Employee recognition is a crucial part of running a business, with 81% of employees saying they are motivated to work harder when their manager recognizes them. And in response to this, there are a plethora of employee recognition platforms.

But with so many options, it can be challenging to pick the right one. Workhuman has some great features like a DEI Advisor. But it also has limited integrations and expensive awards. 

So we’re going to be looking at a selection of alternatives to Workhuman so that you can find the best recognition platform for your employees.

Why Is Recognition So Important In The Workplace?

First, let’s take a look at why employee recognition is important. Across the board, data supports the fact that social recognition improves employee engagement. 

Research done by Deloitte found that employee engagement, productivity, and performance are 14% higher in organizations with recognition programs and that a 15% increase in engagement can produce a 2% increase in margins.

However, not all social recognition produces the same results. Generic thank-you emails and a card on your birthday are not necessarily enough to keep your employees engaged. That’s why you need to develop a great employee engagement strategy. 

Using an employee recognition and rewards platform can boost engagement and help build a better workplace. 

What Is Workhuman?

Workhuman is a platform that facilitates employee recognition and rewards. It has a gifting marketplace, an automatic milestone tracker, and a points system that allows you to reward employees for their good work. 

It also provides a range of analytics that allow you to better understand your employees and how to engage them. However, Workhuman doesn’t have the ability to build a custom swag store and doesn’t provide reminders to maintain frequent recognition. 

Workhuman offers detailed insights into the employee experience, gathering data across employee interactions so that managers can better understand their behavior and motivations. This makes it an effective tool for employee experience management as well as recognition. 

For a full breakdown of the platform, be sure to read through our complete Workhuman review. We outline its main features in detail and break down its pros and cons.

7 Of The Best Workhuman Competitors To Consider For Employee Recognition

Below, we look at some solutions that focus just on employee recognition or employee management, as well as some that combine both. This gives a good range of Workhuman alternatives to consider. 

1. PerkUp

PerkUp is the ideal platform for employee appreciation, recognition, and engagement. It seamlessly blends thank you messages, gifting, automated anniversaries, and custom swag. 

The main focus of PerkUp’s platform is employee engagement and building community. Because 68% of employees prefer choosing their own rewards, PerkUp offers virtual Visa cards that allow your employees to choose exactly what they want as their own gift, including everything from holidays to gas money.

The solution works well with both spot rewards and automated milestone recognition, and you can provide a level of customization, even with bulk rewards. 

One of PerkUp’s integrated features is the ability to set up a custom swag store where you can sell or gift your employees company-branded merchandise. This is an excellent initiative because it promotes a sense of community and team cohesion. Plus, who doesn’t love a free t-shirt?

PerkUp makes it easy to gift new hires a swag pack as part of their welcome gift and provides global shipping and warehousing.

Main Features 

• Tailored Gifting Marketplace: PerkUp’s store offers over 1000 gifts, including swappable gifts and cash rewards. These gifts have all been selected with employees in mind. You can also shop from Amazon through PerkUp.

• Direct Rewards: Rather than a complicated points system, PerkUp rewards employees with pre-loaded Visa cards. You can use these in the gifting marketing place and swag store, but you can also use them for other expenses. 

• Custom Swag Store: PerkUp allows you to set up a custom swag store where you can sell or gift employees branded merchandise. This builds workplace culture and team cohesion.

• Real-time Reporting: You get fast insights into how your employees are responding to your gifts. You can also track trends such as top gifters, top recipients, and which people are sending rewards. 

• Financial Support: It offers excellent budget management and real-time tax reports to fully understand your spending. You can easily download transaction reports, and unused funds are carried over.

• Integrations: PerkUp offers an impressive array of integrations, including all the major HRIS tools, Slack, Okta, Azure, and more.  

• Lunch Option: PerkUp makes it easy to gift team lunches, whether you are all in the office or all around the globe. 

