eNPS 101: How To Conduct a Survey of Employee Satisfaction

Any smart business leader knows that having satisfied, long-term employees contributes to the overall success of a company. Satisfied employees generate enthusiastic customers–especially in customer-facing positions. Satisfied employees generally work harder, and are less likely to quit. Finally, satisfied employees are more likely to boost your company’s reputation and morale. But to generate enthusiastic, loyal team members, you’ll need to gain insight and track how well you are improving employee experience. The annual employee survey most likely won’t cut it. Instead, we suggest a strategic metric you can use to track employee satisfaction/loyalty over time: eNPS.

eNPS, or Employee Net Promoter Score, is a metric that can give you accurate insight into how satisfied your employees really are–and perhaps more importantly, how loyal they are. It’s generated with just two simple questions...and produces invaluable insight into how you can improve your business, boost employee loyalty, and ultimately, contribute to a better customer experience.

eNPS, Explained

eNPS is based on Net Promoter Score–a customer satisfaction metric that tracks how likely customers are to recommend your product or service to others. While Net Promoter Score surveys ask, How likely are you to recommend this product or service to a friend, family member, or coworker? eNPS surveys ask, How likely is it that you would recommend this company as a place of work, on a scale of 0-10?

This question is followed up by an opportunity for your employees to provide an open-ended answer. What are the primary reasons for your score?

The resulting score and feedback can become an invaluable source of insight for your company.

An employee who loves working for you–and is enthusiastic about what you sell–is a more productive, beneficial asset to your company. But without measuring and tracking how enthusiastic your employees actually are, you’re unlikely to know how to generate these kinds of team members...and be able to make necessary improvements.

The reality is, many employees are extremely unsatisfied with their workplaces. According to one study, 59% of employees wouldn’t recommend their organization as a good place to work. Yikes!

Discovering this sort of information may be disheartening...but can help you make strategic, effective changes to ramp up your score.

And, it communicates to your employees that you care about their level of loyalty and satisfaction–which by itself can improve your employees’ perception of your company.

How to Create an eNPS Survey for Your Company

To create an eNPS survey for your company, consider the culture of your workplace communication first. What would get the best response and make the most sense? A pop-up survey on your site? A friendly email newsletter? Or a link provided on your company’s messaging system?

In any case, you can use an NPS software to design, build, and deploy an eNPS survey through one or more of these mediums. By doing so, you’ll be able to efficiently evaluate and organize your results–and continue tracking eNPS over time for richer insight.

Collect Scores & Categorize Respondents

Once you’ve deployed your survey, you’ll categorize your respondents based on their scores.

Employees who have given you a 9 or 10 are promoters. They are enthusiastic about working for your company and are unlikely to quit. Not only that, but they most likely boost morale in your workplace...and help other employees feel better about working for you too.

Employees who have given you a 7 or 8 are passives. They aren’t unhappy with their jobs, but there’s most likely plenty of room for improvement. With some strategic encouragement, passives may be likely to convert to promoters.

Employees who have given you a 6 or below are detractors. Detractors are unhappy team members who are more likely to quit...and may be detracting from overall morale or customer loyalty.

Calculate Your Score

Now, you’re ready to calculate your eNPS score.

[# of promoters / Total # of survey takers] - [# of detractors / Total # of survey takers] = Employee Net Promoter Score

Keep in mind that a score can range from -100 to +100, so a score of 40, for example, doesn’t equate to “F.” Anything above 100 simply means you have more promoters than detractors.

While your initial eNPS score is valuable, you’ll perhaps gain more valuable insight from tracking your score over time…and seeing how you’ve improved in generating a better employee experience.

Filter & Organize Your Feedback

Now, take a look at your open-ended feedback. What kinds of opinions have detractors provided? What about promoters? Both kinds of insights can give you actionable strategies to creating a better experience for your employees.

Again, you’ll want to use an NPS software to filter, organize, and assess these results. An NPS software can help you quickly identify insights from specific categories of survey-takers, and to develop valuable reporting over time.

Keep Tracking

One of the advantages of deploying an eNPS survey over an annual employee survey is that you can repeat it multiple times a year without annoying your staff. It takes just a couple of minutes to complete...and produces a trackable metric that gives accurate insight into how loyal and enthusiastic your staff are about working for your company.

Follow Up on Your eNPS Surveys

Now, for the crucial part: follow-up.

Following up on your eNPS surveys should involve:

• Sharing feedback with other employees. If the feedback isn’t great, this might feel difficult. But doing so creates a culture of transparency and trust that will ultimately improve the experience of working for your company.
• Taking action on feedback. If many of your detractors complained about the lack of flexibility in working for your company, make an effort to introduce policies that encourage a better work-life balance, or the opportunity to work remotely. Take action on what your employees tell you. Otherwise, you may be wasting your time!
• Following up with specific employees. You’ll probably want to follow up with employees who were particularly dissatisfied with working for your company. You may be able to work with these team members to improve their working experience–helping them to become happier, more productive employees.

Finally: An “Alternative” eNPS

Finally, you have an additional option to creating an eNPS survey. Instead of (or in addition to) your eNPS question, you can ask your employees, On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend this company’s product or service to others?

This additional form of eNPS can give you rich insight into how enthusiastic your employees are about what they are working to sell. If they’re less than impressed with your product, you’ll want to discover why...and take action to boost their brand perception. Why? Because employees who believe in your company will innovate more, work harder, and be more likely to communicate enthusiasm to your customers.

Ultimately, employees who love working for your company and believe in your product or service are likely to build a stronger company with a more loyal customer base. Everybody wins: Your employees get to love where they work; your customers benefit from the valuable support of your staff; and you create a stronger, more profitable business.