A complete guide to employee recognition programs

Employee experience (EX) is still top of the agenda in 2025.

84% of businesses see EX as a competitive differentiator — a way to attract top talent and keep them working for your organization long into the future.

But that doesn’t mean all these organizations are getting it right. Crafting an employee experience that engages workers — and has them singing your company’s praises on workplace comparison sites — is no mean feat.

It requires a consistent approach that carries through all departments and across every employee touchpoint. And it requires a deep understanding of worker needs and expectations.

To achieve all this, a solid employee experience strategy is invaluable. This plan will guide your EX initiatives, the workplace tech you use, the company culture you strive to create, and the metrics you use to assess employee experience success.

Here, we take a look at all the ways an employee experience plan benefits your business and outline the steps you need to take to create one.

What is employee experience?

Employee experience is how employees think and feel about their workplace. 

It encompasses every touchpoint and interaction throughout the employee lifecycle, including recruitment, onboarding, workplace relationships, development opportunities, and the technology you expect workers to use.

Employee experience managers are responsible for shaping EX, creating the kind of company culture and workplace environment that employees enjoy spending time in.

Why every org needs an employee experience strategy

Happy employees are good for business. High levels of employee satisfaction lead to improved talent acquisition, productivity, employee engagement, and staff retention.

The benefits of EX are clear. But many businesses are failing to deliver the kind of employee experience that inspires worker motivation and loyalty.

55% of all workers feel dissatisfied with their overall employee experience and this figure rises to 61% for Gen Z employees.

Why are these figures so high? You may have noticed that the modern workforce has pretty high expectations. Employees expect way more from their place of work than they did a few generations ago.

There are a couple of factors at play. First, we’re accustomed to personalized digital experiences at home — algorithms that know what we want before we do. And we expect the same quality and usability from the tech we use at work. 

Second, the baseline for what makes a good workplace has risen. Mental health support, flexibility, and a sense of belonging aren’t perks anymore — they’re must-haves. 

And finally, people are thinking bigger. A job isn’t just a paycheck. Employees are seeking growth, transparency, fairness, and purpose — and are willing to switch jobs to find a workplace that provides them.

Meeting these expectations is tough for any company. And — without a clear employee experience strategy — it gets even tougher.

With a solid employee experience strategy, however, you connect the dots between what your people need and what your business wants to achieve. You create the kind of workplace where people bring their A-game — where employees are engaged, productive, and with you for the long haul.

12 steps for building your employee experience strategy

Stellar employee experience management relies on a clearly defined strategy. Here’s how to get there.

1. Establish your why

Before jumping into tactics, pause and consider what you’re trying to achieve with your employee experience strategy. You need to understand the business case for improving EX. This will help guide your EX efforts — and get stakeholder buy-in.

Here are a couple of questions you can ask yourself to get the ball rolling:

• What pain points do our employees currently experience?
• How does this link to business outcomes, like retention, productivity, customer service, and engagement?
• What kind of company culture do we want to build — and how does this align with our values?

2. Map the employee journey

From day one to exit, every touchpoint matters. Working out each point in the employee lifecycle can help you uncover areas for EX improvement.

You should look at:

• Recruitment
• Pre-boarding and onboarding
• Career development and growth opportunities
• Engagement
• Retention
• Offboarding

Then, across these employee journey stages, figure out what the employee experience looks like. 

Consider employee priorities like recognition and feedback, work-life balance, and any bottlenecks in their daily workflows.

Examine the cultural environment. Things like leadership style, the quality of co-worker connections, and the effectiveness of your internal communication channels.

Also, audit the physical environment, assessing how safe and comfortable employees are when they’re at work. Ergonomic desks and chairs are a given for your office-based staff. But consider the needs of frontline employees and those who work at home, too.

With a clear understanding of the employee journey and the factors that impact EX, you can (at step 4) craft staff survey questions that cover all elements of the employee experience. But first, there’s another key area of EX to get a handle on.

3. Assess your tech-sperience

Tech tools are now a fundamental part of every work day. So the digital employee experience forms an increasingly integral part of EX.

Remember that employees get streamlined, personalized experiences on the software they use at home. So — whether you like it or not — your workplace tech is going to be compared to the very best consumer-grade tools. 

Clunky or outdated tech tools create frustration. They harm productivity and employee motivation.

Even the most cutting-edge tools can cause problems if they aren’t implemented with the proper focus on EX. Use too many different tech tools and employees can easily feel overwhelmed. They constantly have to recall login details and toggle between tabs.

So when crafting your employee experience strategy, assess your tech stack — and its impact on employees. Find out where technology is supporting a positive employee experience and where it’s creating friction.

Also, consider tech needs on a team-by-team basis, paying special attention to frontline employees. Without easy access to a desktop computer or a company email address, frontline workers often find workplace tools difficult or impossible to use, which harms the frontline experience.

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4. Ask employees what they want

Every workplace is different. And while you’ll find plenty of articles listing the workplace attributes that employees value most, these can only ever act as a rough guide.

To make a success of your employee experience strategy, you need to understand your workforce and what motivates them. Then, treat them as co-creators of your EX strategy.

That starts by gathering employee feedback. Send out surveys and polls. Launch a listening tour. Find out what employees think of EX at your organization and what would improve it. Work to discover pain points, needs, and expectations.

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This shouldn’t be a one-off event. You should aim to build employee listening and employee voice into company culture. Create two-way communication channels and foster open communication across all levels of your organization. Acknowledge feedback and tell employees what action you plan to take.

By doing so, you encourage engagement with the feedback process and prompt honest responses from employees. You also keep your finger on the pulse, which — faced with ever-evolving employee experience trends — helps you stay ahead of EX issues.