PerkUp offers an impressive array of features while also having competitive pricing. It understands the diverse needs of employees, providing flexible gifts to signal respect, encourage agency, and boost engagement. 

Find out what others say about the platform by checking out these PerkUp reviews. 

2. Bonusly

Bonusly is a workplace recognition platform that places a strong emphasis on peer-to-peer recognition and offers a breakdown of recognition trends among employees. It focuses on improving engagement, and therefore productivity, while also saving you time by automating recognition for milestones. 

Bonusly has a gifting marketplace as well as offering a custom swag store in AXOMO.

Some benefits of Bonusly are the options for charitable donations as rewards and the option for employees to cash out their points into real money with options like Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal. There is also an employee shout out feature, although it lacks customization such as GIFs. 

Part of what Bonusly offers is detailed reporting and actionable analytics. There is an overview dashboard to help you understand employee recognition at a glance. You can also see the leaderboard, the top words being used in recognition messages, and keep track of employee participation.

Main Features 

• Public Recognition: Bonusly uses public recognition posts to make team members feel more seen and connected. However, this can lead to some team members feeling excluded if they get less recognition than others. 

• Gifting Marketplace: It offers a wide selection of rewards and gifts, including options for charitable donations and cashing out points using Visa, Mastercard, or PayPal.

• Custom Swag Store: Bonusly does have a custom swag store, although it is not built into the platform. Rather, you build your swag store using AXOMO (check out our full review of AXOMO for more information about the platform). 

• Analytics: There is an overview dashboard to help you understand how your employee recognition program is performing. 

• HRIS Integrations: Bonusly has several HRIS integrations and you can request additional ones be added to the platform. Some of the platforms it integrates with include Workday, Namely, Gusto, Sage, and Bamboo HR.  

• SSO Integration: This allows users to access Bonusly using a Single Sign On platform, rather than needing multiple login details. This is only available on the Pro Plan. 

Bonusly pricing starts at $2 per user per month (billed monthly), making this a good option for smaller organizations. However, some key features are only available on the Pro plan, which is $5 per user per month. 

One limitation of Bonusly is that you do not get unlimited points to allocate out as rewards. There is a monthly cap, and this can run out quite quickly, especially in larger organizations. 

For more information on the platform, be sure to check out our complete Bonusly review where we dive into its features, pros, cons, and more. 

3. Awardco

Awardco is an employee recognition software that focuses on building an excellent company culture. It uses rewards and recognition to boost satisfaction and efficiency. 

The platform is comprehensive and allows you to see everything about your rewards and recognition program in one place. Its rewards template allows you to be specific about what you are recognizing the employee for, including highlighting key values. One benefit of Awardco is that you can set the recognition to be either private or public. 

One of the best features of Awardco is the Lifestyle Spending Account (LSA). With mental health becoming more of a focus, you can award funds to your employees’ LSAs, which they can spend how they choose on rewards that reduce their stress and improve wellness. You can set this up once, and then it will automatically allocate points monthly. 

Awardco offers a wide range of lifestyle benefits and features a massive rewards marketplace where employees can spend their points. Because this is built into Awardco’s platform, it requires no effort to provide useful support to your employees. 

Main Features 

• Employee Recognition: Awardco has features for employee recognition where you can recognize individual or multiple employees at the same time. Recognition is displayed on a social feed so that everyone can see and join in. 

• Service Award & Milestone Recognition: The platform automates the process of recognizing employee milestones such as birthdays or work anniversaries. 

• Lifestyle Spending Account: Award regular points that employees can spend on lifestyle benefits, such as ergonomic office furniture, pet care, gym memberships, and even financial services. 

• Incentives: Awardco has an excellent Incentives feature, where you can set up custom incentives for various tasks, including training, and anything else you want to encourage.

• Amazon Integration: Awardco integrates with Amazon Business, meaning that employees have control over choosing their own rewards. 

