eNPS: what is employee net promoter score & why does it matter?

Did you know that top employees are more likely to leave your workplace if they’re disengaged, don’t see career growth opportunities, have a heavy workload, experience poor work-life balance, and receive inadequate pay?*

That’s what we found in our 2024 Workforce Trends Report, which tallies with other research showing that engaged teams have a 78% reduction in absenteeism, up to a 51% reduction in turnover, and a 14% increase in productivity.**

That’s why it’s critical to build a professional environment where employees are engaged, valued, and confident that they can achieve their most ambitious goals. But how do you know how your team truly feels?

This is where the employee net promoter score (eNPS) comes in. Adapted from the widely used customer net promoter score (NPS), eNPS is a simple yet powerful way to measure employee engagement and satisfaction. 

But how do you calculate your eNPS, what do the results mean, and how can you use this metric to improve engagement and overall business performance? Let’s dive in.

🤓 Get a read on engagement — fast

Leapsome empowers People teams with tools to measure employee satisfaction and build a more engaging workplace.

👉 Take a product tour now

*Leapsome’s Workforce Trends Report, 2024

**Gallup, 2024

What is employee net promoter score (eNPS)?

Employee net promoter score (eNPS) measures engagement and satisfaction by asking employees:

“How likely are you to recommend this organization as a great place to work to your friends and family?”

Respondents rate this likelihood on a scale of 1 to 10 — with 1 meaning “very unlikely to recommend” and 10 meaning “very likely to recommend.”

The eNPS is based on the NPS, which companies use to measure customer loyalty; the NPS was first created in 2003 by Fred Reichheld, a partner at Bain & Company.

Tracking eNPS regularly can help HR teams:

• Benchmark employee engagement levels
  
  
• Assess the effectiveness of engagement initiatives
  
  
• Identify trends and areas for improvement

We recommend tracking eNPS quarterly to get an up-to-date read on team member sentiment without risking survey fatigue.

💡 Curious about other employee engagement metrics to use alongside the eNPS? Check out our guide with 10 engagement metrics and KPIs.

How to calculate employee net promoter score

Calculating your organization’s eNPS is surprisingly simple, which makes it a convenient engagement metric.
‍

Calculating your eNPS: step-by-step

1. First, use a tool like Leapsome Surveys to send a pulse survey to team members, asking one question: “How likely are you to recommend us as a place to work for your family and friends?”
   
   
2. Ask team members to answer on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being the least likely to recommend the organization as a great workplace and 10 being the most likely).
   
   
3. Use the scores from this pulse survey to calculate your overall eNPS score using the simple formula detailed below.
   
   
4. Distribute an eNPS pulse survey quarterly and measure any changes to see how well your initiatives are working and determine where to focus your engagement efforts.
   ‍

What does each score out of 10 mean? 

• Scores from 1 to 6 are considered negative (or “detractors”)
  
  
• Scores from 7 to 8 are considered neutral (or “passives”)
  
  
• Scores from 9 to 10 are considered positive (or “promoters”)
  ‍

What’s the formula for calculating eNPS?

(Percentage of promoters) – (Percentage of detractors) = eNPS

For example, if 40% of employees rate 9-10 and 20% rate 1-6, your eNPS is 20.

📉 Get deeper insights into employee engagement

Leapsome simplifies survey design, distribution, and analysis for actionable insights.

👉 Explore Leapsome Surveys

Follow-up questions to boost your eNPS insights

A one-question pulse survey can tell you a lot, but follow-up queries can add much-needed context and help you understand and measure employee engagement and motivation more effectively. 

Keep follow-up questions simple and open-ended. For example:

• “What’s the main reason you gave that score?”
  
  
• “What words describe your workplace or role?”

These insights can help identify patterns and refine engagement strategies.

You can also follow up on your shorter pulse surveys with a longer employee engagement survey at a later date; an eNPS questionnaire offers a quick snapshot of engagement levels, but a longer survey will provide deeper insights and enable you to set and make tangible improvements to your engagement KPIs, retention rates, and company culture.

💡 Need inspiration? Explore our guide with 70 employee engagement survey questions you can choose from and tweak according to your needs.

