What Is a Net Promoter Score?

The Net Promoter Score was originally developed by Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company, and Satmetrix Systems in the 1980s.

A Net Promoter Score survey is usually conducted through a single question survey, “How likely is it that you would recommend [brand] to a friend or colleague?” The user answers on a scale of 1–10.

What Is an Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)?

Another version of the Net Promoter Score is the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS). Similar to the Net Promoter Score, employees of the company are asked, “On a scale of zero to ten, how likely is it that you would recommend this company as a place to work?” Throughout the years, companies have realized that the eNPS is a key driver of NPS.

It’s of no surprise that notable companies who have high Net Promoter Scores, such as Apple (89), Southwest Airlines (62), and Costco (79), have regularly made the list of the top 50 places to work.

Benefits of Tracking Employee Net Promoter Scores

Adopting and tracking your Employee Net Promoter Score is an essential part of any sound employee satisfaction and feedback strategy. Here are some compelling reasons why:

It’s Simple to Implement

eNPS surveys are generally easy to set up and take little time for people to complete. The results are also straightforward for management to understand.

It Gives Employees a Voice

Are your employees feeling heard? Do they have a safe forum where they feel comfortable sharing candid feedback – both positive and negative? If not, the Employee Net Promoter Score solves the problem for you. It’s possible – and indeed advisable – to ensure that eNPS surveys guarantee complete anonymity.

It Boosts Employee Engagement

Trust is the foundation for building greater levels of employee engagement in any business. Engaged employees are generally more productive and loyal. eNPS is an effective tool for ensuring you keep close tabs on the general sentiment within your organization, which allows you to make informed and timely decisions.

It Builds Customer Loyalty

In most businesses, customers interact with employees on a daily basis. Happy people are more approachable, friendly, responsive to customer requests and feedback, and will tend to go the extra mile to deliver a great service experience. By establishing an iterative feedback loop through which you prioritize constructive input from your people, you’ll create a win-win-win outcome for your employees, customers, and business.

It Reduces Employee Turnover

Happy employees seldom quit. As employers in all industries grapple with adjusting to “The Great Resignation,” you simply can’t afford to lose scarce talent. The cost of replacing employees can quickly add up, but it doesn’t end there. When people see their colleagues leaving, it can impact morale and productivity, especially if the departing employees are well-liked and respected.

Excessive turnover in an organization can have a domino effect, with remaining employees wondering if the “grass might be greener” elsewhere. eNPS surveys allow you to pinpoint negative sentiment within your organization and take appropriate action before it manifests into excessive employee churn rates.

It Sparks Innovation

eNPS programs are more than a rich source of honest feedback – they’re also a gold mine of untapped innovation. When people have the opportunity to share their thoughts and feedback in a confidential forum, it’s not uncommon for them to offer up ideas on how things could be done better – opinions they might be reticent to share in face-to-face engagements on the job.

It Exposes “Elephants in the Room”

Following on our previous point, eNPS surveys provide employees with an opportunity to speak out about sub-optimal management or team dynamics that might be hiding in plain sight. Potentially serious issues such as discrimination, bullying, harassment, or micromanagement – which leadership was previously unaware of – might also surface.

It Builds Your Brand

In a digital-first world, it’s never been easier for potential recruits to turn to the likes of Glassdoor to read up about what current and previous employees have to say about your business with just a few taps on their smartphones. Nobody gravitates to companies that have unhappy employees who say they’re unlikely to recommend you to others as a place to work.

It Won’t Break the Bank

eNPS is a cost-effective way to gauge your employees’ satisfaction levels. Most surveys can be initiated with a simple email, and the automation embedded in eNPS software means your human resources teams won’t be bogged down for hours crunching the data.

How to Calculate eNPS

The responses you receive to your eNPS survey (where people grade you from 0–10 in terms of their level of satisfaction) fall into three categories:

• 9-10 – Promoters: Highly satisfied and motivated employees
• 7-8 – Passives: These people are generally content but not passionate about the organization
• 0-6 – Detractors: Dissatisfied employees who wouldn’t recommend your organization to others

Calculating your eNPS score is straightforward. Simply subtract your percentage of Promoters from Detractors. Passive employees shouldn’t be included in this calculation.

% Promoters – % Detractors = eNPS

So, for example, if 60% of your people are Promoters and 15% are Detractors, your eNPS would be 45.

