Alternatives to thrive at work
A fair comparison helps the right organizations find the right tool.
The decision in one paragraph
Most employee engagement platforms measure how people feel about work: whether they are committed, supported and connected. thrive at work measures that too, and adds capacity: whether people have anything left to give. If the question is "how engaged are we?", several strong platforms answer it. If the question is "engaged, and still running low?", that is where thrive at work is different.
Five alternatives
| Alternative | Best known for | Where it is strongest |
|---|---|---|
| Culture Amp | Employee experience suite: engagement, performance, development | Breadth across HR processes, many integrations, published case studies |
| Gallup | The Q12 engagement measure and a very large benchmark base | Established standard, comparison across organizations, strengths development |
| Qualtrics | Enterprise experience-management suite | Scale, lifecycle surveys, security certifications, enterprise integrations |
| Workday Peakon | Continuous listening inside the Workday ecosystem | Tight Workday integration, attrition-risk views, manager tools |
| 15Five | Manager-led performance, coaching and engagement | Manager enablement, coaching, reviews |
Each statement about another vendor is taken from that vendor's own materials or documentation and dated. Where we could not find a statement, the page says so. Side-by-side pages for each vendor are added once every statement on them has been re-checked at source.
How to choose
An engagement suite may be the better choice when the organization wants performance reviews, goals, 360 feedback or compensation in the same system, and a broad set of HR integrations matters more than a new measure.
thrive at work may be the better choice when the organization already knows how engaged people are and wants to know whether they have the energy, time to recover, room to concentrate and staying power to keep going, with results that stay private at the individual level.
Both may be right. thrive at work does not replace a performance-management system or an HR system. Some organizations run an engagement suite for the annual cycle and add a capacity measure alongside it.
What to compare, whichever vendor you choose
- What the survey actually measures, and what it leaves out
- Who sees individual answers, and the smallest group a manager can see
- What happens after results arrive: action plans, learning, follow-up
- Which HR systems it connects to, and how employees are loaded
- Languages for employees, managers and executives
- Security certifications held today, not planned
- What is in the price and what is not
- Contract terms at renewal
Other platforms
Leapsome, Lattice, Perceptyx, Viva Glint and Workhuman are not yet compared on this site. Comparisons are added when we can source them properly.