the possibilities offered by Ai, traditional approach have capacity to erode psychological safety and trust even further. This possibility exists due to a inadvertent self-serving purpose of surveys (even if not intended by facilitators).
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Unintentional Self-Serving
Most products double-down on research-based methodologies and ready-made templates. The criteria are not wrong if the request is to extract information from employees as a form of sociological measurement.
However, this is not a dialogue system. Just as early workers were suspicious of Taylorism, which measured their tasks with stopwatch, so the modern workforce views surveys as a control mechanism.
Poor engagement statistics are evidence of this experience. Most surveys can only measure how people answer questions (i.e., dodge the chore of surveys), but not how they actually think.
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Avoidable Tensions
Business units, teams, and HR must rethink how they collaborate to create value.
HR’s goal is to be a strategic partner. Controlling engagement administration dilutes this role.
Business units and teams want to be free to experiment with patterns that work in their specific context. Different teams within the same organization may need different approaches that fit the specific work and groups of people.
The current status quo imposes a single template on all stakeholders, creates dependencies, and slows innovation. The resulting tensions exacerbate organizational performance and culture issues.
Comparison Criteria
In order to challenge the status quo and deliver real benefits to the business, we believe that employees deserve to be heard in own words. With such overarching criteria. Rating of solutions is structured around two key focus lenses:
- Potency of information - data must be measurable, contextual, specific, and yet easy to aggregate into a big picture
- Democratisation of data points - data must be authentic, transparent, guard against group think, and empower psychological safety
Comparison of Employee Engagement Solutions
25 solutions compared to Live Pulse model implemented by Neelix.IO
Normalised scores that reflect how solutions meet requirements outlined below. Survey-based solutions scored lower because their primary purpose is to validate a research-backed hypothesis. Neelix (Live Pulse model) elevates reflective dialogue, whilst still being data-driven and structured.
Least suitable system for soliciting the voice of employees are HRIS systems. Greatest benefits are offered by the Live Pulse model because it is highly democratised and is capable of reducing surveys fatigue.
Book a chat and demo to learn more about the key differences.
The gap between the results may surprise many. We are open to being roasted on our findings. Some of causes are explained in this blog talking about escaping the survey trap.
Data Potency Requirements
Relative comparison between self-assessment of Live Pulse model capabilities vs the min / max score for alternative solutions.
| Criteria | Neelix.IO (Live Pulse) | Survey and Analytics Systems | HRIS Systems | Gamification and Kudos |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ability to measure specifics - effectiveness and experience within each team and business units | 10 | 3 - 7 | 2 - 4 | 1 - 1 |
| Ability to use same feebackloop on business line projects and activities without a dependency on HR. Ability for teams to setup own context. | 10 | 1 - 1 | 1- 1 | 0 - 0 |
| Ablitity to leverage existing team processes. The ability to minimize overhead and interruptions while encouraging innovation and experimentation | 9** | 3 - 4 | 3 - 3 | 3 - 4 |
| Ability to maintain immutable history of data whilst also explaining the story behind data. | 10 | 0 - 9 | 4 - 5 | 0 - 4 |
| Ability to reduce fatigue caused by surveys | 10 | 0 - 2 | 0 - 0 | 3 - 3 |
| Currency of data that impacts decision-making | 10 | 1 - 1 | 1 - 1 | 2 - 2 |
| Capability to include multiple external partners, customers and internal departments within the feeback loop of a team or a project | 10 | 0 - 5 | 0 - 0 | 0 - 0 |
| Reputation Management (inward and external transparency of employee buy-in and culture) | 8** | 0 - 5 | 0 - 0 | 0 - 0 |
| Ease of configuration management | 7** | 3 - 8 | 7 - 7 | 8 - 10 |
| Ease of finding "my feedback" and tracking what organization is doing about it | 10 | 0 - 3 | 1 - 1 | 0 - 0 |
| Capability for Leadership to feed clarity and context directly into feedback loop process | 10 | 0 - 0 | 2 - 2 | 2 - 2 |
| Capability for employee activists or team leaders to provide input into narrative linked to benchmarks | 10 | 0 - 0 | 0 - 0 | 0 - 0 |
| Positive use of Ai capabilities | 10 | 0 - 7 | 0 - 2 | 0 - 0 |
| Availability of information on-demand for decision-making | 10 | 1 - 1 | 1 - 1 | 0 - 0 |
Democratization and Inclusiveness Requirements
Relative comparison between self-assessment of Live Pulse model capabilities vs the min / max score for alternative solutions.
