How to Improve eNPS Scores: Drive Your People's Engagement and Ignite Positive Change

Is your company's Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) underwhelming? A low score is a whispering tale of missed opportunities, but also of potential waiting to be unleashed.

But boosting your eNPS isn't about surface fixes. It's about diving deep, understanding your people's core concerns, and reigniting their passion. 

If you aim for an organizational transformation that resonates with every team member, you're in the right spot. 

This comprehensive guide will: 

• Unpack the ins and outs of leveraging eNPS survey results for transformative organizational change. 
• Delve into 15 actionable strategies tailored to engage your promoters, address detractors, and elevate passives to foster a holistic employee experience. 
• Spotlight three industry giants—Hubspot, Adobe, and Outback Team Building and Training—and their triumphant tales of using eNPS to refine employee engagement. 

🔢 How can I effectively use the results of an eNPS survey to drive organizational change?

eNPS scores give you insights into your people's loyalty and engagement.

They are derived from answers to the following (or similar) question on an eNPS survey: "How likely are you to recommend your company as a place to work to your friends, family, or colleagues?"

Based on the responses, the eNPS score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters:

eNPS = %Promoters – %Detractors

To illustrate, if your survey results are: 25% promoters, 10% detractors, and 65% passives, your eNPS score would be 15 (=25%–10%).

Higher eNPS scores indicate more engaged and loyal employees. Scores below zero suggest sentiment issues, while scores above 30 are considered good, and above 40 are excellent.

eNPS scores help you understand how your people feel about your organization and its culture. They help to uncover potential issues and highlight areas for improvement, such as management practices, workplace culture, or employee benefits.

For instance, if detractors cite poor management, this could suggest a need for leadership training or a review of management practices.

"eNPS allows your leadership team to truly take the pulse of your organization, laser-focus on solutions to problems before they can fester and grow and foster an ongoing level of insight," explains Anthony Smith, CEO of Insightly.

Understanding and interpreting eNPS scores also helps with:

• Monitoring employee engagement—by tracking eNPS scores, you can see whether employee engagement initiatives are working and if you need to adjust your approach.
• Communicating with your people—by understanding what's driving eNPS scores, you can share information with your people to show that their feedback is being heard.
• Building trust and credibility—being transparent with your people about eNPS scores helps earn their trust. It increases their likelihood of being open and honest with their feedback in the future.

📈 How to improve eNPS scores: 15 Effective strategies

In interpreting eNPS scores, it's essential to appreciate the different sentiments associated with promoters, passives, and detractors. Each has unique characteristics, so you'll need different approaches to engage them.

Promoters

Promoters are your organization's champions. They're satisfied with their roles, and, as the eNPS survey indicates, they're likely to recommend your company as a great place to work.

The key is to motivate and engage them by leveraging their positive perspectives. 

We have three strategies for further engaging your promoters.

1. Offer recognition and rewards

Acknowledge the hard work and achievements of your promoters. This can be formal or informal, but you'll boost engagement by being consistent and genuine.

When your promoters do a good job, celebrate their successes. This shows that their work is valued and that you recognize their accomplishments.

➡️ Looking for creative ways to appreciate your promoters' efforts? Check out these 42 meaningful employee recognition ideas to boost engagement.

2. Provide opportunities for growth

Provide your promoters with opportunities for professional development and career advancement, e.g., mentorship, structured training programs, and management development initiatives to prepare them for leadership roles.

Promoters often look for new challenges, so give them more responsibility and see if they can take on new projects.

➡️ Give your promoters a clear path for advancement through these 9 steps for improving career development in your organization.

3. Empower your people

Keep your promoters engaged with your organization's mission and values by involving them in the decision-making and strategic planning processes.

Make your promoters feel valued by empowering them to make decisions. Allow them to take more ownership over projects and important initiatives.

Detractors

In contrast to promoters, your detractors aren't satisfied with their work environment or have other grievances about your organization. They may discourage others from joining (or staying with) your organization.

It's crucial to try and convert them to promoters with the following strategies.

4. Address concerns

Detractors are often the most vocal about their dissatisfaction. Understand their concerns and take action to address them. Their concerns could relate, for instance, to management practices, workplace culture, or job responsibilities. 

5. Maintain open dialogue

Have open and honest conversations with your detractors. This is a way to understand their dissatisfaction sources and discover possible ways to address them.

Detractors often feel like they're not being heard, so keeping them in the loop about improving their workplace experience will help to change their perceptions.

