Key Takeaways: 2021 Magic Quadrant for Workforce Engagement Management

The editors at Solutions Review highlight the updates found in the latest iteration of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Workforce Engagement Management and provide an analysis of the new report.

Analyst house Gartner, Inc. has released its 2021 Magic Quadrant for Workforce Engagement Management. The researchers define workforce engagement management (WEM) software as “a collection of technologies that expands on those of the mature workforce optimization (WFO) market by addressing functions that help increase employee engagement within customer service departments.” Core capabilities for providers in this space include evaluation and improvement, time management, metrics and recognition (sometimes referred to as performance management), assistance and task management, voice of the employee (VoE), recruitment, and onboarding.

According to Gartner, workforce engagement management has not yet been widely embraced by most businesses. Many organizations look at investment in WEM solutions as a way to improve operational performance without taking into account that these solutions can be crucial to enhance employee engagement. However, the rise in working from home due to COVID-19 increases the need for optimized employee engagement management.

Gartner adjusts its evaluation and inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants as software markets evolve. Jacada and WalkMe were dropped for 2021 because they no longer met the criteria for inclusion. Conversely, Lifesize was added to this year’s report.

In this Magic Quadrant, Gartner evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of seven vendors that it considers most significant in the marketplace, and provides readers with a graph (the Magic Quadrant) plotting the vendors based on their Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. The graph is divided into four quadrants: niche players, challengers, visionaries, and leaders. At Solutions Review, we read the report, available here, and pulled out the key takeaways.

NICE is the overall leader in this year’s report, winning out in both ability to execute and completeness of vision. NICE recently introduced an Enhanced Strategic Planner (ESP) for long-term planning involving any channel, goal, or SLA, enabling users to improve their customer experience while simultaneously optimizing processes. The only other leader in this year’s Magic Quadrant is Verint, a customer engagement software provider that offers CEC and WEM functionality through SaaS, hosted, on-prem, and managed services. The vendor promotes engagement with the unique features of its CEC portfolio, including knowledge management, virtual assistant, and employee community capabilities.

The visionaries quadrant is the most populous section of this year’s report, containing Calabrio, Genesys, and Aspect Software. Calabrio is the closest to the X-axis in this section, and according to Gartner, it has achieved significant revenue growth over the past two years. The vendor also offers free post-implementation consultancy through its Calabrio Uplift program. Calabrio’s closest competition is Genesys. The provider’s products are already established in many contact centers, making it easier to train new call agents. Rounding out the visionaries section is Aspect Software, which primarily serves large enterprises around the world. Additionally, Aspect delivers standard connectors for competing contact center platform, payroll, and customer engagement center providers.

No challengers were named in this year’s Magic Quadrant, leaving the two remaining vendors in the niche players section. Eleveo (formerly Zoom) provides an established solution for agent evaluation and coaching that is enhanced by interaction analytics. The vendor also offers competitive and flexible pricing models. Rounding out this year’s report is Lifesize, which is focused on expanding its Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) platform in order to include greater WEM functionality as the market continues to adapt to the emergence of new agent working environments. According to Gartner, the provider’s suite is a cost-effective option that effectively addresses basic WEM functions.

Read Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Workforce Engagement Management.