10 Best Employee Survey Tools: Transform Employee Feedback into Action

It’s one thing to hear your employees and another to listen to them. The distinction between the two lies in action. 

Enter employee survey tools. 

By gathering actionable feedback, employee survey tools help companies gain insights to measure, understand, and improve employee sentiment, satisfaction, and engagement. 

Read on to learn more about how employee survey tools can help you foster a positive work culture and discover some of the best employee survey tools on the market.

Key Takeaways 

• Modern Feedback Evolution: Employee feedback has shifted from annual reviews to AI-driven, real-time insights, emphasizing continuous listening to retain talent.
• Must-Have Features: The best employee survey tools offer real-time feedback, anonymous surveys, customization, mobile access, integrations, analytics, and action planning.
• Effective Implementation: Employee survey success requires clear goals, regular surveys, actionable follow-ups, and consistent tracking of engagement outcomes.
  
  

What’s Changing in the World of Employee Feedback

If you’re an established company with a solid reputation and respect for your employees, employee feedback shouldn’t be a new concept. But, what is new is how employee feedback is evolving. 

Traditionally, feedback was delivered top-down, delivered one-way with managers assessing employees during an annual performance review. 

Eventually, companies began using formal surveys to collect feedback and record job satisfaction levels. It wasn’t until the 1990s that the idea of tracking employee engagement was introduced by the psychologist, William A. Khan. 

By the 2000s, companies started implementing online survey platforms, pulse surveys, and specialized tools like Gallup’s Q12 to track employee engagement. In the 2010s, technology enabled a new generation of employee feedback with real-time analytics dashboards and continuous feedback loops. 

This shift to digital employee survey solutions was amplified in 2020 when companies were suddenly forced to move their workforces online. This era also ushered in a preference for continuous feedback, over annual performance reviews, that has continued well into the post-pandemic workforce. 

Today, predictive analytics and AI have stepped in with advanced insights that can help predict trends and potential issues before they escalate. The best employee survey tools will integrate with other popular data-driven HR, work performance, and business software like Bamboo HR, Microsoft, popular CRMs, and more.

Modern employee surveys make the entire employee survey process more intuitive for everyone involved – employees and company leaders. The actionable insights these tools provide help companies quickly act on engagement issues to improve overall workplace culture and employee retention rates. 

Essential Features of Modern Survey Tools

When selecting the best employee survey tool for your organization, make sure to look out for these key features: 

• Real-time feedback capabilities: Choose a platform that offers many surveys like Pulse Surveys, which capture real-time, actionable insights for employee feedback loops.
• Anonymous survey options: Since many people feel more comfortable sharing their feedback anonymously, the option for anonymous surveys can enhance engagement.
• Customizable templates: A pre-made survey template saves you a ton of time as long as it's easily customizable to your company’s brand and unique needs.
• Mobile Accessibility: Ultimately, you want your employee survey tool to be as accessible as possible so opt for a solution with a mobile app that allows employees to engage on the go.
• Integration capabilities: Your employee survey tool should seamlessly integrate with your existing systems, such as HR software, payroll, and communication platforms.
• Analytics and reporting: Choose a platform that delivers comprehensive reports and real-time, unbiased insights into your people and workplace culture.
• Action planning tools: Look for platforms with features that encourage employees to set and achieve meaningful objectives via incentivized goal-setting and more.

Top Employee Survey Tools for 2025

The right employee survey tool depends on your organization’s size and specific needs; here’s a look at top options for enterprise-level, mid-market, and small business solutions

Best All-around Employee Survey Solution

1. Applauz

Applauz is a robust, user-friendly, and award-winning employee recognition platform that gives employees and leaders a universal space to engage with each other. 

This employee survey tool provides teams with the features they need — like a comprehensive feedback collection system, a real-time analytics dashboard, and an award-winning pulse survey tool — to continuously recognize employees. 

Customize employee surveys to fit your brand and company needs or offer your employees an anonymous feedback option — Applauz has several options for engaging with your team.

On an employee recognition level, Applauz’s tool kit is equipped with a diverse range of features like peer and employee recognition, customizable work and anniversary awards, badges, custom perks, incentives, and challenges, plus a vast Rewards marketplace with over 30,000 items to choose from. The platform also offers engagement, performance, and rewards analytics to monitor point distribution, program adoption, and more. 

The Applauz software is accompanied by extensive service and support rooted in customer success. If you want one of the best employee recognition programs on your side, the Applauz team is here for you.

Another major advantage of this platform is its extensive list of integrations. The Applauz toolset integrates seamlessly with existing popular HR, business, and performance software like Microsoft, Bamboo HR, ADP, Azure, and more.

Want employee surveys that come with real-time, unbiased insights into your people and culture?  Try Applauz.