5. Dive into the data

You’ve got feedback. Now what? It’s time to analyze the data you’ve gathered from employees, looking for EX patterns, pain points, and opportunities.

Celebrate the areas where you’re doing a good job. And hone in on areas where EX could be improved.

Use the analytics tools you have access to and combine qualitative feedback with quantitative data on retention, absenteeism, and employee engagement to get a big picture perspective. 

6. Get to know EX across the organization

Segment your data and you can also find out what employee experience looks like for different sectors of your workforce.

Perhaps your office-based team is satisfied with the quality of internal communications they receive. But your frontline team has to make do with a patchwork of paper memos and word-of-mouth messages. 

It could be that Millennials are loving the option to work from their comfortable home offices. But Gen Z employees, still living in shared housing, are struggling to find a quiet and productive place to work.

Maybe one department experiences higher than average levels of turnover and lower than average instances of employee recognition. 

Only by digging deep into the data can you understand how EX at your organization looks for every member of your workforce — and start to see the patterns that will inform your plan of action. 

7. Set goals

You’re at the point where you’ve done all your EX research. Time to put down on paper what you hope to achieve with your employee experience strategy. 

Create targets that are measurable, time-bound, and based on the EX issues you uncovered during the research phase. 

Some examples include:

• Increase career development opportunities for employees
• Establish better two-way communication channels between employees and managers
• Boost news feed comments and reactions by X%
• Increase survey response rates

8. Build your plan

Keeping your goals in mind, lay out the actions that will help you achieve them.

For example, if you want to improve career development opportunities, you could launch a new mentoring program.

Or if you wanted to increase your survey response rate, you could look at ways to close the feedback loop, ensuring that employees feel their feedback is listened to and acted on.

You may like to overhaul employee pay and benefits, well-being support, or workplace recognition. You may want to focus on improving the frontline employee experience with better comms and flexible working opportunities.

9. Find the right EX tech

This is a great time to consider the employee experience tech tools that will support your employee experience strategy. The best employee experience platforms can improve EX with the help of:

• Internal communication tools — channels that support top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer conversations and an engaging company news feed
• Recognition tools — that help you create a culture of appreciation

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• Integrated software — integrations with the other workplace software you use to create a streamlined digital experience
• Automated employee journey tools — features that make it easy for you to deliver the right content to employees at exactly the right time in their employee journey
• HR self-service tools — tools that allow employees to swap shifts, request leave, or view their pay stubs right from their user-friendly dashboard
• Surveys and analytics — employee survey and analytics tools that help your team keep up-to-date with employee satisfaction and EX
• Personalized employee experiences — tools that go beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to provide tailored comms, dashboards, and journeys relevant to each individual employee

10. Communicate and roll out

To make a success of your employee experience strategy, you need all hands on deck. Employees should get a consistent experience across the whole lifecycle and that relies on lots of different departments working together.  

Get everyone on the same page — including employees — by communicating your EX vision clearly and transparently. Lay out your objectives and the positive outcome you expect. Tell them what will change and why.

If you’re rolling out new employee experience software, think carefully about how you’ll get your workforce to embrace it. Start by picking user-friendly, mobile-first tools that every employee can use. Then, use a marketing campaign, incentives, gamification, and platform ambassadors to encourage employees to log in.  

11. Measure and evaluate

Is your employee experience strategy having the desired effect? As well as looking at the specific EX goals you set earlier in the process, measure your success in terms of overarching business goals too.

These include employee satisfaction metrics like:

• Employee net promoter score
• Absenteeism rate
• Turnover rate

You can also look at KPIs relating to talent acquisition, customer satisfaction, and employee productivity.

Measure employee experience and you stay ahead of any EX problems that might arise. You see where your EX strategy is bearing fruit — and where you still need to make improvements.

12. Iterate and improve

Improving employee experience isn’t a one-and-done situation. Creating and honing the perfect employee experience strategy is an ongoing task.

Use insights gained from employee surveys and analytics to keep pace with evolving employee expectations. Review your goals. Find new ways to enhance employee experience and keep staff loyal to your organization.

By treating EX as a continuous process, you’re more likely to create a strong culture, happy employees, and the business results you’re looking for.

Using your employee experience strategy to build a better workplace

A strong employee experience strategy can transform your workplace. It impacts company culture and internal communications. It boosts productivity and staff loyalty. And it can put a spring in the step of employees as they turn up to work each day.

And with 52% of employees saying they’re watching for or actively seeking a new job, employee experience strategy isn’t something you can afford to neglect. 

The occasional free lunch or mental health day won’t cut it at a time when employees demand more than ever from their places of work — and are prepared to vote with their feet if their expectations aren’t met. 

To ensure EX success, you need to consider the experience of every employee. The priorities of your retail staff, for example, are probably very different from those of your office-based team. Then, you need to create personalized experiences that make employees feel seen and valued.

An employee experience platform like Blink can make a huge difference to your employee experience strategy and its success.

With tools that automate elements of the employee journey, improve communication, streamline workflows, and include every employee in the workplace community, it becomes much easier to deliver the kind of employee experience your workforce expects.

Blink. And make employee experience your competitive advantage.

Employee retention in healthcare has never been more important — or more difficult. We know that one in five healthcare workers left their jobs in 2023.

Healthcare work is demanding and, at times, emotionally exhausting. Violence against caregivers is on the rise. And with staff shortages a problem in many healthcare settings, stress and burnout are an ongoing concern.  

But we need more healthcare staff than ever. The global population is aging, increasing healthcare demand. Staff continuity also improves the patient experience and outcomes. Healthcare providers need to do all they can to hang onto employees. 

