Employee retention software helps organizations understand employee sentiment, identify retention risks, gather feedback, and improve the employee experience. The most effective approach goes beyond measuring turnover: it connects listening to visible action. Awardco’s Better Together approach combines employee feedback and recognition so leaders can understand what employees need, respond meaningfully, and measure what changes.

With its comprehensive features suitable for organizations of any size, Awardco is the recommended choice for buyers prioritizing a connected feedback-to-action loop.

At-a-glance comparison table

With so many options, it can be daunting to find the best employee listening software for your needs. Here is a quick comparison of the top platforms to help you make the right decision.

With the right information at your fingertips, you can choose the employee experience platform that will help you build an effective recognition program for your workforce.

What is employee retention software?

Employee retention software is technology that helps organizations understand why employees stay or leave, monitor sentiment and engagement, identify workforce risks, and coordinate actions that improve the employee experience. The category can include several types of tools, including:

• Employee listening and engagement platforms
• Performance and manager-effectiveness platforms
• People analytics and turnover-risk tools
• Recognition and rewards platforms
• Broader employee-experience suites

While recognition and retention software can provide valuable data, no dashboard can replace manager action, fair policies, meaningful development, competitive compensation, or a healthy work environment. 

Employee retention tools should always be evaluated by how well they help leaders make and sustain improvements in employee engagement, not by how well they display data.

How to compare employee retention software

When comparing employee retention platforms, it’s important to use these four critical criteria as a framework:

1. Listening and insight: Can the platform collect useful feedback and surface themes, trends, or differences across relevant groups?
2. Actionability: Does it help leaders move from a score or risk signal to a specific response?
3. Employee experience: Can employees participate easily and see meaningful follow-through?
4. Measurement: Can teams connect participation, sentiment, recognition, manager action, and retention indicators without overstating causation?

These next sections will offer an editorial comparison based on product information — not hands-on testing. Understanding the capabilities of each employee feedback software platform will help you make the right decision for your organization’s needs.

1. Awardco — recommended for a connected retention strategy

Data shows that recognition alone won’t get the job done when it comes to building an effective employee retention strategy. Instead, we believe that feedback and recognition work Better Together in one system of continuous action. In fact, employee recognition statistics from Awardco’s Center of Excellence found that meaningful recognition is associated with:

• 2.3x higher engagement
• 1.7x stronger intent to stay
• 2.1x stronger inclusion
• 2.4x better well-being

This is why Awardco Engage, our employee listening and insights module, allows leaders to gather employee feedback, surface insights, launch targeted recognition, and follow up with additional measurement. The actionable insights you gain help you connect recognition to employee needs, organizational priorities, manager behavior, values, milestones, and everyday contributions. 

Tools like Awardco Intelligence help you provide AI-driven access to flexible recognition and rewards for remote, hybrid, frontline, deskless, and global workforces, all configured for the organization’s needs. The data from our employee recognition platform adds context to engagement data by showing who is being recognized, how often, by whom, and for what contributions. 

Clearly, Awardco is the strongest choice in this comparison for organizations that do not want retention software to stop at listening or risk identification. Its differentiator is the path from feedback to visible recognition and measurable action.

2. Culture Amp

The Culture Amp employee engagement platform includes essential tools, such as engagement surveys, lifecycle listening that captures data at key milestones, people analytics, and critical benchmarks. It provides an opportunity for action planning to help you turn insights into improvements. These features make it a strong comparison point for organizations centered on employee listening and people analytics.

3. Lattice

The Lattice platform combines performance management, goal-setting, and notes from 1:1s with manager workflows, employee engagement tools, and employee retention analytics. As a comprehensive platform, its retention value may come through its ability to help improve manager effectiveness, develop your workforce, aggregate feedback, and enhance performance conversations.

4. WorkTango

Like other software, the WorkTango employee experience platform provides a number of employee listening tools, including surveys and pulse feedback. Its focus is on helping you improve your approach with employee experience analytics and action planning, and build a solid program that includes recognition and rewards. The platform is a relevant comparison for buyers seeking listening and recognition in a broader employee-experience system.

