Inpulse vs Workday Peakon: Which Engagement Platform Delivers Better Insight?

While you understand the importance of an employee engagement tool in collecting data and enabling you to carry out HR responsibilities, are you still deploying traditional tools and philosophy to tackle modern workplace problems?

When it comes to employee engagement tools, two names you might commonly see are Inpulse and Workday Peakon. Both platforms help organisations measure engagement, but they do so in very different ways. It’s important to know what you’re buying in to, so you can ensure you get maximum returns from your investment.

Insights for Action

While both platforms provide employee engagement scores and benchmarking, Inpulse digs deeper. With Inpulse, it’s not just about measuring scores and comparing these across departments, it’s about understanding why those scores exist, the emotions people are feeling and how to turn that insight into action which drives lasting change. This way of approaching engagement seems obvious, seeing as people's behaviour is driven by their emotions. However, Inpulse is the only engagement tool which looks at emotions.

For example, an engagement score of 72% doesn’t tell you what’s really going on. Understanding that over half of your people feel stressed, and knowing why, helps you take meaningful action. Seeing that a third feel proud tells you what to build on. That’s why our approach centres on emotional insight, it reveals the why behind the numbers.

Many HR leaders tell us their biggest challenge isn’t collecting engagement data, it’s acting on it. Results come in, but nothing changes. Inpulse was designed to solve exactly that.

Andrew Nguyen, CEO

Two Players, Two Philosophies

To truly address employee pinch points, you need to listen, not just run an annual engagement survey for a score, but regularly ask the right questions to understand how people feel and why. Frequent pulse surveys act as quick check-ins throughout the year.

We get it, managers are short on time. That’s why Inpulse AI summaries instantly highlight key issues in real time, removing the need to sift through data. The Inpulse platform supports both annual engagement and quick pulse surveys, with flexible question sets tailored by sector, something rigid platforms like Workday Peakon can’t offer.

Beyond technology, Inpulse provides human expertise. Our People Analytics and Customer Success teams combine AI-powered emotional insight with genuine partnership, helping leaders grasp the emotions driving engagement. We will be by your side helping you design and deploy surveys, according to your organisational goals. You can easily adapt survey questions, view live results, and take action fast, with real people supporting you every step of the way.

The Workday Peakon is more of a one-way relationship, where your insights are available on a dashboard, ready for your team to interpret and act on. The platform doesn't provide action points, complementary training sessions or the consultancy aspect of the Inpulse-client relationship.

Nuances of the Modern Workplace

In a rapidly changing world, employee expectations of their workplace and leaders have evolved. People expect more from their managers, and how they show up at work sets the tone for their team. Gallup attributes 70% of engagement variance to manager behaviour.

We have found a 45% pts engagement increase if employees feel valued by their line manager. Employees in engaged teams are 21% more productive and 59% less likely to seek external opportunities during change cycles (CIPD, 2024). 46% of transformation failures in UK organisations have been attributed to a lack of employee buy-in or low levels of engagement (BCG, 2023). This means manager action is significant. To retain talent and boost engagement, managers must understand how to effectively implement change and boost engagement. That’s where Inpulse emotional insights and manager training sessions can help upskill your people, so the responsibility does not sit solely with HR.

Different industries show distinct emotional patterns, shaped by their environments, pressures, and cultures. This means survey design tailored by industry is vital if we are to listen properly and collect useful insight.

Does your HR tool offer that?

Traditional Insights vs Upgraded Approach

The difference in engagement platform providers lies in how frictionless the survey launch is, how accessible survey insights are, and how easy it is to action change using that data.

"It's been the smoothest company-wide survey launch we've ever had!"