| Criteria | Neelix.IO (Live Pulse) | Survey and Analytics Systems | HRIS Systems | Gamification and Kudos |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trust in feedback loop and perception of its intent | 10 | 3 - 7 | 2 - 2 | 4 - 4 |
| Immediate access to the latest feedback and critical thinking reflections from my team and other teams | 10 | 0 - 10 | 0 - 0 | 10 - 10 |
| Self-service ability to navigate history - overall and specific themes | 10 | 0 - 9 | 4 - 5 | 0 - 4 |
| Assurance that everyone sees the same data, and that outliers were not normalised away | 10 | 0 - 9 | 0 - 0 | 10 - 10 |
| Ability to foster discourse | 10 | 5 - 5 | 1 - 1 | 0 - 0 |
| Psychological Safety options for submitting feedback and ability to measure in real-time | 9** | 5 - 5 | 1 - 1 | 0 - 0 |
| Capability for Leadership to participate in the feedback loop on terms equal with employees | 10 | 0 - 3 | 0 - 0 | 10 - 10 |
| Transparency when onboarding new people into compamy culture. Exit interviews. Internal and external transparency (counterbalance to GlassDoor). | 10 | 3 - 3 | 0 - 0 | 0 - 0 |
| Ability to combat lobbying by narrow interests or agenda hijacking | 9** | 0 - 5 | 0 - 0 | 0 - 0 |
Features Comparison
| Capability | Neelix.IO (Live Pulse) | Agile Ritual Tools | Survey Solutions | Gamification and Kudos |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real-time, context-aware feedback - smart transparency stream assisted by psychological safety | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | Kudos only |
| Real-time psychological safety report | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Real-time team journal | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Real-time future sentiment capture and measurement | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Confidence Voting and Health Checks | ✔️ | ❌ | Spot Surveys | ❌ |
| Retrospectives at scale | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Complete picture analytics that cover ongoing experiences, retrospective feedback and future sentiment | ✔️ | ❌ | Lagging Data | ❌ |
| Big picture dashboard with drilldown by teams and themes | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Maturity curve tracker | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Always-on organizational behavior insights | ✔️ | ❌ | Survey Results Processing Effort | ❌ |
| Hearts and Minds talent retention strength tracker | ✔️ | ❌ | Surveys | ❌ |
| Self-driven peer feedback | ✔️ | ❌ | Surveys | ❌ |
| Integration with Slack and Microsoft Teams | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Interactive Ai With focus on What People Say | ✔️ | ❌ | Generative Predictions | ❌ |
** Never stop innovating
The employee engagement solutions comparison above has some scores for the Neelix.IO platform that are below 10. This is recognition of areas where we are committed to improving. Our story and the DNA of the Neelix.IO platform is continuous innovation. We never rest on our laurels and are excited to reinvent ourselves in ways that deliver real value to our customers.
Neelix.IO platform is more than a service. It is brought to you by practitioners who eat own humble pie every day. We dare to think outside the box - read more in our blog.
Disclaimer:
- This comparison is done by Neelix.IO platform; Naturally, it is fair for reader to expect some bias
- Our assessment reflects specific personas and their needs - see solutions for more background
- Comparison criteria is the list of requirements that Neelix.IO team recognised before platform development commenced in 2017