Employee net promoter score (eNPS): 2025 guide

HR leaders are under pressure to prove their impact fast — and with data. eNPS offers a quick, accessible metric, which is why so many teams rely on it. 

But collecting a number isn’t enough. Nearly half of HR professionals (48%) say they struggle to translate eNPS into clear insights.* Without context, eNPS risks becoming just another data point: visible, but disconnected from any action. 

To get real value, you need to understand what’s behind the number and how it ties into the employee experience. This guide shows how to use eNPS as part of a smarter employee listening strategy — one that connects feedback to patterns, actions, and outcomes.
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💪 Turn eNPS feedback into action

‍Improve the employee experience with automated survey cycles, data segmentation, and targeted follow-up.

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*Leapsome’s Workforce Trends Report, 2024
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What is employee net promoter score (eNPS)?

Employee net promoter score (eNPS) measures employee satisfaction and engagement through one key question: How likely are you to recommend this company as a place to work?

Responses are grouped into promoters, passives, and detractors, then used to calculate a score between -100 and 100.

It’s fast, easy to benchmark, and widely used to gauge overall employee sentiment. But while it can give you an idea of how people feel, it doesn’t tell you why. That’s why eNPS works best when paired with follow-up questions and more thorough employee engagement surveys.
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💡 Want to see a more detailed breakdown of how eNPS works and how to calculate it? Check out our complementary guide on employee net promoter score.

Where eNPS does (and doesn’t) fit into your broader employee engagement strategy

eNPS is often the first metric HR teams look at when they’re trying to measure employee engagement. It’s easy to implement, benchmark,  and explain to stakeholders. Leadership doesn’t need a lot of data to understand what the number signals or how it’s trending.

‍However, used in isolation, eNPS can be misleading. A high score could reflect the strength of your brand more than employee engagement, while a dip could result from short-term changes rather than long-term issues.

This is especially true in 2025, as AI-driven change and market instability reshape the world of work. A drop in eNPS might highlight those issues, but it won’t tell you whether problems stem from internal or external pressures, nor how they affect teams.

‍That’s why you need a broader employee listening strategy. Use eNPS alongside other data points, which you can track with satisfaction survey questions, performance feedback, and employee check-ins. On its own, eNPS risks driving reactive decisions. But when paired with other tools, it helps focus on areas you can actually improve.
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🤔 Happiness and engagement in the workplace aren’t the same.

To learn about the distinction, why it matters, and what best practices to implement, explore our guide on employee satisfaction vs. engagement.

What to do if you have a bad or stagnant eNPS score

A “good” eNPS score varies by industry and company size. Generally, anything above 10 is positive, and scores over 30 are strong. That said, numbers alone don’t tell the full story, and a flat or low score doesn’t mean your team is disengaged beyond repair.

Here are five strategies to help you respond effectively to eNPS and take action in ways that actually improve the employee experience.

1. Stop focusing on the score alone

eNPS reflects how people feel about their day-to-day experience at work. Quick fixes, like reframing internal messaging or introducing a wellness stipend before the next survey cycle, might shift the score. But they won’t address the core issues that affect retention and productivity, like uneven management quality, a lack of development opportunities, or burnout.

To change that, you need to identify where the employee experience is broken, reduce repeated complaints, and build trust by showing that feedback leads to visible action.
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2. Dig into what’s missing between feedback & action

The best way to start creating confidence in the benefits of employee engagement surveys

is by reviewing your last few cycles and looking for trends. As you do this, ask:

• What feedback came up repeatedly? Look for patterns that have surfaced across multiple survey cycles, not just one-off comments.
  
  
• Was it addressed — and if so, how? Document any actions taken and assess whether they directly responded to the concerns raised.
  
  
• Did employees see or understand the actions the company took? The effort likely went unnoticed if the outcomes weren’t clearly linked to their input.
  
  
• Was the response clearly communicated to the team? Transparent follow-ups help employees connect the dots between feedback and change.

Even well-intentioned changes can fall flat if they’re never tied back to the perspectives or issues employees shared. The process loses credibility if the connection isn’t visible, and your eNPS won’t move.

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💡 Tools like Leapsome Surveys can help you close the loop with less guesswork. You can spot recurring feedback trends, document responses, and bring employees into the process with more transparency and structure.

For example, you might follow up a quarterly engagement survey with a targeted pulse survey that checks whether recent changes, like a new meeting cadence or updated development process, are having the intended impact. 

To learn more about gathering meaningful insights from your people, see our article on how to create an employee pulse survey.

3. Enable managers

Managers are often the difference between a disengaged team and a thriving team. They’re the ones shaping day-to-day experiences and responding to the issues that surface in your surveys. Yet, many managers don’t feel they receive the necessary training to be exceptional at their jobs and support their teams effectively.

‍If your eNPS is low, investigate how well-positioned your managers are to review and act upon feedback. Do they understand how to use it to improve team culture? Are they equipped to hold meaningful conversations about what’s working and what isn’t?