It follows that eNPS scores could range from 100 (a situation where every employee is a Promoter) to -100 (where every employee is a Detractor). As a rule of thumb, any score above 0 is deemed acceptable, anything between 10 and 30 is good, and above 30 is excellent.

But what about Passives? While they’re not included in the formal score, you shouldn’t waste the opportunity to find out why some of your people are “lukewarm” about your organization.

7 Ways to Boost Your Employee NPS

1. Pair eNPS with a More Comprehensive Employee Feedback Program

While eNPS is valuable in its own right, it’s infinitely more powerful if implemented in conjunction with other feedback mechanisms. The employee Net Promoter Score should be used as a door-opener for further constructive investigation and discussion.

Why not run an employee satisfaction survey with open-ended questions to elicit more context as to why employees have scored you high or low? You can include more targeted questions and fields that allow open text responses. For instance, you could ask, “Please share the reasons why you chose this score.” If you don’t have a channel to garner this more specific feedback, your results will be far less meaningful and actionable.

2. Conduct Thorough Data Analysis

The days when it was necessary to spend hours manually trawling through vast volumes of data are long behind us. Today, digital tools take care of much of the heavy lifting. Not only is this faster and more efficient, but it also eliminates the very real possibility of human error.

Low- or no-code automated survey analysis tools harness the power of artificial intelligence to structure and analyze large data sets to surface actionable intelligence. Better still, they present their findings in intuitive dashboards, which makes sharing the results internally among affected stakeholders easier.

3. Act

Once you’ve conducted your eNPS survey and distilled your findings, you need to put them to work. Remember, your employees have invested their time in completing the survey, and they expect you to share the results promptly and explain to them what action you’re taking in response to your findings.

Research indicates that people who believe that their feedback is taken seriously by their employers are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered and give their best at work.

4. Be Transparent

Despite your best intentions, there may be times when your eNPS falls short of what you’d like to see. But bear in mind that no good will come of trying to hide, downplay, or excuse a disappointing score. Always ensure that you’re fully transparent about the outcomes of your eNPS survey – the good and the bad – and what steps you’re taking to address areas that clearly need improvement. This will inspire greater levels of trust within your workforce.

5. Dig Beneath the Surface

As we touched on earlier, it’s a good idea to explore what’s going on in the minds of your employees beyond the score that they assigned you. This holds true for Promoters, Passives, and Detractors. Take time to conduct more targeted surveys to extract specific feedback and examples of what you’re doing right and wrong.

6. Involve Leaders and Management

While it’s important that eNPS surveys let employees share their feedback anonymously without fear of being judged by their managers or leaders, you’ll need to share notable findings with the relevant stakeholders if you hope to make impactful progress.

7. Iterate

Your journey to optimum employee engagement should be one of continuous improvement. Having a “point-in-time” understanding of your employee satisfaction score by conducting a single eNPS survey holds limited value. So, conduct these surveys regularly, track your score, and review it critically in the context of your business and the actions you’re taking to improve it.

Summing Up

eNPS surveys give employees a place to provide authentic and constructive feedback. Understanding and quickly acting upon such feedback will set the stage for increased employee engagement and productivity and customer loyalty, all of which will ultimately help your bottom line.

Boost Your eNPS with Payactiv

Employers who offer Payactiv’s EWA and financial services as employee benefits are reaping significant results. They’ve noticed a significant drop in turnover amongst employees who use Payactiv versus those who do not. The average employee net promoter score amongst Payactiv users is 84, which means more than 8 out of 10 employees would recommend their place of work to others.

EWA: How it Works

EWA allows employees to quickly access the money they’ve already earned before payday. It can happen in several ways. The funds can be loaded onto a debit or prepaid card, transferred to their bank account, or even picked up as cash at Walmart. Alternatively, Payactiv allows employees to use their earned wages to pay for services like Uber and Amazon or even pay their bills directly in the app.

With Payactiv, you can give your employees choices about how to access their money. Our instant deposit feature lets them access their earned wages in real-time in case of emergencies. We also offer additional perks like discounts and special offers and handy features like budgeting and savings tools and free bill management.

The employee net promoter score is more than just a number; it’s a reflection of how employers are doing their job. With Payactiv, we’ve made that job easy for employers.

Learn more about how Payactiv can reduce business costs associated with financial stress and help improve your eNPS.