So what can you do to improve healthcare employee retention? Research shows that nearly one-third of healthcare employees are currently disengaged in their work. This is a worry — but it’s also an opportunity.

Disengagement is linked to high levels of attrition. So increase staff engagement and you reduce staff churn, too. It all starts with listening to, understanding, and acting on the needs of your frontline workers.

Effective employee retention strategies for healthcare providers

Healthcare retention is a challenge. But one that can be met with a combination of employee engagement, communication, and development.

The most effective staff retention strategies in healthcare include the following: 

1. Invest in employee development

2. Use technology to improve healthcare worker communication

3. Create an open and inclusive culture

4. Recognize and reward employee efforts

5. Offer competitive wages

6. Make schedules more flexible

7. Give employees a voice and act upon their feedback

Now, let’s take a closer look at these ideas.

1. Invest in employee development

Training, development, and career advancement are key to healthcare staff retention.

The 2024 NSI Nursing Solutions report reveals that career advancement was one of the top reasons for healthcare employees resigning from their jobs in 2024. 

And according to Press Ganey, nurses who don’t receive training and development opportunities are 1.4 to 1.5 times more likely to leave their roles than those who do.

Despite the importance of learning and career growth, only 60% of healthcare employees say skill building is offered by their organizations. So, to hang onto employees:

• Be transparent about your promotion policies and opportunities
• Find out where employees want to go in their careers
• Commit to a policy of continuous learning and development
• Make training more accessible with mobile learning tech

Beyond those early days of onboarding, offer mentoring and cross-training. Keep employees up-to-date with advancements in healthcare technology and practices.

Note this research from Gallup, which shows that 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined by the manager. Ensure that your managers have the training they need to support employee motivation, engagement, and retention more effectively.

Time is another important factor. Busy healthcare staff on the frontlines of your organization don’t just need training opportunities. They need dedicated time in which to access them.

The takeaway: Invest in ongoing education and training programs suited to your employees’ needs. Also, facilitate learning by giving easy access to learning tech and building training time into employee schedules.

2. Use technology to improve healthcare worker communication

Healthcare organizations tend to use a variety of internal communication channels. These may include a noticeboard, staff pagers, and email.

But there are problems with these methods of communication. First, you can’t be sure that a message has been received and read. And second, these channels don’t inspire two-way communication, a key pillar of employee engagement.

To make internal communication at your healthcare organization more effective and less fragmented, you can create a communication hub using a mobile-first employee app or intranet.

Here, you can share mandatory reads that employees have to click to acknowledge. You can create open channels of communication between healthcare staff and their managers — and give employees easy access to documents and resources that support them in their roles.

You can also segment your workforce by role, department, tenure, and location so they only receive relevant communications. This helps to avoid unnecessary distractions and information overload for time-strapped healthcare workers.

When Elara Caring adopted Blink as their primary communication tool, they were struggling with high staff turnover and low levels of employee engagement. Since adopting Blink, the organization has transformed engagement, with 95% of employees feeling more connected to Elara and each other.

The takeaway: Use an employee app or mobile intranet to make work-life easier for frontline employees. Give workers unified access to internal communications. 

Read more: Closing the digital gap in healthcare for frontline workers

3. Create an open and inclusive culture

Next on our list of employee retention strategies is workplace culture. A positive, inclusive, and supportive culture makes your organization a happier place to be. This leads to better healthcare staff retention.

It also impacts patient outcomes. Because when healthcare staff feel supported and operate in a culture of psychological safety, they can ask questions and raise concerns without fear of repercussions.

To develop this type of culture you need open, two-way communication across the whole of your organization. A digital communication tool can help you achieve this. It allows everyone, including hard-to-reach frontline employees, to share news, ideas, and opinions.

You can create dedicated spaces for 1:1s, group chats, and organization-wide Q&As. This helps employees to feel heard and valued. It also helps them to build meaningful workplace connections.

Wellbeing is also paramount right now. With around half of all physicians and nurses experiencing symptoms of burnout, a positive workplace culture relies on adequate stress management and mental health support.

The takeaway: Take time to analyze your organizational culture and find areas for improvement. Prioritize open, two-way communication to support psychological safety at work. Also, provide stress and mental health support to address the symptoms of burnout.

4. Recognize and reward employee efforts

Gallup shares that when healthcare workers are recognized for their work, they’re four times more likely to be engaged and five times more likely to feel connected to company culture.

Employee appreciation also affects patient safety. Gallup found that employees recognized for good work in the last seven days experienced fewer patient safety incidents.

That said, only 18% of healthcare workers feel that employees are recognized and valued at their organization. That’s below the national average of 22% for US employees and much lower than other sectors — financial services stands at 34% and professional services stands at 28%.

Put simply, healthcare providers need to do more to recognize and reward their employees. The best recognition and rewards programs are tailored to your healthcare workers and their preferences — but here are a few ideas:

• Recognition via internal communications: You can publish achievements and recognize hard work publicly, on your communications platform. The rest of your workforce can then see praise and add their congratulations, too.
• Direct appreciation: Some workers may prefer to receive praise privately. Direct appreciation from managers is another way to make employees feel seen, heard, and valued.
• Appreciation gifts: Incentivize your healthcare team with gift cards, cash prizes, fun experiences, or benefits like extra paid time off. These are great ways to recognize your employees’ hard work and boost morale. 

The takeaway: Make employee recognition an integral part of your workplace culture. Learn about employee recognition and reward preferences. Then, ensure managers regularly offer praise for employee effort.

