eNPS and how to calculate it
The Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is a widely-adopted indicator of employee experience and sentiment. It is derived from the NPS score, which is a similar recommendation-oriented metric for customer satisfaction.
eNPS is based on a simple question: “On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend your organisation as a good place to work?”
The actual eNPS score, though, is not just an average of these answers. Instead, it indicates the percentage of “promoting” minus the percentage of “detracting” employees. “Promoters” are those answering with a 9 or 10. “Detractors” are those who respond with a score lower than 7. Other responses are only counted in the total sum of responses.
Hence, possible Employee Net Promoter Scores range from -100 to 100.
What is a good eNPS?
Suitable benchmark values vary by industry and company sizes, but e.g. 10-30 is typically considered a “good” eNPS. The threshold for an “excellent score” is typically between 50 and 70. A score above 80 is likely to be in the very top percentages in almost any industry.
However, the eNPS score doesn’t really tell you what to do. A low eNPS doesn’t explain what is wrong. It can be very frustrating to see a declining score and not to understand how it can be improved.
At Teamspective, we have made it easy for managers to measure their eNPS and to understand which factors might be behind declines or increases in this crucial metric.
The infographic at the top of this blog shows the 8 KPIs that best predict an organisation's eNPS grouped under 3 top-level KPIs. Let’s look at these metrics and their meaning in more detail!
Top-level KPIs that affect your eNPS score
Scientific research is the foundation of Teamspective's solutions. In order to help our customers make data-driven decisions to improve wellbeing and team collaboration, we've studied extensively the factors affecting employee perceptions and performance.
Here are the 3 top-level KPIs that impact eNPS:
1. Employee Engagement
The Employee Engagement KPI measures themes such as collaboration, motivation, company alignment and personal development. As you can see on the graph, the majority of factors influencing eNPS score are sub-KPIs of employee engagement.
2. Employee Wellbeing
Mental wellbeing, social wellbeing, safety and workload – this is what employee wellbeing is about. Neglecting people’s wellbeing increases risks of employee churn and burnout.
3. DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion)
Diverse organisations are more productive and innovative. However, just increasing diversity without inclusion and equity easily leads to segregation and conflicts. Failing to create a safe, supportive, and engaging workplace is quickly reflected in your eNPS score.
The 8 Sub-KPIs that explain you eNPS score
The above three are broad, aggregated KPIs, composed of multiple themes that can be measured separately. Paying attention to these sub-KPIs helps you craft a more effective action plan.
Our research has shown that 8 of these sub-KPIs predict 56% of positive and negative changes in eNPS. In the order of significance, they are:
- Motivation
- Fairness
- Learning
- Clarity of goals
- Help and support
- Workload
- Dependability
- Psychological safety
The first three KPIs have the strongest effect on the eNPS. It means that possible fluctuations in either direction would likely noticeably change the eNPS.
Clarity of goals, help and support, as well as workload are the next most significant influencers. A low score in any of these can significantly bring down the eNPS while a higher score strongly supports success.
Though last on this list, you cannot afford to ignore dependability and psychological safety. Understanding them helps improve overall employee satisfaction and support your work towards long-term success (e.g. Google found psychological safety to be the most important factor for effective teamwork).
How Teamspective helps you measure these KPIs?
Teamspective’s pulse survey and feedback solution are grounded in scientific research and validated with data. The survey structure includes questions that are specifically dedicated to each of the mentioned metrics.
The insights dashboard gives you an easy overview of what might be causing the drop or rise in your eNPS. The tool also gives concrete guidance on how to improve in these areas with the help of playbooks that describe the most relevant tips and tools.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that eNPS itself as well as the scores for other themes vary significantly between teams. In 83% of cases the needed solutions are team-focused instead of company-wide initiatives. That is why we encourage each team to establish their own routine of analysing and addressing pulse results. We also advise companies to make survey results are easily accessible.
Are you eager to start using pulse surveys now and boost your eNPS along with its main drivers? Get in touch with us today.