• Supplement Points: If your employee does not have enough points for a particular reward, they can supplement their points by linking their credit card and paying the balance. 

While Awardco offers many impressive features, lots of them are only available on the more expensive plans. For pricing, SMB plans start from $2500 a year, and do not include spot recognition functions, but rather only automated service and birthday awards.

It costs more to access peer-to-peer and manager-to-employee recognition, spot recognition, and bulk recognition. So in order to access much of Awardco’s functionality, you must be willing to sign on for the more premium plans. 

Interested in Awardco? Before making your decision, read our in-depth Awardco review to learn more about its main features and its pros and cons. 

4. Motivosity

Motivosity emphasizes the importance of employee recognition to ensure talent retention. It is a holistic platform that covers employee recognition, employee insight, and manager development. It allows for company-wide recognition and peer-to-peer recognition. 

A benefit of Motivosity is its wide range of rewards on its online store. In addition to gifts and swag, you can transfer points onto a ThanksMatters card which can then be used anywhere that accepts Visa cards. This aligns with the fact that employees highly value being able to choose their own rewards. 

They also allow you to offer custom rewards applicable to your company, such as free parking spaces and days off. 

Main Features 

• ThanksMatters Card: You can transfer points onto a ThanksMatters card. These can be used anywhere that accepts Visa cards, giving your employees the power to choose what they want to spend their points on. 

• Company Store: Employees can also use their points to redeem gifts in a customizable company store where you can create a catalog with hundreds of gift cards and local offerings to choose from.

• Custom Rewards: You can add custom rewards, giving your employees rewards you know they will enjoy. 

• Peer-to-Peer Recognition: Motivosity acts as a company-wide recognition platform where employees can recognize and celebrate each other’s achievements. 

• Manager Development: The Manager Development add-on is an excellent tool if you want to focus on fostering leadership in your organization. It allows you to better manage priorities, keep track of agenda items, set up manager journals, and plan for succession.

• Employee Insights: This add-on allows you to send out pulse surveys to regularly check in on important metrics like employee satisfaction. You can also assess employee Net Promoter Scores (eNPS), a metric to determine employee loyalty. This provides insight into how likely an employee is to recommend the workplace to others. 

When it comes to pricing, the basic plan focused on community and connection. It includes a virtual store for gift cards, the ThanksMatters card, an appreciation feed, personality profiles, and interest group identification. All other features are add-ons that come at an additional cost. 

To find out more about this solution, check out our full Motivosity review. 

5. Nectar HR

Nectar is an employee recognition platform that promises to help boost employee engagement while also promoting core values. It recognizes employee recognition as a core part of building culture.

They see themselves as the second wave of employee recognition, going beyond milestone recognition and stock rewards to include peer-to-peer recognition, value-based rewards, and meaningful recognition. 

When it comes to employee recognition, Nectar encourages simple but frequent recognition. The platform also enables you to reward employees, offering a variety of products and gift cards to choose from.

Main Features 

• Diverse Rewards: Nectar provides a large array of items, gift cards, company swag, and donations, ensuring that your employees will be able to find something they like. It also integrates with Amazon’s product catalog.

• Easy Employee Recognition: Employees and managers can send shout outs to each other to show recognition for hard work or supportive actions. 

• Integrations: Nectar offers integrations with Amazon, Slack, and Microsoft Teams and HRIS systems including Bamboo HR, Namely, Paylocity, and Workday. 

• Challenges: Set wellness challenges for your employees and assign various rewards to incentivize participation. You can design any challenge you want, the employee self-reports their progress, and then you authorize it.

For pricing, Nectar’s Standard plan includes many features for $2.75 per user per month billed annually. You get a real-time activity feed, spot recognition, peer-to-peer recognition, and manager-to-employee recognition. This is a bonus because many other platforms don’t include these features in the basic plan. 

If you’d like to learn more about this platform, read our complete Nectar HR review. We explore the platform’s features, pros, cons, and more.  

