Employee Net Promoter Score, or eNPS, is a single-question survey that measures how likely your employees are to recommend your company as a place to work. It is borrowed from the customer NPS framework and adapted for internal use. Despite its simplicity, eNPS is one of the most reliable leading indicators of employee engagement and retention.
How it works. You ask one question: "On a scale of zero to ten, how likely are you to recommend this company as a place to work?" Based on their response, employees fall into three groups. Promoters (nine or ten) are your most engaged employees. Passives (seven or eight) are satisfied but not enthusiastic. Detractors (zero through six) are disengaged and may be at risk of leaving.
How to calculate it. Subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. If 60 percent of respondents are promoters and 15 percent are detractors, your eNPS is 45. The score ranges from negative 100 to positive 100. Anything above zero is generally considered acceptable, above 20 is good, and above 50 is excellent.
What makes eNPS useful. First, it is fast. A single question takes seconds to answer, which means response rates tend to be much higher than traditional engagement surveys. Second, it is easy to track over time. Running eNPS quarterly or monthly gives you a trendline that reveals whether your culture is improving or declining. Third, it is a conversation starter. The score itself matters less than what you do with it.
Best practices for running eNPS surveys. Keep it anonymous. Employees will not be honest if they think their name is attached to a low score. Add one open-ended follow-up question, such as "What is the primary reason for your score?" This gives you qualitative context that the number alone cannot provide. Share the results transparently with the team. If you ask for feedback and then go silent, trust erodes quickly. Act on the themes you hear. Even small changes signal that leadership is listening.
Common mistakes. Do not survey too frequently. Monthly or quarterly is enough. Weekly surveys create fatigue and lower response quality. Do not ignore passives. They are often one good experience away from becoming promoters or one bad experience away from becoming detractors. Do not treat eNPS as the only metric. It is a starting point, not a complete picture of engagement.
Tools like Culture Wheel include built-in eNPS surveys with trend tracking and anonymous response collection, making it straightforward to run regular pulse checks without managing spreadsheets or separate survey tools. The goal is to make measuring culture as routine as measuring revenue.