The Complete Guide to Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS Tips)

The latest research on employee loyalty states that almost 59% of employees do not recommend their organisation as an ideal or great place to work. Hence, it is very important to understand the loyalty level of your employees and to find out the reasons behind the lack of their loyalty towards the organisation, as it has major impact on the business.

Organisations across the globe have always had a wishful thinking to have loyal employees. Organizations wish to have employees who put in their earnest endeavors to provide amazing service to its customers. But how do you measure employee loyalty and what drives the decision one way or another? Enter the concept known as the employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS).

What is eNPS?

The term eNPS stands for employee Net Promoter Score. This is a novel concept which provides organisations with a tool to measure employee loyalty and engagement. This tool was initially a customer service tool which was used later for employees of an organisation instead of its customers. This tool measures the possibilities of employees willingly agreeing to recommend the organisation to others as a great place to work. The tool also provides an insight to employers to understand the likes and dislikes of employees pertaining to the organization. It is debatable whether it is the best and the complete way of measuring employee loyalty towards an organization, but it is certainly an amazing way to at least get started in this direction.

Why is Employee Loyalty so Important?

Although there are multiple reasons why employee loyalty matters, but the following reasons are the primary ones to consider:

1. Loyal employees have been seen to care more about the organization and work harder as well, if they feel attached and connected to your brand.
2. Loyal employees tend to stay longer with the organization which is a great advantage, because employee sourcing is quite expensive.

Employee Net Promoter Score Methodology

eNPS is becoming popular owing to its simplicity. People prefer it because it is quick as well as simple and it provides you the option of getting an update more often than a regular annual survey. Initially research proved that employers can just ask one question to employees and gain an insight into employee loyalty.

The very basic question is: How likely is it that you would recommend your company to a friend or acquaintance as a great place to work in a scale of zero to ten? Eventually researchers found that asking another vital question may yield even better results for employers.

This next question that they came up with was: How likely is it that you would recommend your company’s products and services to a friend or a colleague on a scale of zero to ten?

There was a logic behind coming up with this second question. An employee may have an amazing workplace in terms of amenities, but may be some of the underlying problems and policies of the organization are not good enough for an employee to recommend it to someone else. So, they realized that it is not just enough to ask employees if they would recommend their company as a great workplace to work.

You can derive the real value out of these quantitative questions with follow up questions.  For instance, if an employee has rated 9 out of 10 then a couple of follow up questions is a must. You may ask:

• What would be that one reason for you to willingly recommend your company?
• What is that one thing that this company does well which encourages you to willingly recommend it to a friend?

These follow up questions will help you dive deeper to find out what you are doing well as a company and what needs improvement.

Carrying out this survey consistently every one to three months is recommended as it will give you enough data to focus and work upon.

How is the eNPS Calculated?

Calculating the score is very simple and easy:

1. Calculate the number of respondents
2. Calculate the number of people who rated you 9 or 10
3. Calculate the number of people who rated you between 0 and 6

To derive the score, you need to deduct the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.

For instance, if you have 100 employees, and the following are the  results derived from the eNPS survey:

• 20 Detractors
• 20 Passives
• 60 Promoters

30%(Promoters) – 40%(Detractors) = -10%

The eNPS score is represented as a numerical and not as a percentage. So from the above example, you may just remove the percentage and count it as an eNPS of 10.

Employees who rated you in the range of 7 and 8 should not be included in the calculation as they are neutral.

Scores less than -10 is a matter of concern, while scores in the range of -10 and +20 are normal scores. However, if you have managed to get anything above 40 or 50, it is indeed a great eNPS score.

Tips on How to Improve Your employee Net Promoter Score?

Let’s take at a couple of measures that may help you to improve your eNPS:

1. Always maintain transparency with your employees when it comes to working towards improving your employee Net Promoter Score. It is highly recommended to involve your employees in the process, as it will not only help in improving your score, but it also gives your employees a sense of responsibility.
2. Ensure that you conduct a follow up immediately after conducting the survey. To make things function smoothly, you may think of establishing a cross functional committee to manage and handle the feedback, formulate plans for implementing changes, and share the results with the employees.
3. Although it is a lot of work conducting these surveys, but it will produce amazing effects for your business. Try to conduct employee net promoter score s at all levels – customers, eliciting feedback from customers, and eNPS surveys with your employees. This will give you a holistic picture.
4. It is a great idea to always filter the data to get a deeper and better insight. Filter your results based on demographics, department wise, and employee cohorts.
5. Always try involving your promoters by asking what you can do to be even better. If employees embrace your brand values, they will help you willingly with their insights. Hence, other than thanking them for taking the survey, involve them and get their opinion.

You must always remember that employee Net Promoter Score is just a step towards gauging employee loyalty but do not focus on it so much, as that is not everything. It is indeed a valuable metric to help you track employee loyalty and you can continuously keep improving, but this should not be the end of the road. It is in fact a beginning. eNPS is just a part of the entire feedback loop. You should ideally include performance reviews, other means of employee development, promote regular one on ones. Only then you will be able to get a realistic 360 degree picture pertaining to employee loyalty towards your organisation.