3 Tips to Use eNPS in an Employee Engagement Strategy

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NPS (Net Promoter Score) may sound familiar to you. It’s a marketing metric to measure customer loyalty and satisfaction. The essence of NPS is to value from 0 to 10 the likelihood of suggesting a company and everything connected to it to others. eNPS is the same, except that it is about NPS of personnel.

eNPS is the most straightforward metric to access employee engagement and loyalty. You ask, “Rate from 0 to 10 how likely you will offer your company as a great place to work.” That’s it.

You’ve probably answered such questions while calling your bank, mobile operator, or online store. That’s why many people are also familiar with such types of polls and will answer them accurately. But how do you use the eNPS results? Let’s see how eNPS can shape your employee engagement strategy.

eNPS: How to Interpret the Results

The eNPS results can not only help in developing engagement of existing colleagues. You can change the company culture to improve the working environment, boost employee morale, and make the company more appealing to candidates. As a result, you can manage the process of hiring Salesforce developers, team leaders, and other staff.

But what the eNPS results mean? When respondents evaluate the company, they fall into three groups according to the score they choose:

1. 9 or 10 mark: Promoters. These are the most faithful, content, and emotionally involved associates. They share the organization’s values, advocate for them, and attract more candidates. Promoters create a positive image of the company, magnifying clients and ensuring profitability as well.
2. 7-8 score: ‌Passives. Passive employees are neutral. They like working in the company but will accept a job offer from another organization. Neutrals won’t talk about the company much (both positively and negatively). So it may be a benefit for you. At least, they won’t harm the organization while working diligently and meeting their requirements.
3. An eNPS score between 0-6: Detractors. This group will hardly promote the company to others due to having grievances against it. Maybe, they are unsatisfied with their role, tasks, rules, or team members. Whatever the reason, don’t expect them to leave positive feedback.

To calculate eNPS, you don’t count neutral personnel but subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. The eNPS score ranges from 100 to -100. Suppose you’ve polled 50 employees. Twenty-five colleagues are Promoters, while 10 are Detractors. Then, 50% – 20% = 30 is your eNPS.

Do you need to survey all team members? Inc. recommends running the test on 10% of your colleagues per quarter. This strategy will demonstrate the engagement fluctuations in the quarter to spot seasonal differences.

3 Tips to Incorporate eNPS into Your Company

1. Sustain the Anonymity

The first tip to gain accurate responses is making comments anonymous. Explain to employees that the goal of this test is not to detect enemies but to enhance the company. So there are no consequences for being honest. This will increase the response rate. People will give more detailed feedback without the fear of being recognized, resulting in more precise responses.

2. Add More Questions

Who said you should limit yourself to just one question? Although a traditional eNPS inquiry is whether you recommend the company or not, you can use more questions, for example:

• what the company should stop or start doing,
• what it should keep;
• what employers should change to receive a ten.

You may not want to implement the suggested changes, but you’ll necessarily find reasonable pieces of advice. They will trigger positive movements. So, you’ll turn detractors into passives and passives into promoters.

3. Put the Result to Good Use

Why measure anything if it doesn’t influence the outcome?  Stay committed to the feedback and reconsider the existing approaches and patterns.

If you turn a blind eye to offers, you risk disappointing the promoters. Besides, Passives will become Detractors. And the trust in you will decrease as people will perceive tests as a waste of time. Look for ways to make the working environment better for your staff. Let people be heard and appreciated, and you’ll make significant progress over time.

Benefits of Using eNPS for Estimating Employee Engagement

Why should you care about employee engagement? It’s not just about maximizing the efficiency of one worker. Personnel discontent may spread across the organization. For example, high staff turnover may instill a sense of unease in the remainings specialists. As such, the eNPS metric will help you monitor the working environment and take steps to become more productive. Here are some eNPS advantages:

1. Such simplicity makes the assessment stand out from others. The colleagues make fewer mistakes because it’s hard to mix up numbers. And administrators (HR professionals) see the numerical values relating to the company’s ability to satisfy the staff. So we can conclude that the eNPS is perfect for benchmarking.
2. Another eNPS benefit is speed. You don’t have to compile complex research to go deep into the person’s mindset. It’s a fast pulse survey to see in which direction the company moves. You can conduct pulse surveys multiple times a year and keep the workflow uninterrupted.
3. eNPS cause less survey fatigue. Survey fatigue is a loss of motivation to participate in surveys. It affects the outcome because employees either don’t support them at all or answer for the sake of appearances. The reason may lie in how often you conduct surveys and whether they change something in the company. While the latter lies upon you, you can save colleagues from survey fatigue by reducing numerous extensive assessments to one eNPS question.
4. It doesn’t require complex software to create or spread. You can use the usual corporate communication method and drop a survey to respond anonymously at any time and place.

eNPS Drawbacks and Limitations

Employee Net Promoter Score has its drawbacks like most survey tools. And the primary disadvantage stems from its advantage, which is plainness. eNPS isn’t a comprehensive analysis of employee engagement. eNPS cons are as follows:

1. It’s a derivative of NPS, denoting customer loyalty. Do you think that employees have the same desires and objectives as customers? Clients do seek long-term relationships, but they don’t interact with the organization eight hours a day. Your colleagues do. That’s why they have higher expectations from the company. So, the metric can be ambiguous due to different sets of respondents.
2. The eNPS survey is a one-question, one-score metric that doesn’t go into details. The lack of comprehensive depth doesn’t provide you with the reasons why respondents think this or that. You can get their instant emotions and satisfaction level.But eNPS doesn’t include the experience or feelings about working there. If you need a more detailed review, you’ll have to add other tools and questions.
3. The survey shows current employee satisfaction. But it’s not enough to determine what to do next, which strategies work, and what you should change in the organization. Gallup brings up this disadvantage and suggests taking the further investigation to define what may go wrong.
4. The same numbers may mean different things for people. High scores may denote the HR effectiveness. But why are colleagues happy? They may rate high even if they don’t like the job, but they can slack off at work without being noticed. They are pleased and devoted. But they won’t bring much to the company, let alone they may lead to extra costs for being unproductive.
5. The eNPS calculations ignore passive colleagues. Although it’s easier to set them aside, passives can also be a source of insights about personnel happiness. There is a chance to convert them into promoters by removing discouraging elements of their jobs. If you leave them off, they can become detractors and really hurt the organization.

Conclusion

The company grows not only because of increasing customer engagement. Employee engagement is as essential for business success as customer satisfaction because it’s closely related to productivity. That’s why HR managers develop employee engagement strategies.

But how do you plan any steps and understand someone is satisfied? You need to leverage metrics, e.g., performance assessment, feedback from team members, and reviews on the company. One of them is eNPS.

Consider its pros and cons, keep the results anonymous, expand the assessment with additional questions. If you put the received results into practice, you’ll see how fast happy and loyal staff will bring your company to prosperity.