Kerry Burgess, Employee Insights Specialist - Arriva

→ Actionable Results, Designed for Managers

While both platforms surface data, Inpulse goes further in helping managers understand it, and use it. The AI-generated summaries translate data into clear, emotionally grounded insights that point directly to what’s driving engagement. The easy-to-understand dashboards help managers understand where they can influence change, and we also help to train managers so they are prepared to lead the change. The People Insights team and manager training sessions help leaders take real action. Inpulse is a time and cost-efficient platform for organisational transformation.

This approach directly addresses one of HR’s biggest challenges, survey data that doesn’t lead to change. Managers often receive insights but not understanding.

For example, Peakon’s AI generates summaries of quantitative scores and open-text feedback, offering a basic snapshot of engagement trends. However, because its sentiment indicators stop short of explaining why those scores look the way they do, it can be challenging for leaders to translate the data into meaningful action.

Inpulse bridges that gap with narratives that show not just what’s happening, but why it’s happening, and then gives managers the tools to address pain points immediately. This human-centred approach was pioneered to address the circumstances of the modern workplace, helping leaders effectively drive meaningful change in today’s world.

→ Partnership and Support

We hear you. You work in HR, you’re busy, your resources are stretched and it’s hard to find time to deal with frontline worker complaints. But the thing is, frontline people aren’t being difficult. There’s friction in the system and that makes it harder for them to do great work and feel valued.

What you need is a platform which does the heavy lifting to uncover where these pinch points are; recording data-rich responses, analysing themes and emotions, summarising these insights and providing training to help managers respond meaningfully. Enter Inpulse. The partnership approach is a hands-on model, where the Inpulse People Analytics team works alongside HR to interpret findings, train managers, and guide action planning.

Workday Peakon’s self-service model doesn’t offer the support that Inpulse people-centric partnership approach does. With Peakon, HR analytics team have a heavy responsibility to interpret the data and generate action plans based on their analysis.

Every organisation who partners with Inpulse benefits from the people-centric collaboration approach, regardless of which package you enrol in. The Inpulse philosophy is to help organisations effectively transform the modern workplace using an updated approach, which accounts for emergent employee feelings and expectations, in a resource efficient way.

In contrast, other employee engagement tools give engagement scores but do not offer the insight or support in actioning change. Inpulse is particularly effective for organisations seeking cultural transformation and help training managers to implement it, where ongoing interpretation and behavioural insight are critical.

Emotional Analytics and AI Intelligence

Both platforms use AI, but the application differs. Peakon uses AI primarily to automate processes and highlight engagement trends. It’s scope runs to cross-functional comparison but doesn’t analyse the emotions behind the engagement scores.

Inpulse’s AI, however, is built to understand emotional drivers (e.g. frustration, pride, optimism, or anxiety) that influence engagement behaviour. This emotional intelligence provides context that numerical scores alone can’t. It allows HR leaders to anticipate emerging issues, understand what’s motivating people, and design targeted interventions that truly resonate. Inpulse is the only employee engagement platform which analyses emotions and uses these to understand employee behaviour.

Human Impact and Organisational Change

Many organisations using traditional survey tools report “results fatigue”. Surveys are run, but nothing changes. Does this sound familiar? Inpulse directly tackles this issue by focusing on emotional insight and summarising this in an accessible way, ensuring feedback leads to meaningful action and trust between employees and leaders.

This approach has particular relevance for line managers, often described as the “squeezed middle”. Inpulse gives managers the tools and confidence to translate emotion-based data into people-first decisions.

The Verdict: Inpulse is an Updated Approach to Employee Engagement

Emotions are the driver of employee engagement scores. In a world where emotional intelligence defines leadership success, Inpulse offers the missing half of engagement - the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’. It empowers managers to drive real change, through sophisticated AI data analysis and accessible insights. Break through the squeezed middle mindset with a practical tool, actionable insights, and empower managers to act with Inpulse. What's more, if you are an existing Workday customer, Inpulse integrates into Workday, so your tech stack won't get out of hand!

Read our whitepaper 'Why Emotions Matter in Employee Engagement' to dive deeper into the significance of emotions in employee engagement.