Top benefits of tracking employee net promoter score

While it’s always ideal to better understand how team members feel about their positions and your organization as a whole, these are the main benefits of tracking eNPS when compared with other possible metrics:

• Easy to collect — All you have to do is send employees a single question with a pulse survey, which is especially simple when you use a tool like Leapsome Surveys.
  
  
• High participation rates — Short questionnaires have higher response rates and aren’t as vulnerable to survey fatigue, giving you more representative data to work with.
  
  
• Simple to understand — The main eNPS query requires little to no explanation, so it won’t be complicated or confusing for team members to share their feedback.
  
  
• Straightforward to measure — Translating something as intangible as employee engagement and satisfaction into a clear metric enables you to track, understand, and improve over time.
  
  
• Insightful — Employee net promoter score is very revealing. It can tell a lot about how people feel about your workplace, even though the method and question are simple.
  
  
• Cost-effective — Collecting and analyzing eNPS data doesn’t require spending a lot of money on fancy software or a high level of time investment.
  
  
• Good starting point for deeper investigation — Some criticize the eNPS score as a high-level metric that doesn’t account for much context. But that still makes it a good jumping-off point for gauging and understanding team member engagement levels.
  ‍

What is a good eNPS? And what does my eNPS result mean?

While it varies depending on the industry and specific circumstances:

• A good eNPS is generally between 10 and 30.
  
  
• An excellent eNPS would be above 30. 

• A negative eNPS (below 0) means that there are more detractors than promoters — suggesting that the company has lots of work to do to improve engagement and workplace satisfaction.

But as we’ve discussed, measuring employee net promoter score is just the beginning of improving your workplace.

For instance, you might compare eNPS with other employee survey results, pieces of feedback, or insights from 1:1 discussions to get more details about how team members are feeling. You could also ask employees how fulfilled they feel in their positions or what one thing they’d change about the organization. Then, correlate their eNPS responses with follow-up answers and brainstorm the most effective next steps.

For example, you could gain deeper insights like:

• Finding that employees are satisfied with the workplace but not very engaged with their work → They may need a new challenge, opportunity, or role.

• Finding that an engaged employee is struggling with lower performance → They may enjoy the work environment but would benefit from more training or support to boost their performance.

• Finding that the newest team members have the highest engagement levels. Then, it seems to drop the longer employees stay with your organization → Your workplace may excel at new hire onboarding, but it needs to improve engagement with long-term employees to prevent churn.

• Finding that detractors and promoters use different words to describe the company in their follow-up responses → Use these words to identify areas for improvement and understand employee sentiment on an even deeper level.

• Finding that in-house employees return higher scores than remote employees → Your engagement tactics are working in-house, but you could do more to engage remote employees specifically.
  ‍

Employee net promoter score: a snapshot for success

HR teams know how important healthy employee engagement levels are for business success. Low engagement leads to high turnover, more absenteeism, and reduced profitability, and disengaged employees are more likely to leave their positions or perform poorly. 

That’s why measuring staff engagement is crucial. Measuring eNPS is an excellent way to quickly capture employee sentiment. It also provides a great starting point for digging deeper into EX, extracting meaningful insights, and building a solid employee engagement action plan.

Best of all, you can use an intuitive tool like Leapsome Surveys to send out your eNPS questionnaire and follow-up questions to discover what drives your team’s engagement and satisfaction.

Leapsome’s here to help you quickly determine your eNPS score so you can improve employee happiness, motivation, and performance, attract and retain top talent, improve productivity, and boost your company’s bottom line. Pretty good for just one number!
‍

FAQs about employee net promoter score

What’s the difference between eNPS and NPS?

The employee net promoter score (eNPS) measures employee engagement, while the net promoter score (NPS) measures customer experience and loyalty. 

The NPS was first created in 2003 by Fred Reichheld, a partner at Bain & Company, and both metrics work on the same principle. eNPS and NPS use the same method — asking how likely the employee or customer is to recommend the company as a place to work or the product to family or friends on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being the least likely and 10 being the most likely).

‍

People also use the same formula to calculate both final scores — they simply subtract the percentage of promoter (9 or 10) scores by the percentages of detractor (1 to 6) scores. The final NPS or eNPS is an indicator of employee or customer loyalty and is a great way to get a brief snapshot of sentiment.