Key features:

• Award-winning employee surveys
• Engagement analytics and reports
• Customization and integration options
• Peer-to-peer employee recognition
• Company culture newsfeed
• Automated employee anniversary program
• Badge and point incentives
• Rewards marketplace with over 30,000 items

Pricing:

Applauz offers three paid plans: its Recognition Starter plan is $3.75 per user per month, its Engagement Essentials plan is $5.25 per user per month, and its Experience Pro plan is $6.50 per user per month.

Customer success stories: 

“The pulse surveys are excellent and we can see scores by location which is helpful to those operations managers. We go over areas where we need to improve once a month.”

-Applauz customer review 

Other Options

2. Culture Amp

Culture Amp is an employee experience platform that combines tools for employee engagement, performance management, and employee development. The employee survey tool has over 40 customizable employee survey templates to help boost engagement. 

Furthermore, what makes Culture Amp stand out is its generative AI, which offers intelligent, actionable insights and analytics. The platform also has a library of action plans for helping employers design strategies for responding to employee feedback. 

Key features: 

• 40+ Customizable survey templates 
• Extensive integrations 
• Analytics and reports 
• Action plans

Pricing: 

Culture Amp has three paid plans: Engage, Perform, and Develop. For specific details on pricing, contact the platform directly. 

3. Qualtrics

Qualtrics is a sophisticated employee experience platform that’s backed by robust AI technology. It has strong benchmarking capabilities and customization options for surveys and tracked metrics. This employee survey tool features automated pulse surveys, automated question cycles, pre-built programs for addressing common employee issues, and robust analytics and reporting. 

Key features: 

• Automated pulse survey programs 
• Built-in organizational hierarchies 
• Analytics and reports 
• Automated question cycles 
• Built-in enterprise security 

Pricing: 

For specific details on pricing, contact the platform directly. 

4. Workday Peakon

Workday Peakon Employee Voice is an AI-powered software that provides tools for employee engagement and retention, as well as leadership development. It uses AI-driven insights powered by Workday AI for several features including its automated surveys, which can be personalized thanks to smart algorithms and research-backed libraries. 

The software also has personalized dashboards for reports and analytics, as well as unique features like confidential one-on-one conversations between managers and employees.

Key features: 

• AI-powered automated surveys
• Reports and analytics 
• Personalized dashboards 
• AI insights 

Pricing: 

For specific details on pricing, contact the platform directly. 

5. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is a user-friendly survey tool designed for several specialties including market research, customer experience, product, research, and HR resources. For this reason, there may be several features that aren’t specific to employee surveys. However, its HR focus is strong with several expert pre-built templates to choose from, deep survey targeting, and AI insights. 

Key features: 

• Real-time feedback 
• Expert-designed templates
• AI prompts and insights 
• Survey targeting
• User-friendly interface 

Pricing: 

Survey Monkey offers three plans: Its Basic plan is free with limited features, its Individual Advantage plan is $45/month. Its Individual Advantage plan is $45/month, and its Team Advantage is $30/month per user. 

6. 15Five

15Five is a performance management platform that takes pride in its science-backed AI insights and hyper-focused plans for action. This platform matches your employee feedback data with over 600,000 surveys worth of learning to provide actionable insights on specific areas to improve employee engagement.

This employee survey tool offers pre-made templates and customizable standardized surveys to measure engagement, manager effectiveness, DEI initiatives, eNPS, and more. 

Key features: 

• Action plans
• Customizable surveys
• Pre-made survey templates
• AI insights 

Pricing: 

​15Five offers three paid plans: its Engage plan is $4 per user/per month, its Perform plan is $10 per user/per month, and its Total Platform plan is $16 per user/per month.

7. Lattice

Lattice is a user-friendly performance management software that helps companies visualize and measure their employee engagement levels via dashboards, illustrate graphs, and more. 

The software offers AI-powered and automated features like 1:1s with automatic agenda suggestions. It comes with several types of employee surveys including pulse, onboarding and exit, eNPS, and benchmark surveys.  

Key features: 

• AI-driven engagement surveys 
• Reports and analytics  
• Goals & OKRs 
• AI analysis 

Pricing: 

Lattice’s Talent Management plan is $11 per user/per month and its Core HRIS plan is $10 per user/per month. 

Price-Conscious Alternatives

8. Google Forms

Google Forms is an online form creator that’s part of Google Workspace. For this reason, it’s very accessible and easy to use (if you’re already a Google user), which makes it a valuable small business solution for employee surveys. 

A Google Form is as easy to create as a Google Doc, which is great news for beginners. The forms are customizable and Google even offers fairly robust analytics with automatic summaries of real-time response data. However, this survey tool isn’t designed specifically for HR purposes, so users have to create surveys from scratch. 

Key features: 

• Customizable forms 
• Real-time analytics 
• Intuitive to use
• Mobile-friendly 

Pricing: 

Google Form’s Personal plan is free with 15 GB of cloud storage per user. The Business Standard plan is $12 per user/month with 2 TB of cloud storage per user. 

