In a tight economy, employee retention is more important than ever. By some estimates, for every 100 employees on payroll, the average company loses up to $2.6 million in turnover costs each year. Perhaps this is why more companies are turning to employee retention software to help stem the tide.  

The best employee retention strategies are flexible and proactive. Employee retention software helps even the largest companies keep pace. 

To this end, we’ve gathered our top 10 picks for employee retention software in 2023. We hope these tools give you the insights you need to create lasting, effective strategies to retain your best employees for years to come.

What is employee retention software?

Employee retention software is technology to reduce employee turnover. Retention software goes beyond identifying and solving issues, this software is designed to stimulate a thriving workforce by ensuring all components of employee satisfaction are optimized.

10 picks for employee retention software in 2023

From talent analytics, to feedback, to workplace culture, these twelve picks for employee retention software cover a broad range. But they all have one thing in common: they use the power of technology to help you build a thriving workforce and optimize employee retention for the long haul.

1. Praisidio 

Praisidio is a leading talent intelligence platform, built specifically to help companies improve employee retention. The platform uses all the data you already have on hand, and collates it to show you which employees are at most risk of attrition. 

Employee retention isn’t a one-size-fits-all deal, and the folks at Praisidio understand this. You get real-time insights and targeted, employee-centered strategies for improving retention. 

Companies that use Praisidio reduce employee attrition costs by as much as $10 million per 2,000 employees.

At the end of the day, talent analytics is becoming essential if you want to be a player in this competitive workforce. Using data-driven insights to understand your employees is the most effective (and headache-free) way to drive up job satisfaction and improve your overall success rates.

2. Slack

When it comes to employee retention, Slack is a unifying tool. It connects people and information in a way that reduces (rather than increases) effort and friction. 

Because the platform is little more than simple comms lines, it keeps you connected without compromising your adaptability or agility — two elements that are coming to characterize successful modern work culture.

Slack facilitates flexible connectedness with easy chat functions and customizable channels of communication. This keeps the connection strong, even across new structures we're still getting used to, like teams of remote workers, freelancers, and contractors.

3. Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a workspace designed to centralize your work and communication. And it centralizes everything. Email, documents, meetings, projects…anything you could need is at hand and in one place. 

This is great because frustrating logistical tasks can be a waste of your employees’ precious time and get in the way of them accomplishing satisfying, productive work.  

Teams works best with the rest of the Microsoft suite. So if you use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook, this might be a great tool to add to your employee retention software toolbox.

4. Nectar

We can’t stress enough how much of a difference a positive workplace culture makes when it comes to employee retention. Software like Nectar can help you get there.

Nectar's mission is to make your workplace a buzzing hive of excellent culture. They identified six essentials for a thriving culture and built their software to meet them: connection; recognition; empathy; alignment; trust; elevation.

The software is flexible, so you can incorporate these six elements into your workplace as is appropriate and most effective for your circumstances. Nectar includes features like sending your teammates challenges, celebrating their milestones and contributions, and rewarding one another in a frequent and personal way. 

Providing individualized appreciation for your employees is an effective way to make them feel valued for who they are and as though their place in your company is one of mutual respect.

5. Bonusly

Next up on our employee retention software list: Bonusly. Bonusly focuses all its energy on harnessing the power of recognition. 

The software works by giving your employees a monthly allowance to use at their discretion. Individuals use this “allowance” to give one another encouragement and acknowledgement in the form of points.  

These points can be redeemed in the catalog of endlessly customizable options. For example, there are options like giving someone a lunch date with the CEO, or a donation to the charity of their choice.

6. Udemy

Learning and development plays a key role in keeping employees happy and thriving at your company. No employee retention software list would be complete without an L&D entry, and when it comes to L&D, Udemy tops our list every time.  

Udemy is an online learning platform for people wanting niche topics. Employees looking to flex their muscles and learn new skills can choose courses ranging from Neuroscience for Parents to Java Script for Beginners. 

The sheer quantity of material available makes it highly likely most employees will find something that ticks their box.

7. LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning is the place for you to learn from prominent professionals in almost any field. 

The benefit of this platform being part of the LinkedIn network means the content is of a high quality, because let's be honest: people put their best foot forward on LinkedIn. And the content is made by industry experts who want to prove their relevance and value.

The content is all about upgrading your professional toolbox. You will find courses like How to Work Harder, Not Smarter and Excel: You Can Do This.

8. Coursera

Coursera partners with top universities and organizations like Duke, Stanford, and Penn to provide professional certificates and degrees.  

There are over 5,400 courses on offer. This includes 1-day courses like Intro to Social Media Marketing and Leading Teams: Developing as a Leader, through to Master of Applied Data Science and Bachelor of Science.

9. SurveyMonkey

Good old-fashioned employee surveys are a tried-and-true way to make your employees feel heard (when you act on their feedback). It's the most straightforward way to ask and receive information on what needs to improve at your company in order to retain employees. 

These tools are best used in conjunction with more high-tech approaches like talent intelligence. 

If you want to make polls, questionnaires, or surveys, SurveyMonkey is the quickest and simplest place to do so. The questions are highly customizable (multiple choice, blank, matrix), so it’s easy to tailor your survey to fit your needs.

10. Officevibe

Officevibe provides automated, frequent (weekly/bi-weekly) pulse surveys. Recommended for everybody but particularly useful for larger teams or remote teams because they’re not as easy to keep in tune with. 

These pulse surveys allow you to swiftly detect any changes in employee sentiment. And since they're quick and frequent, you can make incremental changes rather than running into bigger issues you didn't see coming. 

How to choose employee retention software for your company

As we mentioned earlier, employee turnover is costly, often to the tune of millions of dollars each year for larger companies. 

But the larger your company, the more difficult it is to get a clear view of which employees are at risk of attrition, and more importantly, what strategies you can use to retain them.

The best employee retention software gives you a comprehensive picture of your workforce, as well as real-time insights that can help you measure employee attrition risk and create data-driven strategies for retention.

Look for employee retention software that measures these key areas:

• Workload 
• Connection
• Recognition
• Compensation
• Growth

Depending on the needs of your company, you might be able to piece together this information using a few different kinds of employee retention software. 

However, many companies ultimately choose to bring all their employee retention data under one roof using a comprehensive talent intelligence platform like Praisidio. 

Improving employee retention with talent intelligence software 

There are many choices for employee retention software, but only talent intelligence gives you a real-time view of retention issues long before they become a problem. 

Praisidio’s talent intelligence software applies the power of machine learning to all of the HR data you already have on hand. See who is at most risk of attrition and get targeted suggestions to improve retention on an employee-by-employee basis. 

It’s common for Praisidio clients to reduce employee attrition costs by as much as $10 million per 2,000 employees.

Book a demo to see how Praisidio talent intelligence software can help you retain your employees.