One way to engage your detractors is through skip-level meetings, i.e., meetings with a manager or executive that's two (or more) levels more senior than them.

These one-on-one opportunities with a senior manager will make your detractors feel their perspectives are valued.

➡️ Hear your detractors' concerns through end-year meetings, skip-level meetings, and other meaningful employee conversations using these 17 templates for powerful one-on-one meetings.

6. Provide support

Give your detractors ample support to succeed in their roles. This includes training, resources, mentorship, and other forms of support.

🛠 Learn how to launch a mentorship program in 5 steps. Expert insights and actionable advice included.

7. Improve their experience

Once you understand more about your detractors' concerns, take action to improve their experience. You may need to address company culture, compensation, benefits, or other areas impacting their work experience.

➡️ Look to these 7 examples of outstanding company culture to inspire ways to make your workplace more desirable.

Passives

Passives are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with their work situation. But you shouldn't take them for granted, however, as you can convert them into promoters by enhancing their experience. 

At the very least, you should prevent them from slipping into becoming detractors. 

Here are some strategies to use.

8. Listen to feedback

Seek regular feedback from your passives. And don't just sit on the feedback—act on it!

Passives' feedback may offer valuable insights into what your organization can do better.

They're often less vocal than promoters, so you'll need to proactively solicit their input to discover ways to improve their experience.

9. Focus on engagement

Passives tend to be disengaged, which is one of the reasons why they don't feel strongly about their workplace.

Get to know your passives better to see if you can make them feel more connected with your organization. 

Possible approaches are team-building activities, projects that align with their interests, or initiatives to strengthen their relationships with colleagues and managers.

10. Offer career development

Give your passives plenty of opportunities for career growth. This will make them feel more motivated and more likely to become a promoter of your organization.

For those who demonstrate leadership potential, promote management models such as the manager-as-coach approach.

Coaching is one of the top attributes of a great manager by Google, explains Peter Tosh, founder of The Focus Group.

The manager-as-coach model advocates leadership through a guiding and collaborative mindset, resulting in stronger relationships between managers and their reports and better productivity and creativity.

The manager-as-coach approach will help your passives feel more satisfied with their jobs, as they'll be helping their direct reports grow. It also promotes loyalty.

Employees with managers who are effective coaches are 40% more engaged and 20% more likely to stay at their organizations, according to Gartner.

➡️ Upskill your managers to be effective coaches through coaching skills training to boost their leadership potential and strengthen bonds in their teams.

11. Appreciate their work

It's easy to feel that passives don't deserve attention as they appear unenthusiastic about their workplace. But they'll likely appreciate feeling valued just as much as any other employee.

Make sure to let your passives know that their work is appreciated and that they are an important part of their team.

All employees

Regardless of their eNPS category, all your people deserve attention in these key areas. 

12. Communicate in a transparent manner

Regular, transparent communication can help to build trust and engagement. Employees want to be kept in the loop—keep your people informed about organizational changes, goals, and achievements. Encourage open dialogue and feedback. 

13. Ensure consistency

Regular surveys to track changes in your people's sentiments give you better feedback on your initiatives so you can make adjustments along the way.

Make regular feedback and follow up with your people business as usual. This will inform them about the changes made based on their feedback.

14. Use formal and informal incentives

Make your people feel appreciated for their work by rewarding them for their contributions, both big and small. 

Recognize them in formal or informal ways, but be consistent and genuine to gain traction.

Also, ensure that your people's compensation is fair and competitive. Compensation impacts your people's job satisfaction, retention, and performance, so setting appropriate compensation levels as a baseline is essential.

➡️ Stay competitive and retain top talent with this comprehensive guide for turning compensation reviews into motivating conversations.

15. Build connections between your people

Help your people enjoy their experience at work and make them feel like they belong by organizing activities and events to make the workplace fun and engaging.

A supportive, inclusive, and positive work environment can significantly improve eNPS scores. Encourage teamwork, respect, and a healthy work-life balance.

Summary of strategies for improving eNPS scores:

🏢 3 Companies that have successfully used eNPS surveys to improve their employee engagement

So, what are some real-world examples of eNPS surveys being used to improve employee engagement?

Here are three companies that have significantly enhanced their employee experience using eNPS surveys.

Hubspot—Addressing diversity and inclusion

Hubspot had a poor reputation for employee experience in the 2010s. It received negative media attention in 2016 for its lack of diversity across age and ethnicity.