6. 15Five 

15Five is an employee performance management tool, rather than an employee recognition platform. As such, it does not include a gifting marketplace but rather focuses on collecting and actioning data about employee engagement. 

It offers employee engagement surveys and uses the data for employee growth. You can easily set objectives and key results (OKRs) and use these to help with individual coaching and feedback. These surveys ensure your employees feel like they are being heard, especially once you use 15Five’s action plan dashboard to make positive changes. 

One of the best features that 15Five offers is its analytics offering. You can create dynamic heatmaps representing employee engagement, and benchmark this data against industry standards for deep insight into your workplace. 

You can also track manager effectiveness and see how that relates to engagement and turnover. The analytics offerings of 15Five make it a good companion to a platform that focuses on providing employee rewards.

Main Features 

• Engagement Surveys: 15Five’s major aspect is the 6-minute survey, a regular short survey that assesses employee engagement. 

• High 5s: You can send high 5’s to coworkers as a small but frequent instance of recognition. 

• Analytics: You can create dynamic heatmaps representing employee engagement, and benchmark this data against industry standards for deep insight into your workplace. You can also track manager effectiveness.

• Performance Review: 15Five offers various types of reviews to gain insight into performance. These include manager-led reviews, self-reviews, and peer reviews. Importantly, you can assign different weightings to different goals. 

• Outcomes Dashboard: The Outcomes Dashboard makes it easy to track the impact of changes in one place. 

In terms of pricing, 15Five’s Engage Plan includes the 6-minute engagement survey, competitor benchmarking, and the action plan dashboard. 

OKRs, competency tracking, check-ins, and HRIS integrations are only available on the next tier. If you want the HR dashboard that allows you to track manager effectiveness, you need to opt for the most expensive plan. 

For more information on 15Five, check out our detailed 15Five review covering the platform’s top features and who its right for. 

7. Lattice 

Lattice was one of the earliest employee management and engagement tools, and it still offers many great features and focuses on creating a healthy workplace. 

You can use this platform to conduct employee engagement surveys, set goals and OKRs, and monitor employee progress. This enables you to better understand your employees and see where you need to make improvements to keep them engaged and satisfied. 

Like 15Five, Lattice works as an excellent complementary platform to a rewards solution.

Main Features 

• Performance: Lattice provides continuous performance management, allowing you to closely monitor your employees' progress. You can easily manage feedback and schedule one-on-one meetings to help employees reach their full potential. 

• People Analytics: You can gather data about your employees and their performance and use this data to make smart decisions. Lattice tracks various HR trends and provides reports and predictions. It provides insight into your employees’ strengths and weaknesses and how you can work with them. 

• Compensation Management: Using the performance review data, you can easily compensate your employees for their hard work. This keeps employees motivated to keep doing their best. 

When it comes to pricing, the basic plan only gives you access to performance reviews, reporting, and analytics. To access employee engagement features, AI insights, career development tools, HRIS integrations, and compensation reviews, you must add on additional subscriptions. 

Want to learn more about what Lattice offers? Check out our complete Lattice review for an in-depth overview of its features and more. 

Final Thoughts

With such an overwhelming array of options, it can be hard to find the right employee recognition software. While Workhuman provides many great features, several alternatives provide the same features and additional ones.

If you need intense DEI support and consulting services in the same platform as your employee recognition, then Workhuman might be a good option. But with those additional features, you sacrifice the focus on employee recognition, appreciation, and engagement.

For a platform focused on employee recognition that truly understands what employees want, PerkUp is the ideal solution. It avoids the complication of a points system and rather gives employees direct rewards or cash balances that they can choose to spend however they wish. 

PerkUp has a built-in custom swag store that allows you to easily create and distribute branded swag and build an inclusive culture at the same time. It offers a comprehensive suite of integrations and gives you real-time reporting on the rewards you send out.

Book a demo with PerkUp today to boost employee engagement, productivity, and revenue.