Hiring glossary
What is eNPS (employee net promoter score)?
eNPS, or employee net promoter score, is a measure of employee loyalty based on one question: how likely employees are to recommend their organisation as a place to work, scored on a 0 to 10 scale.
eNPS adapts the Net Promoter Score that Bain & Company developed for customers. Bain’s Net Promoter System site gives the central employee question as “How likely would you recommend this company as a place to work?” and notes that many organisations add a second question about whether the job inspires them. Respondents who answer 9 or 10 are promoters, 7 or 8 are passives and 0 to 6 are detractors.
The score is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors. Passives count towards the total number of responses but not towards either group. Because it is a difference between two percentages, the result can range from −100 (everyone a detractor) to +100 (everyone a promoter). For example, if 40% of respondents are promoters, 35% passives and 25% detractors, the eNPS is 40 − 25 = 15.
eNPS is popular because it is quick to run, easy to repeat and easy to compare over time. Its weakness is that a single number does not explain itself. Always add an open question (“What is the main reason for your score?”), break results down by team, tenure and location where group sizes protect anonymity, and look at the trend rather than one reading.
Treat eNPS as one input alongside attrition, internal mobility, absence and exit interview themes. A rising score with rising first-year attrition, for example, usually means the problem is in hiring or onboarding rather than in how existing staff feel.
Also called: employee net promoter score, employee NPS.
Example
A 200-person company runs a quarterly pulse survey. This quarter, 50% answer 9 or 10, 30% answer 7 or 8 and 20% answer 0 to 6, so the eNPS is 50 − 20 = 30. The open comments show detractors cluster in one team with a new manager, so HR schedules skip-level conversations there.
Related terms
Put enps into practice on your next role
Cohesyve takes a job description, finds candidates, reaches out to them and runs an AI job simulation of the real work, then returns a ranked shortlist.
1,500+
assessments completed
50%
faster time-to-hire
5 min
from JD to assessment
No credit card · 10 free candidates · Plans sized to your hiring volume