5. Offer competitive wages

Money isn’t everything. But when you’re working a demanding and emotionally draining job, a competitive salary makes it easier to sustain motivation during those tough days.   

Offering good salaries shows that you appreciate and value your employees. So keep an eye on what competitors — in and outside of healthcare — are offering. Also, consider polling your employees to learn if pay is one of their primary workplace frustrations. 

When deciding what you can afford to pay, bear in mind the cost of losing employees.

According to NSI Nursing Solutions, the average turnover cost for a bedside registered nurse (RN) stands at $56,300. And — when you factor in lost revenue, interview expenses, locum costs, and the inevitable dip in productivity — the cost of losing a physician can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The takeaway: Offer fair compensation. When your workers know they’re fairly paid, they’re more likely to stay working for your organization, which means you retain your best employees and their collective knowledge.

6. Make schedules more flexible

Advances in AI, virtual healthcare, and telemedicine, mean it’s easier than it used to be to support flexible employee schedules. And this is something employees are looking for.

According to O. C. Tanner, 80% of healthcare workers say having flexibility at work would influence their decision to stay at their organization.

So how do you make flexible working a reality for frontline healthcare employees? You can offer:

• Staggered hours
• Part-time hours and job shares
• Fixed or rotating shift patterns, depending on employee preference
• Advance warning of shift schedules

You can also give employees more autonomy over where and how they work. Start by finding out what employees want from flexible working. And try to harness the potential of virtual healthcare wherever possible.  

Digital tools, like an employee app, are useful here too. They can help you structure and track staff schedules — and give employees the tools they need to swap shifts independently.

The takeaway: Offer flexible scheduling to help your employees achieve work-life balance and keep them working in healthcare. Find out what flexible working means to your employees, then do your best to facilitate it.

7. Give employees a voice and act on their feedback

Keep your finger on the pulse and you prevent employee engagement and retention issues from sneaking up on you. An annual check-in with your healthcare employees is not enough. You need to regularly gather and analyze employee data and feedback.

So look at the analytics provided by any employee communication and engagement software you use. Discover how workers are interacting with the platform and your communications.

Also, run regular surveys to find out what workers think of the employee experience — or any other aspect of your organization and its operations. In doing so, you give employees a voice, which makes them feel valued and respected.

Just bear in mind that employee surveys and polls can damage the employee experience if you fail to act on the feedback your employees provide. In Blink’s survey of frontline health and social care employees, there was one standout message from an employee to senior management:

“Please listen to your staff and follow up on promises. Too many empty promises.”

So use employee feedback wisely. Identify ways you can improve the healthcare worker experience. Create and clearly communicate your plan of action. Then, keep employees in the loop as you progress toward your employee experience goals.  

The takeaway: Use analytics and employee feedback to inform healthcare retention strategies. Find out what employees like and dislike about working for your organization. Then keep them in the loop with survey results and your plan of action.

Boosting healthcare employee retention with Blink

Staff retention in healthcare is a challenge. But by implementing these employee retention strategies, you’ll find it easier to hang onto your existing staff — and attract new hires too.

As you implement these workforce retention strategies, keep the needs of your healthcare workers front of mind. Their needs differ from those of desk-based employees.

Healthcare workers spend their days caring for patients, so they have little free time. They don’t sit at a desktop computer — and they’re dealing with high stress and burnout.

So when putting any of these strategies into action, ensure that you make life as easy as possible for your healthcare team. Give them easy, mobile access to the information and resources they need. 

A tool like Blink is designed to support employee engagement and internal communication for busy frontline teams.

Blink’s secure employee app is a hub for two-way communication, feedback, and recognition. It gives employees easy access to workplace resources, development opportunities, shift swap tools, and wellbeing support.

Available via smartphone, Blink fits seamlessly into the work day of your frontline employees, improving their employee experience and encouraging them to stay with your organization.

Want to kick-start your healthcare staff retention strategy? Schedule your free Blink demo today.

Every week is EMS Week at Blink — because we care, too

EMS Week may be over, but at Blink, our appreciation for emergency medical professionals doesn’t end with the calendar. For us, recognizing the lifesaving work of EMTs, paramedics, and staff isn’t a once-a-year gesture — it’s a year-round commitment grounded in care.

This year’s EMS Week theme, “We care for everyone,” says it best. EMS teams are there for all of us — and it’s our job to be there for them.

Behind every siren is a team that deserves support

The reality of working in emergency medical services is demanding on every level. Long hours, unpredictable situations, and high-stakes decisions are just part of the job. And for EMS professionals, that job never really stops — holidays, weekends, middle-of-the-night calls.

It’s a role that requires not just skill and courage, but constant coordination, communication, and clarity. And that’s where Blink comes in.

Caring for others starts with caring for your team. That’s why Blink is designed to meet the needs of EMS professionals — not just as employees, but as people.

At Blink, we’re proud to serve thousands of paramedics, EMTs, and staff across some of the country’s largest EMS organizations.

Assisting EMS behind the scenes

We’re proud to work with EMS organizations across the country — from city ambulance services to rural responder units — to help their teams stay connected, informed, and empowered, no matter where the job takes them.

Whether they’re responding to an emergency or prepping for the next shift, EMS workers need tools that work as hard as they do.

With Blink, EMS organizations can:

• Send real-time updates about protocols, routes, or equipment changes
• Deliver training resources straight to mobile devices
• Coordinate shifts and crews with better visibility and fewer delays
• Recognize outstanding work with peer-to-peer shoutouts and leadership messages
• Give employees a voice with surveys, feedback tools, and two-way communication
• Foster connection between teams that rarely see each other face-to-face

Poor communication is the #1 most common stressor for EMS workers (BMC Emergency Medicine)

Built for the field — not just the office

EMS professionals don’t spend their days behind a desk. So why rely on systems that expect them to?