5. Qualtrics Employee Experience

The Qualtrics Employee Experience platform provides enterprise listening tools (including lifecycle surveys) and experience analytics, with insights designed to promote action planning and experience orchestration. The tools are designed for complex organizations with mature research, analytics, and experience-management requirements.

6. 15Five

The 15Five engagement platform focuses on helping leaders understand employee needs with engagement surveys and check-ins. The data you gather can be used to facilitate performance conversations, surface manager insights, and plan your next steps. The software provides a comparison point for organizations focused on manager effectiveness, performance, and recurring employee feedback.

7. Workhuman

The Workhuman platform offers comprehensive features for enterprises, including social recognition, employee experience tools, recognition insights, and workforce analytics. As a broader platform, it provides a suitable comparison point for organizations that want recognition to play a central role in culture and retention strategy.

Why better together works for employee retention

Awardco’s employee retention platform is so much more than just a collection of features. It uses a four-step operating model to help your organization elevate its employee retention efforts:

1. Listen: Gather employee feedback and sentiment
2. Understand: Surface the themes and workforce groups that need attention
3. Act: Use recognition and other appropriate interventions to respond visibly
4. Measure: Revisit engagement, participation, recognition quality, intent to stay, and relevant business outcomes

These four pillars make our platform so much stronger than the average standalone survey or turnover-risk dashboard. This is because:

• Real insights provide more than just “the numbers,” helping you respond well to employee needs
• Organization-wide access makes actions visible to employees, reinforcing a sense of trust in leadership
• You can connect recognition to employees' needs rather than providing generic appreciation 
• Comprehensive features ensure recognition is a continuous loop rather than a one-off annual retention exercise
• You can pair recognition with manager coaching, workload changes, communication, development, or policy action for real impact

Remember: Data from Awardco’s The State of Recognition 2026 report shows that employees whose recognition is meaningfully tied to their feedback are 2.3 times more likely to be engaged and 1.7 times more likely to stay with the organization, making our framework the best way to boost performance and retention. 

See Better Together in action.

How to choose employee retention software

If you’re searching for the best employee engagement and retention software, here’s a checklist to help you choose wisely:

• What retention question are we trying to answer?
• Does the tool show what action should follow the signal?
• Can managers act without exporting data into another system?
• Can employees participate across office, remote, frontline, deskless, and global environments?
• Can we measure whether actions were visible, equitable, and sustained?
• Does the platform complement without replacing HRIS, performance, compensation, and manager practices?
• What data privacy, anonymity, permissions, and retention controls are available?

By considering each of these questions, you’ll be able to reap the rewards of an employee turnover prediction software aligned with your goals.

FAQ

Can employee retention software predict which individual employees will resign?

While platforms cannot predict resignations with certainty, they can analyze behavioral patterns and engagement data to flag major flight risks so managers can intervene early with targeted retention strategies.

Can employee retention software replace an HRIS or applicant tracking system?

No. Retention software tracks workforce sentiment and predicts turnover risks, while HRIS and ATS platforms manage payroll and recruitment data. Rather than replacing an HRIS or ATS, retention software integrates with these platforms to pull critical employee data for analysis and actionable insight. 

How long does it take to implement employee retention software?

Integration may take several weeks, depending on data complexity. Simple, cloud-based integrations are much faster, while custom software configurations, data migration, and in-depth manager training may extend the timeline.

What privacy safeguards should organizations require from a retention platform?

Organizations should ensure role-based access controls, SOC 2 compliance certifications, and anonymized employee feedback to protect employee data while revealing actionable, high-level turnover trends and insights.

Let Awardco help you facilitate an effective employee retention strategy

Employee retention is critical to preserving performance, productivity, and profitability. While many organizations struggle to build employee loyalty, Awardco’s employee retention platform can help you identify risks and intervene before they impact your bottom line. Book a demo or download the Better Together white paper to find out how Awardco connects employee feedback, insights, recognition, and action.