Employee Net Promoter Score (ePNS) is a metric created by Fred Reichheld, a partner at Bain & Company, that indicates if your employees would recommend working at your organization to a friend. Initially, eNPS was used to measure customer satisfaction and the overall customer experience, but in more recent years, the metric has been adopted internally by employers to gather the same information from employees to measure employee satisfaction and employee loyalty.

eNPS responses can be tabulated by asking a single eNPS question: How likely is it that you would recommend working at our company to a friend?

Generally, responses are recorded on a scale from 1–10, with a score of 1 being considered a detractor and a score of 10 being considered a promoter.

eNPS can help organizations do market research to determine the effectiveness of retention efforts and management strategies by gathering real employee feedback.

For example, a low eNPS could indicate that employee morale is low or that employees feel neglected. In response, the employer may decide it needs to change its approach to management or even the benefits it offers to team members.

Ultimately, HR teams that dedicate time and energy to employee retention should at the very least consider measuring the engagement and dedication of their staff. eNPS can help quantify these variables.

Once eNPS survey results are tabulated, employers categorize responses into three different segments: 

• Promoters: Answered 9-10 and would enthusiastically recommend working at your company to their friends and family 
• Passive: Answered 6-8 and are neutral, but not necessarily enthusiastic or loyal. 
• Detractors: Answered 0-5 and would not recommend working at your company to their friends or family. 

If an employer receives low eNPS scores, the organization should investigate how it’s setting expectations for employees and their engagement levels. HR can work with management and leadership to get to the bottom and the why of the company’s detractor scores.

There’s no single way to improve employee net promoter scores (eNPS), but there are some tactics that HR can take to begin this process. These include:

1. Reviewing and Updating the Employee Handbook/Culture Guide: In many cases, employers haven’t updated their handbooks in years. HR can take the first step by developing a Culture Guide, which goes beyond the typical employee handbook by codifying the organization’s culture, its history, its mission, and more.
2. Reevaluate How Employees Meet with Managers: HR can also encourage that managers adopt 1:1 meetings. These ongoing meetings provide opportunities to empower employees, develop new skills and abilities, and make any necessary adjustments to performance.
3. Onboard for Retention: For a growing business, onboarding new hires is a big responsibility. How well employers onboard employees plays a key role in their retention efforts.
4. Build Better Benefits: Workers prefer great benefits. Employers should consider adding to their benefits packages before open enrollment to keep employees on staff long-term.

While similar in some regards, NPS and eNPS measure two different metrics:

• Net promoter score (NPS) measures a customer or client’s level of satisfaction with the company, its services, and/or its products. High NPS ratings typically indicate that customers/clients are more likely to recommend the company to people in their lives.
• Employee net promoter score (eNPS) measures an employee’s level of satisfaction with the company. High eNPS ratings typically indicate that employees are more likely to recommend working for the company to people in their lives.

Organizations should use the following formula to calculate eNPS:

• Total score / # of Participants = eNPS

To calculate this metric, employers will need to deploy an employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) survey to your employees. HR should keep in mind promoters are considered anyone who answers 9 or 10 and detractors are anyone who answers 1-6.

While employee net promoter score (eNPS) is one way to measure employee engagement, it’s not the only one. Employee surveys are a leading indicator that provides insights into self-reported engagement levels.

The use of the surveys is to enable HR to ask tailored questions about employee experiences, such as: 

• How valued do you feel as an employee? 
• Are you proud to be a member of your team? 

Simple metrics compiled from administering an employee engagement survey can help ensure that organizations on the right track to achieving a highly engaged workplace. In the end, every company’s goal is to retain talent. Simply focusing on improving your engagement strategy can ensure a positive ROI.