Blink is a mobile-first employee experience platform, built for people whose work happens on the move. We make it easier for EMS leaders to reach every team member — from the newest trainee to the most experienced paramedic — and equip them with the information they need, when they need it.

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Our commitment: Always on

EMS professionals care for everyone with every call they answer. At Blink, we believe the same care should be extended to them — through tools that reduce friction, strengthen connection, and show that their work and well-being truly matter.

We believe EMS teams deserve more than recognition during one week of the year. They deserve better tools, better communication, and better connection — every week.

To all the EMS professionals working tirelessly behind the scenes and on the frontlines: thank you. We see you, we support you, and we’re committed to building technology that helps you do what you do best — saving lives.

Blink. And keep your EMS teams stay connected — every hour, every shift, every week.

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By Lauren Burns, Chief Operating Officer, Blink

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Big news for small businesses

At Blink, we believe every worker — not just the ones glued to a desk — deserves to feel connected, in the loop and part of something bigger.

Until now, Blink has been the go-to for massive organizations keeping their frontline teams buzzing.

But today, we’re flipping the script. For the first time, everyone can try Blink free right from our homepage.

That’s right: no red tape, no long sales calls, no IT headaches. Just instant access to the same platform trusted by retail and hospitality giants, healthcare heroes and transport legends around the world.

Why this matters

If you run a small or midsized business, you know the struggle:

• Important updates vanish into the black hole of your email inbox
• WhatsApp groups spin out of control, with current employees frustrated with the lack of work-life balance and ex-employees still lurking in the wings
• Your “intranet” is basically a dusty folder no one dares to open

Meanwhile, your people — especially those on the frontline — are ready for a better way to communicate. They live on mobile, expect apps that feel as easy as Instagram, and they hate feeling disconnected.

That’s exactly why we built Blink. And you don’t need enterprise money to experience it.

What you’ll unlock in your free trial

Sign up today and you can start building your employee communications hub — via an intuitive set-up experience — in minutes:

• A social-style news feed that people actually read and post to
• Secure chat and groups that replace rogue WhatsApp chains
• Fully branded and personalized so your intranet reflects your brand at every touchpoint
• Everything in one place with a one-stop shop for policies, shifts, training, and more
• Recognition and surveys to keep morale sky-high

All of it designed for quick adoption and lasting engagement. And the best part? Your team already knows how to use it.

A big moment for small businesses

Here’s the truth: The future of work isn’t just for enterprises. When every team, no matter the size, gets world-class communication and collaboration tools, big things happen. Morale grows. Operations run smoother. And the culture you’re building has a digital home that matches the energy of your people.

But this is just the start. What comes next is even more exciting: unlocking the potential of your people. 

Our Blink for Everyone team is driven by one simple mission: to make it easier for people to find, try, and love Blink. So I want to also take this opportunity to thank all of our founding Blink for Everyone customers, some of whom are celebrated on our Customer Wall of Love. 

There’s nothing to hold you back. The same tech trusted by global enterprises is now in your hands — free to try, starting today.

‍Blink. And start your free trial today.

FirstUp has helped many organizations modernize internal communications. But for teams seeking more flexibility, frontline access, or a better employee experience, it may not be the perfect fit. Whether you're frustrated by limited integrations, a lack of mobile-first functionality, or underwhelming adoption, you're not alone in searching for smarter alternatives.

In this guide, we’ve rounded up the top 12 alternatives to FirstUp in 2025 — starting with Blink. These tools offer innovative ways to connect your workforce, enhance engagement, and streamline operations. From robust employee apps to modern intranets, you’ll find the right solution for your team’s size, industry, and needs.

What to look for in a Firstup alternative

Not all internal communications platforms are created equal — and the right fit depends on your workforce, goals, and challenges. If you’re considering a switch from FirstUp, here are the key features and capabilities to prioritize:

#1. Mobile-first design

Your platform should meet employees where they are — especially if they’re on the frontline or rarely at a desk. A true mobile-first experience ensures every worker can engage with critical updates, resources, and conversations in real time.

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#2. Targeted, personalized comms

Look for tools that go beyond blast messages. You’ll want to deliver relevant content to the right people at the right time — whether by role, location, or shift — to drive real engagement and cut through the noise.

#3. All-in-one functionality

Switching between apps for chat, tasks, surveys, and documents leads to confusion and lower adoption. Platforms that unify communication, content, and workflows in one place help your employees stay connected and productive.

#4. High adoption rates

It’s not just about features — it’s about usage. Look for vendors that prove high adoption and engagement across all employee types, including those without email addresses or corporate devices.

#5. Easy integration

Your internal comms platform should play nicely with the tools you already use — from HRIS systems to scheduling platforms, document storage, and SSO providers.

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#6. Analytics & feedback

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. The best alternatives to Firstup offer real-time analytics, sentiment insights, and feedback loops to help you understand what’s working — and what’s not.

Top 12 Firstup alternatives in 2025

#1. Blink

Best for: Mid to large enterprises looking for real adoption.

Blink simplifies internal communication by turning fragmented tools into one seamless platform. With integrated chat, company news, surveys, and more, Blink boosts engagement and ensures every employee stays connected — without the complexity. It is designed to adapt to a wide range of industries and team structures.

Why teams switch to Blink:

• No email needed for access — ideal for any employee
• Combines communication, engagement, and workflows in one app
• Rapid implementation and proven high adoption
• Integrated analytics, automation, and feedback loops
  

Used by McDonald’s, Domino’s, JD Sports, Shake Shack, Stagecoach, and more.

