What Is Employee Net Promoter Score, and How to Calculate It
Employee Net Promoter score (eNPS) is a measure of how likely employees are to recommend their employer as a place to work
Here's what you need to know:
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Employee Net Promoter score (eNPS) is a measure of how likely employees are to recommend their employer as a place to work
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eNPS helps HR gauge the workforce’s satisfaction with the workplace
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Companies with a highly engaged workforce are 21% more profitable, and engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave their jobs than their disengaged counterparts
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Without context, your eNPS won’t mean much. Ask follow-up questions so your HR team can better understand what the company could do to elicit a higher score
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Calculating your organization's eNPS is simple. Use your employee feedback platform to create an eNPS-specific employee email survey, or incorporate the question into engagement or pulse surveys
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Ask employers to rate how likely they are to recommend their place of employment to others on a scale of 1 to 10
Adopted from the Net Promoter Score (NPS), Employee Net Promoter score (eNPS) is a measure of how likely employees are to recommend their employer as a place to work. But beyond a simple data point, eNPS says a lot about your organization.
HR can use eNPS alongside the right follow up questions and regular surveying to determine levels of employee engagement and better understand the employee experience.
“We like to do it as a 2 to 4 times a year quick pulse survey,” said Tracy Cote, Chief People Officer at Zenefits. “Some of our departments like to use it as a quick check in.”
Gauge the employee experience with eNPS
eNPS helps HR gauge the workforce’s satisfaction with the workplace. By incorporating eNPS into a larger feedback and surveying strategy, HR can discover specific details about what’s working for employees, and what’s not.
“For organizations to thrive you need employees that are satisfied as well as who serve as spokespersons for the company. So it’s important to measure this at regular intervals using eNPS,” said Kaumudi Tiwari, marketing manager at ZonkaFeedback.
Companies with a highly engaged workforce are 21% more profitable, and engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave their jobs than their disengaged counterparts.
eNPS also speaks to employee engagement — the special mix of satisfaction, purpose, and meaning derived from one’s work that drives individuals to be great employees.
“The reason this small piece of data is so powerful is that it’s a great way to see how many employees are currently actively engaged or not,” said Lucija Zeljko, People Ops Associate at Mediatoolkit.
Employee engagement is identified again and again as one of the top contributors to organizational health. Companies with a highly engaged workforce are 21% more profitable, and engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave their jobs than their disengaged counterparts.
Contextualize eNPS with the right follow-up questions
Ask about eNPS as part of a more expansive employee engagement survey.
Incorporate the eNPS question in a variety of employee surveys, like longer, engagement surveys given every 3 months, as well as pulse surveys that may take place every week or month.
Without context, your eNPS won’t mean much. Ask follow-up questions so your HR team can better understand what the company could do to elicit a higher score, like “what would it take for your answer to be the highest (10?).”
“I always encourage an open text box for employees to go deeper in the moment feedback,” Cote said. “It’s a great launching off point for a conversation with your team and the company about how they’re feeling.”
Without context, your eNPS won’t mean much. Ask follow-up questions so your HR team can better understand what the company could do to elicit a higher score.
Probe deeper with additional questions that ask employees to rate satisfaction with job duties, management, company benefits, and more. Keep surveys anonymous but consider keeping track of the department so you can follow up with managers.
Tools for measuring eNPS
- Engagement surveys: Longer, quarterly engagements surveys are a great place to ask about eNPS. The abundance of context they provide makes engagement surveys a rich pool of data for HR.
- Pulse surveys: Get a sense of employee satisfaction more regularly with pulse surveys.
How to calculate eNPS
Calculating your organization’s eNPS is simple. Use your employee feedback platform to create an eNPS-specific employee email survey, or incorporate the question into engagement or pulse surveys.
If your HR team isn’t using an employee feedback platform, you can calculate your eNPS manually.
“The good thing about measuring eNPS is that you don’t need a complicated tool to do it. Google Forms works fine,” said Linnea Johansson, Digital Communications Manager at The Right People Group.
Ask employers to rate how likely they are to recommend their place of employment to others on a scale of 1 to 10. Scores put employees in one of 3 categories.
- 9-10 = Promoters. These employees are satisfied, motivated, and committed to your organization.
- 7-8 = Passive. These employees are neutral. Omit them from the calculation.
- 0-6 = Detractors. These employees wouldn’t recommend working for your company.
We have our eNPS, now what?
Your eNPS provides an at-a-glance overview of employee experience and satisfaction, but it’s how you use this data that’s most impactful. Your score helps set the stage to delve deeper into what employees perceive as positive and what they’d like to see change.
Analyze your eNPS score in relation to the larger pool of data you’re collecting. Read comments, look for trending keywords, and identify patterns across factors like department, manager, gender, and age group.
Track your eNPS over time to measure increases and decreases, and to link the score with HR initiatives. The entire employee lifecycle and experience contribute to an eNPS score, so HR can derive right insight from this data.
