Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is calculated based on just one question:
"How likely are you to recommend [company] as a workplace?"
People answer this question on a scale from 0 (extremely unlikely) to 10 (extremely likely) and here is how it's converted into a level or label.
| Raw score | eNPS level (or label) | Interpret as |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 6 | Detractor | Expected to say more negative stuff if asked than positive - would not be a convincing reference for a top candidate. |
| 7 or 8 | Passive | Expected to have a very balanced view of the workplace - neither being a promotor or detractor. |
| 9 or 10 | Promoter | Expected to promote and say nice things about the workplace. |
Remember that the question isn't about whether people themselves are happy in their position, although that is a massive factor.
Once all employees have been labeled into either detractor, passive or promoter you take the percentage (%) of people who are promoters and subtract the percentage (%) of people who are detractors.
eNPS is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors.
So image the scenario below.
| Raw score | eNPS level (or label) | Employees in each level | % of employees at that level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 6 | Detractor | 11 | 9% |
| 7 or 8 | Passive | 76 | 62% |
| 9 or 10 | Promoter | 36 | 29% |
Then we simply have an eNPS of 20 (29% promoters - 9% detractors).
eNPS and it's connection to well-being
You can try and optimize your eNPS directly, but we've found that well-being is essentially employee satisfaction and that connects excellent to eNPS as well.
On average 79-80% of the eNPS score can be explained by the employee's own well-being score (the correlation). Especially people who have great well-being are extremely likely to be promoters.
The likelihood of being a promoter is closely linked to well-being:
| Well-being level | Average raw eNPS score | Promoter likelihood | Passive likelihood | Detractor likelihood | Average eNPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great | 9.4 | 83.7% | 13.8% | 2.6% | 81 |
| Good | 8.4 | 50.5% | 42.2% | 7.3% | 43 |
| Okay | 7.7 | 30.2% | 51.2% | 18.6% | 12 |
| Challenge | 6.7 | 14.3% | 45.5% | 40.2% | -36 |
| Concern | 5.5 | 6.6% | 27.3% | 66.1% | -60 |
| Problem | 3.5 | 2.1% | 8.9% | 89.1% | -87 |
eNPS can fluctuate a lot in smaller groups
If you have a team of 5, 10 or even 20 people the eNPS score can fluctuate quite a lot without big variation in answers. That is just the nature of how eNPS (and NPS) is calculated.
Let's me give you an extreme example with a group of 5 people:
| Month | Distribution of scores | Avg. score | eNPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 1 x score 6 → Detractor 1 x score 7 → Passive 1 x score 8 → Passive 1 x score 9 → Promoter 1 x score 10 → Promoter | 8 | 20 Note: 40% promoters - 20% detractors |
| February | 5 x score 8 → Passive | 8 | 0 Note: 0% promoters - 0% detractors |
| March | 5 x score 7 → Passive | 7 | 0 Note: 0% promoters - 0% detractors |
| April | 2 x score 6 → Detractor 3 x score 8 → Passive | 7.2 | -40 Note: 20% promoters - 40% detractors |
On average, and in bigger groups, the average score given is highly reflective of the calculated eNPS. But, as you can see from the example above the avg. score doesn't always correlate well with eNPS. In April our avg. score was higher than March but our eNPS, in this team of five people, dropped from 0 to -40.