Gartner Rating: 4.8 out of 5 

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#2. Workvivo – Best for culture-first comms

Workvivo brings a social networking layer to internal communication, helping employees engage with each other and company updates. Its features include live feeds, recognition posts, and integration with enterprise tools. It suits organizations looking to make culture a visible part of daily work.

Gartner Rating: 4.7 out of 5 (55 reviews)

Pricing available upon request

#3. Staffbase – Best for enterprise comms complexity

Popular for its intranet and mobile app, Staffbase helps companies streamline internal communication and align employees with company news and leadership updates. It is designed to adapt to a wide range of industries and team structures. Compared to FirstUp, it provides strong targeting and content management but may require heavier admin involvement and longer setup times.

Gartner Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Pricing available upon request

#4. Haiilo – Best for content planning & publishing

Haiilo (formerly COYO) offers an impressive suite of tools for comms professionals who prioritize content workflows and analytics. It’s a solid option for campaign planning, though its user experience may feel more CMS-like than employee-first.

Gartner Rating: 4.1 out of 5

Pricing available upon request

#5. Simpplr – Best for intranet-focused organizations

Simpplr brings a modern take to the traditional intranet. Compared to FirstUp’s campaign-centric model, Simpplr provides cleaner navigation, better search, and tailored experiences for desk-based teams — but lacks some engagement features.

Gartner Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Pricing available upon request

#6. Beekeeper – Best for operational messaging

Beekeeper is designed for frontline teams and focuses on messaging, shifts, and operations. While it’s mobile-friendly like FirstUp, it leans more toward productivity tools than holistic engagement or content delivery.

Gartner Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Pricing available upon request

#7. Unily – Best for full-scale intranet deployments

Unily is an enterprise-grade digital workplace solution with deep customization and strong knowledge management features. While powerful, it may be more complex than necessary for companies focused solely on internal communications.

Gartner Rating: 4.3 out of 5 (10 reviews)

Pricing available upon request

#8. Nudge – Best for microlearning & task nudges

Nudge isn’t a direct FirstUp replacement but offers a focused solution for frontline enablement. It’s built for delivering bite-sized training, checklists, and nudges — not full-scale comms or engagement strategies.

Gartner Rating: 4.5 out of 5 

Pricing available upon request

#9. Jostle – Best for small teams getting started

Jostle is a straightforward internal comms platform with a clean interface and ease of use. It’s suitable for smaller companies but lacks the targeting, integrations, and scalability of more enterprise-ready platforms like FirstUp.

Gartner Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Pricing available upon request

#10. Zoho Connect – Best for Zoho-centric teams

Part of the Zoho suite, Zoho Connect works well for companies already using Zoho tools. However, it lacks the strategic targeting and campaign flexibility of Firstup, making it better suited for basic collaboration.

Gartner Rating: 4.2 out of 5

Pricing available upon request

#11. MangoApps – Best for flexibility & custom use cases

MangoApps blends messaging, documents, and intranet tools into a unified experience. It offers flexibility, but may require more effort to configure effectively compared to FirstUp’s out-of-the-box campaigns.

Gartner Rating: 4.4 out of 5

Pricing available upon request

#12. Axero – Best for knowledge management

Axero is built around content discovery, document libraries, and compliance. While it offers solid internal search and knowledge sharing, it’s less dynamic than Firstup for ongoing employee engagement or communications.

Gartner Rating: 4.3 out of 5

Pricing available upon request

Final thoughts: Choose what’s best for your workforce

Choosing an internal communications tool isn’t just about features — it’s about fit. FirstUp may work for some, but if you're looking for faster implementation, deeper engagement, or better mobile access, one of these 12 platforms might be a better match. Blink leads the way for companies who need one powerful platform to connect everyone — from the boardroom to the break room.

Demand for home health aides is higher than ever. The job outlook for home health and personal care aides is projected to be 25% between 2021 and 2031 — meaning that, as a workforce, home health and personal care is expected to grow an incredible 20 percentage points more versus other industries.

This poses a significant challenge for home health care providers, not just in recruiting enough carers to answer to demand but in retaining these staff members as well.

The Great Resignation, high employee turnover, and decreasing job satisfaction are all impacting home health organizations in line with the wider healthcare industry. Tackling these issues starts with addressing the factors that cause them in the first place.

In this guide, we'll walk you through the numerous different factors that can influence employee retention, before diving into exactly how to increase employee retention in home health care.

If you're an HR or Operations leader in a home health care organization, keep reading to learn how you can successfully retain your valuable employees — and improve patient care and business outcomes in the process.

What causes attrition in healthcare?

Staff turnover is a natural and necessary process in all healthcare organizations. However, when turnover reaches high levels it can have a detrimental effect on the quality of care as well as being costly. And it's high levels that we're seeing.

The turnover rate for US-based home care aides sits at 35.42%, and a report from Skills for Care in the UK found a turnover rate of 29% for directly employed staff (almost double the cross-industry average).

Further problems arise when employees leave not only the organization but the health workforce itself.

By understanding and addressing employee retention and the factors that drive it, home health and personal care leaders can minimize staff attrition and the associated impact on cost of, and quality of, patient care.

While there are a number of factors at play here, Health Professional Mobility in a Changing Europe divides the organizational factors affecting retention into three main categories: 

1. Employment quality
2. Work quality 
3. Organizational quality

Below, we’ll take a closer look at each of these three dimensions and how they affect retention, before diving into actionable initiatives leading to improving employee retention throughout your home health organization.

