What is the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)?

Let's discuss what the Employee Net Promoter Score is about. Why is it great? But also the weaknesses and what to do about it.

Origins - from NPS to eNPS

For companies it is very important to measure how satisfied customers are with a company - or services of a company. Over the years psychologists came up with elaborate questionnaires to find that out.

The biggest problem with those questionnaires was the length. These questionnaires had many questions - and the length made them very unlikely to be filled out by customers.

The Net Promoter Score was a refreshingly simple alternative. One question plus free text. The basis for the NPS was the concept of loyalty. If customers are loyal then they will buy again.

The question is "Would you recommend xyz to your friend?"

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) was introduced in 2003 by Reichheld in an influential Harvard Business Review article. The article made big waves in the community. Nowadays it is the industry standard to measure satisfaction of customers with a service.

NPS is a registered trademark of Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company and Satmetrix.

The Employee NPS (eNPS) is the extension of the concept towards employees.

If your employees are loyal to your company - that's great and tells a lot. If they are not loyal then it is time to investigate further.

Beautifully simple and beautifully actionable.

How to calculate the eNPS

The eNPS works on a likert scale from 0 to 10. 10 means an employee would recommend us very likely, 0 is the opposite - very unlikely recommendation.

The eNPS classifies the likert score in three baskets: Detractors, promoters and neutrals. 0-6 are detractors. 7 and 8 are neutrals, 9 and 10 are promoters.

The formula then is: (number of promoters - number of detractors) / number of votes * 100

Example:

We got the following votes: 0,5,6,7,7,9,9,9,9, 10. 10 votes in total. 3 detractors, 2 neutrals and 5 promoters. We put this in our formula: (5-3)/10 * 100 = 20.

So we get an eNPS of 20 for this team.

The NPS can range from -100 (only detractors) to +100 (only promoters).

Why is it great?

In short: Simplicity:

It's one question. It is easy to answer by employees. It is easy to spot potential problems. And it is a metric that is well understood nowadays by management. Everyone knows the NPS. Going to the eNPS is just a tiny step.

It does not take long to fill out one question. This leads to a high turnout and meaningful results.

What are shortcomings?

The number alone does not tell you much. It can highlight that there is a potential problem. But which one? Hard to tell.

What to do about shortcomings

The eNPS can only be a starting point. If the numbers are low the investigation has to start. Why is that team / department scoring so low?

The free text field then is the next stop for the leadership team. What are concrete problems people are talking about? And if that is not enough - management has to meet with the teams and talk face to face about the low loyalty.

Nothing can replace a good conversation. Not even the eNPS.

Summary

The eNPS is a well understood metric to measure employee loyalty. Due to its simplicity it can be easily collected and the participation rate is high.

It has its shortcomings, but combined with a free text field where employees can elaborate on their vote it acts as the starting point of an investigation.