Employee Net Promoter Score: Strengths, Limits, and Uses
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a one of the most popular measurements of customer experience, and can be used when analyzing how somebody feels about a product or service. But it isn’t perfect.
One of my favorite images around Net Promoter Score regularly makes the rounds on Twitter/X and LinkedIn:
Of course, nobody is bringing up their favorite operating system at a cocktail party – we all have better things to discuss. However, the concept of Net Promoter Score is one we can use to build a fuller picture of company culture.
What is a Net Promoter Score?
A Net Promoter Score is a market research tool that asks the question, “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our organization as a workplace to a friend or colleague?”. It was published by a business strategist called Fred Reichheld in 2003 in the Harvard Business Review, in an article titled “The Only Number You Need to Grow”. Reichheld is an expert on “loyalty”, and his work on the Net Promoter Score has fundamentally changed how businesses measure success.
Employee Net Promoter Score
The Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) asks how likely an employee is to recommend the company to a friend or colleague. It is just one data point we measure, but it can give insights into a multitude of aspects of company culture and employee satisfaction.
Employee satisfaction and company culture are often in danger of being viewed as “soft” metrics – hard to measure, and therefore best left to “gut feeling”. But that isn’t true. It’s been proven time and time again that a data-driven approach is the best way to impact change. As they say, you cannot change what you do not measure. Companies with great company cultures know this.
What can Employee Net Promoter Score Tell Us?
Loyalty and Satisfaction
This is the main point we are measuring when looking at eNPS. This relates back to the classic use of NPS as outlined by Fred Reichheld, and his emphasis on the strength of loyalty above all else when measuring performance.
If an employee is willing to recommend a company to a friend, then it shows how satisfied they are with working there. We are honest with our friends. If we are in a toxic environment, it is very unlikely that we will suggest working there to someone we care about.
Employee Engagement
Someone who recommends a place of work is naturally going to be more engaged with the company. It indicates that someone is proud to work in a place, and that they are emotionally invested in the organization.
While eNPS can give a good estimation of employe engagement, we use another survey to get an even more accurate reading of this important measure. By designing bespoke surveys for the organizations we are working with, we can get a real insight into how engaged an employee is with the company culture and the organization at large. Combined with the eNPS, we can get a much fuller picture.
Reputation and Employer Branding
Just because someone enjoys working at a company, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will recommend it to a friend. This is where employee branding comes in. If employees are telling you that they are happy with compensation, culture, and other internal aspects of employee satisfaction but are still giving low Employee Net Promoter Scores, then it could be an external factor – like branding and reputation of the company. This is a sign of poor alignment with company values.
Organizational Health
ENPS can’t give a full picture of organizational health, and we need to use multiple measurements, interviews, and surveys to see how the company is overall. However, it is a good indicator, or signal, of how the organization is performing. It isn’t a full weather station - rather a weathervane that can tell us where the wind is blowing.
Employee Net Promoter Score is Only One Data Point
We’ve outlined above how useful the Employee Net Promoter Score can be when looking at the workplace. It can clue us into multiple aspects of the organization. However, it is important to consider the eNPS as one KPI in a range of measurements. The more data we can gather on company culture, the better we can identify strengths and weaknesses. It is much easier to improve company culture when we have a range of data points to inform strategy.
Employee Engagement Surveys
We place a special emphasis on designing specific employee engagement and employee experience surveys, as opposed to off-the-shelf surveys, which will could ask irrelevant or even harmful questions. When designing these surveys, it is important to start from a position of curiosity. What do you want to find out? What are you trying to measure?
We like to use a consistent rating scale to ask a number of questions, that measure various dimensions of employee engagement: satisfaction, alignment with company values, work environment, leadership, professional development opportunities, and overall morale. These different focus areas will be weighted through the analysis to help CEO’s know exactly where to invest their time, energy, and resources.
By using a well-designed survey that can be sent out at regular intervals and aggregated, companies can measure progress and see if their initiatives are actually making an impact. They can also use it to benchmark against industry standards, which can be extremely valuable.
Data, Data, Data… and Anecdotes
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is one of the most useful KPIs for analyzing company culture. Fred Reichheld’s work has influenced every facet of how companies function, making NPS common vernacular in the workplace. Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) provides a snapshot of engagement and company culture, but it doesn't tell us everything. We need more data to get a clearer view and eventually provide direction for leaders to make a positive impact.
Data is our friend when it comes to analyzing company culture—perhaps even our best friend. But it isn’t our only ally. It's also crucial to listen in both formal and informal settings. We recommend using interviews and regular check-ins with employees to gauge the company's culture at large.
By blending data, analysis, and anecdotes, we can truly capture the essence of your organization. An out-of-the-box approach will never reveal the full story of how your company is performing. It’s important to stop, listen, and measure so that you can change your organization for the better.
Meridith Marshall is the CEO and Founder of Uncharted Way and has seen firsthand how people and organizations can navigate the most difficult of circumstances with clarity and openness to improve employee experience and culture in their workplace. She is an industry-recognized expert in using a data-driven approach and is a therapist and certified Co-Active coach.