What's important to remember is that each of these factors overlaps to create engaging, positive employee experiences and ensure retention. It's not a case of nailing just one of these categories but creating meaningful change in all three.

1. Employment quality

Employment quality is a key factor in retention and includes aspects like pay and benefits, job security, and working conditions. Other elements of employment quality relate to home health workers having direct lines of communication with their employer and being able to swap and fill shifts easily in order to support the work-life balance they seek.

Getting employment quality right is a particular challenge for home health and personal care organizations. For one, home health co-workers are typically more distributed than other healthcare teams. These are employees who leave their homes in the morning to visit patients at their homes and may rarely, or never, even step foot in a shared office or HQ.

And yet, home health organizations cannot deprioritize employee quality conditions — they can't settle for simply paying staff more in order to boost retention, as many have tried to do. As Gartner states:

"Monetary compensation is important for surviving, but deeper relationships, a strong sense of community, and purpose-driven work are essential to thriving."

That leads us to the concepts of work and organizational quality...

2. Work quality

Work quality includes the levels of responsibility, autonomy, and stress experienced in the workplace. 

Without going into any more detail than that, it quickly becomes clear how essential work quality is for healthcare workers. Few roles carry such a degree of responsibility and demand as much from employees. The scope for stressful situations is limitless — and to make matters worse, home health aides often feel isolated from the rest of their co-workers and the organization at large, meaning that when they start to feel stressed they have no one to turn to for support.

Work quality also relates to the technology provided to health professionals to help them succeed in their roles. With 52% of frontline workers claiming they'd leave their job over tech tools, it’s clear to see the impact that the right workplace technology has on work quality and employee retention.

3. Organizational quality

Organizational quality also impacts employee retention: the culture of the organization and the way that employees are managed and rewarded (or not) all play a key role here. Organizational quality can also refer to levels of organizational innovation, such as improvement programs or digitization initiatives.

Blink research shows that health and care workers overwhelmingly feel unheard and undervalued in their organizations. Unsurprisingly, the same research showed 50% are considering leaving, or have recently left, their jobs. 

Simply put, organizations with a positive culture, good management practices, and fair reward systems are more likely to retain their employees. On the other hand, companies with poor organizational quality are far more likely to experience high levels of turnover.

7 ways to increase employee retention in home health care

Turning attrition trends around is a big task. Businesses need to think bigger than compensation and make bigger commitments to the overall employee experience.

All roles in health and personal care must get the status and respect they deserve. But how can you, as business and HR leaders, provide that? 

1. Collect and analyze data

Up-to-date workforce data should be at the center of an effective retention strategy, helping you better target your employment, work, and organizational quality improvements. By collecting and analyzing data and identifying trends in your home health workforce, you can identify the starting point for your activities.

Understanding the profile of your workforce will help you to assess the risk points and ensure that retention issues affecting particular groups are addressed. For example, are retention issues organization-wide or specific to certain staff groups, demographics, departments, or teams?

For a home health provider, this will likely include looking at retention rates between carers employed directly by your organization vs agency staff vs workers brought in through other schemes like CDPAP. Carers indirectly employed by your organization might feel less connected to the company mission and vision — failing to meet their organizational quality needs as a result.

Getting to know the drivers of employee turnover, and who they impact in your specific organization, can help you create targeted initiatives to improve retention. If the data shows heavy attrition after 30 or 60 days, you might focus on creating an effective, engaging onboarding program to help new hires hit the ground running.

Making it happen

One way to improve employee retention is through the use of regular Employee Pulse Surveys. By conducting regular pulse surveys, you can ensure that you have a constant understanding of how your employees feel about their work. 

This will help you address any potential retention issues before they become a major problem or spiral into quiet quitting. Additionally, pulse surveys can help to improve employee engagement and job satisfaction, which can lead to improved retention rates.

You can also use tools like Blink’s Frontline Intelligence feature to collect and analyze critical employee engagement data and metrics, helping you to understand exactly where your healthcare workforce is feeling unengaged and unsatisfied.

2. Offer relevant training and development opportunities

Healthcare organizations that offer relevant training and professional development are more likely to retain their most valuable employees. It cannot be underestimated how valued and invested in healthcare workers will feel when their skills are being developed and their careers are progressing.

This answers to all of the three factors explored:

• Employment quality (as it opens the doors to higher pay)
• Work quality (through professional development)
• and organizational quality (as it creates a culture of progress and support)

Making it happen

Training and development programs for home health and personal care workers might include formal training programs, such as classroom-based learning or online courses. It might also include more customized opportunities, such as one-on-one mentoring or job shadowing.

What's essential to identify, however, is how these programs will be delivered. Technology will be crucial to bridge the gap between HQ and home health aides.

3. Lighten the load

An increasing number of health and care workers are struggling to balance the demands of their job with other aspects of their life, such as parenting or caring responsibilities. This often leads to stress and burnout; an early indicator of disengagement, and ultimately attrition. In some instances, burnout in healthcare staff has also been linked to medical errors and patient safety incidents.

To improve retention in healthcare, organizations must commit to creating a working environment where employees feel supported by their home health co-workers and managers — even if they rarely see them face-to-face — and are not overburdened with inflexible workloads.

Making it happen

Organizations can take a number of steps to lighten a home health worker's cognitive load:

• Providing more resources to team members and managers in a mobile and easy-to-access Hub for on-the-go support
• Implementing intuitive scheduling solutions and shift-swapping tools that can be used for real-time coordination and employee flexibility
• Encouraging work-life balance through a culture of peer support, so that co-workers can easily tap into the knowledge and experience of their peers

4. Consistent communication

Another factor that often impacts your employment quality is the consistency of your communication. Consistent two-way communication is essential for lasting relationships — and it can be one of your most powerful tools for encouraging employee retention.

