Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is the simplest measure of how your employees really feel about working for you. One question. One number. One clear signal about the health of your workplace culture.
This guide covers everything you need to know about eNPS — from what it is and how to calculate it, to how to interpret your score and take action. Use the free calculator below to get your eNPS in seconds.
Last updated: February 2026
What Is eNPS?
eNPS is the employee-focused version of Net Promoter Score (NPS), a customer loyalty metric developed by Fred Reichheld and Bain & Company in the early 2000s. The original insight: one recommendation question predicts loyalty better than any multi-question survey. When applied to employees instead of customers, the same principle holds — with equally strong predictive power for retention and engagement.
The eNPS question is:
"On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend [Company] as a place to work?"
Responses fall into three groups:
| Group | Score | What it signals |
|---|---|---|
| Promoters | 9–10 | Enthusiastic advocates. They love working here and say so. |
| Passives | 7–8 | Satisfied but not passionate. Vulnerable to poaching. |
| Detractors | 0–6 | Unhappy employees. At risk of leaving and potentially disparaging the company. |
The eNPS formula then calculates the net difference between your strongest advocates and your most disengaged employees.
eNPS vs Customer NPS
eNPS and NPS share the same question format and calculation method, but they measure fundamentally different things:
| eNPS | Customer NPS | |
|---|---|---|
| Who answers | Employees | Customers |
| What it measures | Workforce loyalty and engagement | Customer satisfaction and brand advocacy |
| Typical benchmark | 10–40 (varies by industry) | 30–70 (varies by sector) |
| Survey frequency | Quarterly or monthly | After transactions or annually |
| Action owner | HR and leadership | Customer success and product |
High scores on both tend to correlate — engaged employees deliver better customer experiences. But they are separate programmes with separate benchmarks; never compare your eNPS directly against a customer NPS figure.
Why Not Just Ask "Are You Happy?"
Happiness is fleeting and easy to fake in surveys. Willingness to recommend is a higher-stakes question — it reflects genuine belief. Promoters stick around, refer talent, go the extra mile, and champion the company brand. Detractors do the opposite. eNPS forces employees to think about advocacy, not just momentary satisfaction.
How to Calculate eNPS
The eNPS formula is:
eNPS = % Promoters − % Detractors
Passives are deliberately excluded from the calculation. Their neutrality earns them no positive credit, which incentivises organisations to actively move Passives toward Promoter territory rather than settling for mere satisfaction.
Worked Example
Imagine 200 employees complete your eNPS survey:
- 100 score 9 or 10 → Promoters = 50%
- 60 score 7 or 8 → Passives = 30%
- 40 score 0–6 → Detractors = 20%
eNPS = 50% − 20% = 30
A score of 30 sits in the "Good" range. The 30% of Passives didn't affect the score directly, but they represent a significant improvement opportunity.
eNPS Limitations to Know
eNPS is powerful precisely because it is simple — but that simplicity comes with trade-offs worth understanding before you act on a score.
One number can hide segment problems. A company-wide eNPS of +35 can mask a department sitting at −15 and another at +60. Always break results down by team, tenure, and role level. The aggregate score is informative; segment-level data is where you can actually act.
Low response rates skew positive. If fewer than 50–60% of employees respond, the data becomes unreliable. Disengaged employees are less likely to bother completing surveys, which inflates scores artificially. Aim for 70%+ participation before drawing conclusions.
Culture influences scoring differently across groups. In some organisations, cultural norms or hierarchical dynamics lead employees to avoid low scores regardless of actual sentiment. In high-mobility markets, even satisfied employees may score lower because they consider leaving normal. Context matters — track your own trend over time rather than fixating on any single data point.
eNPS captures loyalty, not causes. A drop in score tells you something is wrong; it does not tell you what. Pair eNPS with at least one open-text follow-up question per respondent group, and complement it with a more diagnostic engagement survey annually.
Trust drives honesty. If employees suspect their responses can be traced back to them — even on platforms claiming anonymity — they will inflate scores. Use a dedicated survey tool with genuine anonymity guarantees, not a shared spreadsheet or an internal form where IT admins have access.
Free Interactive eNPS Calculator
Use the calculator below to enter your survey results and instantly get your eNPS score with a colour-coded interpretation and improvement tips.