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 |