Blink's research found that close to one-fifth of frontline workers don’t receive relevant communications from their organization. Organizations can create a sense of community and trust among their staff to minimize attrition by ensuring that all employees:

• Receive updates relevant to them
• Are part of the right team chats
• Can easily share their ideas and concerns

You can also use regular communication to obtain direct insight into how specific healthcare workers or teams are feeling about their work. This can help you to identify retention issues and create targeted interventions as needed.

Making it happen

Effective communication needs to be tailored to the specific needs of different staff groups. For home health and personal care aides, it will undoubtedly be about regular mobile updates and using Feed and Chat features to create energy and enthusiasm among your distributed workforce.

Read how Blink helped solve a million-dollar communication challenge for the home health organization, Elara Caring. Through deploying a number of transformative digital initiatives through Blink, 95% of Elara Caring's personal care, home health, and hospice care workers now feel more connected to the organization.

5. Focus on employee engagement

Employee engagement can be a powerful tool for improving retention, as it has been linked to higher levels of satisfaction and commitment among workers.

Healthcare organizations can create a work quality that is more attractive to top performers by getting to know the latest employee engagement trends, providing the right digital tools for key workers to engage intuitively, and regularly assessing the effectiveness of their efforts.

Engaging employees ultimately retains them.

Additionally, research by HBR shows that higher employee engagement levels can lead to a number of improved outcomes, not just retention. These include care costs (including legal action taken by a patient against a provider for negligent complications) and treatment effectiveness and patient outcomes (measured by the rate patients are readmitted).

Making it happen

To increase employee engagement, healthcare organizations should focus on creating a culture that values the opinions and input of employees. This might include activities like surveys or direct feedback, regular communications from leadership, and targeted recognition programs.

One transformative way to improve employee engagement in your healthcare organization is to pave the way with Blink, the powerful mobile employee engagement app that frontline workers love. With a suite of features perfect for healthcare, Blink will help you create a culture of engagement and retention in your organization.

6. Real recognition 

Recognition is fundamental to improving employee retention. The employers' organization for the UK's National Health System states:

"Meaningful recognition can help to motivate and retain our NHS people. Setting in place a holistic reward package, which is relevant to staff needs, can be key to ensuring your organization, and the wider NHS, retains its staff."

But recognition is more than a pat on the back. Driving real recognition for employees needs to be an ongoing, holistic process that inspires your healthcare workforce to feel valued, motivated, and connected to the company. 

Making it happen

While some companies may view the idea of regular rewards or incentives as impractical, Blink is a mobile employee recognition solution that makes it easy to provide targeted and consistent recognition to specific individuals or teams.

With features like real-time feedback, team and group chatting, and, of course, Employee Recognition, your healthcare organization can unlock the power of recognition as a retention tool. And with its wider suite of handy features, Blink is the perfect way to engage employees in your healthcare organization and help you retain talent.

7. Listen and action feedback

Over a third (35%) of frontline healthcare workers feel that their feedback will not be acted on by their organization. Unsurprisingly, half of frontline healthcare staff have changed or considered changing their job.

"By taking the time to listen and communicate, we can create a better and more supportive environment within healthcare," says Sean Nolan, CEO at Blink.

Through more effective communication, leaders feel more connected to their frontline, and frontline employees feel valued and listened to. This results in higher retention, increased productivity, and better two-way conversations.

Making healthcare workers feel heard needs to be a priority for any healthcare organization. By listening to their feedback and acting on it, you will be able to create a more supportive workplace culture that retains top talent — leading to reduced costs associated with employee turnover.

Making it happen

To effectively ensure your team is heard and their feedback is acted on, you need the right tech to manage it all smoothly. With the Blink employee app, you can listen to your employees and act on their feedback in real time, meaning they won't feel ignored or undervalued.

By using the powerful features of Blink, you can help create a culture where frontline workers feel heard and respected while focusing on:

• Encouraging two-way feedback through regular surveys and communications from leadership
• Ensuring feedback is acted on and implemented into business processes, updating employees on the progress of their feedback so they know they’re being heard
• Integrating your mobile app with workplace technologies like HR systems, payroll platforms, and more, to streamline the employee experience and implement feedback effectively across your organization

Your home health employee retention checklist

• Collect and analyze data - Gathered by regular Employee Pulse Surveys and Frontline Intelligence data
• Offer relevant training and development opportunities - Formal training programs, customized development pathways
• Lighten the load - Easy-to-access Hub for on-the-go support, intuitive scheduling and shift-swapping solutions
• Consistent communication - Team and 1:1 Secure Chats, regular and relevant mobile updates
• Focus on employee engagement - A powerful Employee Engagement App
• Real recognition - Rewards programs, Employee Recognition, Feed shoutouts
• Listen and action feedback - Regularly collect and act on feedback, update employees on actions taken

Retention next steps

Blink is the industry-leading frontline engagement app that connects management and frontline teams to build stronger organizations. With a proven adoption rate of 92% in care sectors, it’s never been this easy to unify the frontline. At Blink, we believe in empowering frontline organizations by helping you enable, engage and understand your workforce.

Our app provides a host of features that support employee retention in home health, such as employee surveys, polls, secure team and group chats and channels, employee recognition, and healthcare-friendly HR tools.

By using the app effectively, you will be able to create a culture where employees are engaged and respected – ultimately reducing employee turnover costs and driving employee retention up. We are experts in frontline engagement and retention and would love to help you achieve your goals.

Get started today