But Hubspot responded by using eNPS surveys to:

• Better understand and differentiate the needs of their people.
• Identify areas for improvement in employee engagement (e.g., work-life balance).
• Track initiatives to improve diversity and inclusion, such as increasing the proportion of female employees and lifting the number of employees from minority groups.

Hubspot used quarterly eNPS surveys, as annual surveys were considered too infrequent for monitoring conditions and implementing changes.

As a result of its initiatives based on eNPS feedback, Hubspot significantly improved its employee experience—from being criticized for its poor culture to being recognized as one of the best places to work for its diversity, inclusion, and work-life balance.

Adobe—Mapping the employee journey

Adobe was an early adopter of eNPS surveys and successfully used them to drive its ethos, i.e., to treat your employees like you would your customers.

"I wanted to make sure we were bringing those [product] insights and the same world-class experience to our internal customers—our employees—because happy employees naturally lead to happier customers," reflects Cynthia Stoddard, Adobe's CIO.

Adobe used eNPS surveys to help with:

• Mapping the employee journey and establishing unique employee personas, i.e., Builder, Enabler, Customer-facing, and Communicator
• Tailoring the workplace to match each persona, e.g., a Builder focuses on creating strong user experiences and needs different resources than a Communicator.
• Leveraging technology to minimize work complexity by optimizing each persona's opportunity set, tools, and digital environment.

Outback Team Building and Training—Action based on frequent feedback

Outback Team Building and Training (OTBT) is a leading training and coaching provider in North America. Having experienced low levels of employee engagement in 2017, OTBT used eNPS surveys to markedly improve its employee experience and more than double its eNPS scores in less than a year.

OTBT used eNPS surveys to:

• Regularly monitor employee engagement using quick and anonymous monthly online surveys.
• Gather valuable additional feedback using a follow-up question (to the standard eNPS question) asking employees to explain their eNPS rating if it wasn't a 10, e.g., discovering several instances where a score of 10 was held back due to insufficient leave entitlements or a lack of hybrid working opportunities.
• Motivate actions such as regular in-person feedback sessions with leaders.
• Validate initiatives such as adding a common area to OTBT's headquarters, improving work-from-home eligibility, and arranging frequent rewards and celebrations, including white-water rafting, monthly drinks, and free BBQ lunches.

For OTBT, the feedback offered by eNPS surveys plays a vital role. 

"When you give employees the platform to be heard, and then actually take action on that, it really helps to solidify the organization's commitment to the team," explains Olivia Jackson, HR Generalist at OTBT.

➡️ Drive engagement and growth with Zavvy

At Zavvy, we know how to increase eNPS scores and drive employee engagement.

With the help of our innovative software and cutting-edge training solutions, your people will feel more satisfied with their roles and more connected to your organization. 

Our world-class tools support measuring and increasing eNPS, including:

• 🔬 Employee engagement software: Monitor real-time engagement metrics and swiftly address concerns to bolster positive sentiments.
• 🌱 Employee development software: Tailor growth paths and ensure each employee feels valued and invested in.
• 🧑‍🎓 Learning platform: Empower your team with continuous learning opportunities.
• 💬 One-on-one meeting software: Facilitate constructive feedback, recognition, and clear communication.
• 🤝‍Connection programs: Employees who enjoy team synergy and camaraderie are likelier to have higher eNPS scores. Use our connection programs to facilitate these vital interactions, strengthening the organizational fabric.

📅 Book a free 30-minute demo to see how to bring out the best in your people by increasing their eNPS scores and boosting their engagement.

❓ FAQs

Why is improving eNPS score important?

Your organization's eNPS scores measure your people's engagement. Improving your eNPS scores will drive a more engaged, satisfied, and loyal workforce. More engaged employees have higher well-being (up to 66%), better retention (18–43%), lower absenteeism (up to 81%), and higher productivity (14–18%), according to Gallup.

What is a good eNPS rating?

eNPS scores above 30 are considered good, and scores above 40 are excellent.

How is employee eNPS score impacted when you add new questions to the survey?

It's best to maintain consistency in eNPS survey questions. Adding a new question could impact scores due to the nature of the question rather than due to an actual change in employee engagement. That said, it's ok to add questions to an eNPS survey, but be aware of its potential impact, clearly communicate the changes to your people, and maintain the question for some time to establish a consistent (revised) baseline.