What is Employee NPS (eNPS)?

Employee NPS, or Employee Net Promoter Score®, is a measure of an employee’s willingness to recommend their employer as a place to work to friends and family. Employee NPS is determined through a survey process and can indicate employee engagement and loyalty. Businesses can use results of eNPS surveys to identify ways to decrease employee churn and increase advocacy.

The concept of employee NPS is based on the Net Promoter Score that is typically used to determine customers’ likelihood to recommend a brand. Like NPS, eNPS measures responses to a single question, which for eNPS is: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this company as a place to work?” To provide context for the scores, organizations should also provide text boxes on surveys so employees can explain their responses.

Employees who respond with 9 or 10, meaning they’re very likely to recommend their employer, are called Promoters. Those who respond with 0-6 are Detractors and employees who score the question with a 7 or 8 are Passives. The employee NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters. Passives are not used in the equation.

Because of the simplicity of the question, employee NPS can be a very easy metric to collect and track over time. For maximum effectiveness, eNPS should be collected regularly – perhaps quarterly or twice a year – and organizations should communicate results and the status of related improvement efforts to their employees. To get a more comprehensive view of what employees think and feel, employee NPS should be used in conjunction with other metrics such as employee satisfaction.