9. Typeform

Typeform is a survey platform that emphasizes visual design to attract responses. It prioritizes collecting unique employee data through results-driven surveys and templates tailored for engagement. With over 300 seamless integrations, Typeform connects your employee data across platforms. 

While this platform isn’t designed specifically for HR teams, its intuitive design and flexibility make it easy for companies to collect meaningful insights and foster employee engagement more effectively.

Key features: 

• Intuitive to use 
• Highly customizable 
• 300+ integrations
• Mobile-friendly
• Data-driven insights 

Pricing: 

Typeform has several plans including its Basic plan for $25/month, its Plus plan for $50/month, and its Business plan (up to 5 users) for $83/month. Contact the platform directly for specific details on its Enterprise plan. 

10. Microsoft Forms

Microsoft Forms may not be the most robust employee survey platform but its simplicity and ease of use is a major plus. It offers customizable surveys that use templates with real-time collaboration tools and seamlessly integrates with Microsoft 365 apps, like Teams and Excel. 

The platform also offers more advanced features like branching logic and automatic data visualization. Its secure cloud storage and mobile accessibility make Microsoft Forms an accessible employee survey platform for teams to participate anytime, anywhere.

Key features: 

• Integrations with Microsoft 365 apps
• Mobile-friendly design 
• Real-time feedback 
• Customization options 

Pricing: 

Microsoft Forms is available as part of the Microsoft 365 Business Basic suite for $5 per user/per month. 

Choosing the Right Survey Tool

Choosing the right employee survey tool requires careful evaluation of your organization’s size, needs, and priorities. Firstly, the size of your organization matters. A small business will require different employee engagement ideas than a large organization.

For example, a startup may be looking for feedback on company culture or role clarity and a customer service team might seek employee feedback on training effectiveness, workload distribution, and stress management. 

Remote teams might use an employee survey tool for input on virtual collaboration tools, isolation challenges, or even engagement strategies. 

Once you’ve identified the “why” that fuels your search for an employee survey tool, it’s time to set a realistic budget. Look out for survey tools that offer the features you need without any unnecessary add-ons that will drive up costs. 

Next, consider your implementation timeline. If you’re under a tight schedule, opt for a tool with quick setup options, intuitive onboarding, pre-designed templates, and robust support to get you up and running fast.

If your business relies on other software for operations, integrations are crucial. Look for a survey tool that seamlessly connects with your existing systems like HR platforms, collaboration tools, or data analysis programs. 

Equally important is the user experience of your employee survey tool – for both employees and HR leaders. You want to choose an intuitive tool that’s visually engaging and easy to navigate. 

Employees are more likely to complete surveys when the process is straightforward and pleasant. On the backend, streamlined dashboards and reporting features will save time and effort in managing and analyzing responses.

By considering company size, budget, timeline, integration, and user experience, you should be able to select a survey tool that aligns with your company goals and delivers actionable insights. 

Implementation Best Practices

Once you’ve chosen the right employee survey tool, you have to implement it properly for its success. Here are some best practices: 

• Survey Frequency: Schedule surveys regularly but avoid overloading employees to maintain engagement. It’s a balance!
• Question Design: Craft clear, concise questions that encourage honest and meaningful responses.
• Optimize Response Rates: Communicate survey goals and emphasize confidentiality to build trust and encourage participation.
• Create an Action Plan: Use survey insights to develop and communicate specific, measurable action steps.
• Manage Change Effectively: Train teams and highlight the benefits of the new tool to gain support and alignment.

Measuring Your Employee Survey Program Success

Implementing your new employee survey strategy is just the beginning. Next, focus on measuring the success of your survey program.

• Track Participation Rates: Monitor how many employees complete the survey to gauge engagement.
• Analyze Response Quality: Evaluate the thoughtfulness and detail in your employees’ responses to record meaningful insights.
• Compare Trends Over Time: Review survey results periodically to identify improvements or emerging issues.
• Assess Follow-Through: Check if action plans based on survey results are implemented effectively.
• Gather Feedback on Surveys: Seek feedback from employees on the survey process to enhance future iterations.
• Link Results to Outcomes: Correlate survey findings with key business metrics like employee retention and productivity.

Elevate Your Employee Engagement Strategy With Applauz

Today’s job market is competitive, which means companies need a good grasp of their employees' needs and wants to retain top talent and foster a positive work culture. 

Choosing the right employee survey tool is critical to fostering a positive and engaging workplace environment. Some key factors to consider include budget, ease of implementation, integration with your existing systems, and an intuitive user experience. 

The best employee survey tool should empower your organization to work as a team gathering actionable insights, recognizing each other’s achievements, and continuously improving employee satisfaction and retention.

Ultimately, the difference between good companies and great companies often comes down to how well they listen to their employees. 

Ready to listen to your employees effectively? Try our award-winning pulse survey—schedule your Applauz demo today!