eNPS is short for Employee Net Promoter Score. It is borrowed from the world of customer satisfaction, but it has made great inroads as a key figure for measuring employee satisfaction.
In theory, people are asked if they would recommend their workplace. Behind that attitude sits something more revealing: the person's own sense of well-being. eNPS is straightforward, since it only requires a single question, but we recommend measuring it continuously, just as it was originally used for customer satisfaction.
"It is not enough to measure eNPS or employee satisfaction once or twice a year. This must happen much more frequently if you want to be proactive about good well-being."
How does eNPS work?
The question behind the scale is simple: "How likely is it that you would recommend your workplace to others?"
The standard eNPS question on a 0 to 10 scale.
Each person is assigned to a group based on their answer on a scale of 0 to 10. There are three groups: Detractors, Passives and Promoters.
The eNPS scale from 0 to 10, split into the three groups.
- Detractors answer 0 to 6. These are the people who pull down your reputation when talking to potential candidates, their colleagues and your customers.
- Passives answer 7 to 8. They do not subtract from your score, but they are not loyal ambassadors either. They are happy and satisfied, but quietly so.
- Promoters answer 9 to 10. These are your ambassadors. They recommend your workplace whenever they have the chance, and because they spread enthusiasm and energy, they contribute meaningfully to the well-being of those around them. They also boost your competitiveness in recruitment, and they are unlikely to switch to a competitor.
How to calculate your eNPS score
Once you have everyone sorted into Detractors, Passives and Promoters, the calculation itself is short.
eNPS = [Promoters %] minus [Detractors %]
For example, if you have 40 people, 11 of them are promoters and 2 are detractors, then 27.5% are promoters and 5% are detractors. Your eNPS is 22.5.
What is a good eNPS for a company?
The scale runs from -100 to +100. The first goal for any company is to get into positive territory. There is no single benchmark, but you can say something useful about how loyal and engaged your people are based on the eNPS:
- Over 10 indicates slightly more promoters than detractors. That is fine.
- Over 30 indicates a clear predominance of promoters. That is good.
- Over 50 is hard to achieve. You have an incredibly loyal pool of people who are happy to recommend the workplace. That is really good.
- Over 80 is absolute world class. When almost everyone would highly recommend the workplace, you have built real competitiveness in recruiting and retaining talent.
eNPS is partly used incorrectly today
Willingness to recommend a workplace is not a current insight into how people are doing. It is a useful marker, but eNPS falls a bit short when it comes to measuring motivation, well-being and day-to-day satisfaction.
It does, however, have an obvious use case for recruitment. One of the most important sources of effective hiring is people who would actually recommend the job to a friend or acquaintance. Optimally they help recruit. At the very least, they would recommend the job, if asked.
eNPS is the obvious metric for measuring whether People and Culture and recruitment have the support from people in the company to run effective recruitment.
How can you measure eNPS?
A few tools exist for measuring eNPS. We recommend measuring it monthly. That lets you watch how the score changes over time, which is what you need in order to act proactively on your employer brand.
If you are interested in implementing eNPS measurement in your workplace, consider Zoios. Zoios automatically sends a monthly survey to measure eNPS, stress and overall well-being. By comparing eNPS with well-being and stress data, you get a comprehensive picture of how your organization is really doing.