If they need support in those areas, be aware that generic leadership development is unlikely to change how they respond to your survey insights. Instead, managers need tactical support:

• Guidance on interpreting feedback — Help team leads identify patterns and priorities instead of treating every piece of feedback as equally urgent.

• Tools to turn insights into action — Give managers frameworks, templates, and workflows that make acting on feedback practical and outcome-focused.

• Peer support structures — Create spaces where team leads can exchange ideas, share what’s worked, and build confidence through examples from others.
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4. Look for hidden downward trends buried in the average

A flat eNPS doesn’t always mean your organization is stable. It could be masking severe drops in key teams or roles that get lost in the overall score.

That’s why it’s essential to break down your results. Look at scores and response rates by team, region, role type, and tenure. If one group’s numbers are falling while another’s are rising, the average might not budge, but you still have issues to investigate.

‍If you’re using Leapsome Surveys, this kind of segmentation is built in. You can drill down by key demographics and compare trends over time, so you’re not relying on a single headline number to tell the whole story.

As you do this, prioritize action where scores are declining fastest or response rates have nosedived, since that’s where disengagement is most likely to turn into an attrition risk.
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🔍 Want to know where an eNPS drop will likely hit hardest? 

‍Leapsome’s AI-powered turnover prediction and analysis tool helps forecast churn risk by department, team, and tenure — so you can take action before disengagement leads to attrition. Use it alongside your segmented eNPS data to spot patterns, validate concerns, and prioritize the areas where retention support matters most.

5. Don’t just throw perks at structural problems

When eNPS is low, it’s tempting to reach for quick morale boosters, like free lunch Fridays or a surprise swag box. But these kinds of perks only create goodwill when the fundamentals are already working.

‍No perk will fix a situation in which people don’t trust leadership, feel stuck in their roles, or see broken processes going unaddressed. In fact, surface-level fixes can backfire by making employees feel unheard or not taken seriously.

Focus instead on the structural issues that actually drive disengagement:

• Improve management quality — Provide practical, role-specific training that equips managers to lead with clarity and consistency.

• Address recurring blockers — Identify team or process-level issues that create bottlenecks or frustrate employees.

• Reinvest in internal mobility — Ensure employees have clearly defined pathways to grow within the organization.

• Clarify compensation — Ensure transparency and fairness in how pay is determined and communicated.
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Common eNPS missteps that can skew your results

Even well-designed eNPS surveys can produce misleading results if you don’t guard against the following common pitfalls. Below, we look at how to time your surveys, build trust with respondents, and segment your data for clearer, more actionable insights.
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Survey timing & cadence mistakes

When you send an eNPS survey matters just as much as what you ask. Timing it right can mean the difference between actionable insight and emotional noise. 

Drop a survey right after performance reviews, layoffs, or significant organizational changes, and you’ll likely capture a spike in frustration or uncertainty, not a stable reflection of sentiment. On the other hand, running an eNPS survey only once or twice a year means you may miss important shifts tied to leadership changes, team restructuring, or seasonal workload swings.

For this reason, it’s best to establish a consistent survey rhythm and communicate it clearly. That way, survey timing won’t feel random or disconnected from the reality of people’s day-to-day, and employees will be more likely to engage.

‍Using a purpose-built tool like Leapsome Surveys helps avoid these pitfalls by setting a clear cadence, keeping the experience consistent, and automating survey cycles — so you get cleaner data that reflects underlying engagement patterns.
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👀 Get deeper, more meaningful survey insights

Leapsome Surveys can automate a comprehensive employee listening strategy that makes eNPS feedback actionable.

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Employee discomfort despite anonymity

Even when surveys are technically anonymous, employees don’t always believe it. This is especially true in smaller teams, where writing style, role context, and past follow-up patterns make comments feel traceable. When people self-censor, the quality of feedback drops, and the insights you’re working with become less reliable.

To address this, clearly communicate how anonymity is protected and create enough distance between feedback and identity that employees feel safe contributing openly.

‍For example, Leapsome Surveys let you set a customizable anonymity threshold, so individual responses won’t appear until a minimum number of people have replied. You can also see how identifiable a comment might be using built-in indicators, and even start anonymous two-way conversations with respondents to clarify feedback without compromising trust.

‍This can be crucial when you’re analyzing sensitive issues — like team dynamics, leadership concerns, or equity gaps — where honest feedback is hardest to get and most important to act on.
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Response rate issues

Low or uneven response rates distort results. If mostly promoters answer, the score inflates. If primarily detractors respond, it skews negative. Either way, you risk reacting to a subset rather than the full picture.

‍Therefore, your eNPS is only meaningful if enough people participate and the mix of respondents reflects your whole workforce. This means survey engagement doesn’t just reflect sentiment — it plays a key role in how reliable your eNPS data is.

‍So, before you interpret any score, use your segmentation tools to identify gaps in participation across teams, functions, or locations. If large portions of your workforce are underrepresented, treat the result as incomplete, and focus first on reengaging those groups through targeted communication or a follow-up pulse.
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Use Leapsome Surveys to turn feedback into action

eNPS can be a powerful tool for tracking employee sentiment — but only when used in context. A single number can surface crucial signals, but understanding what’s really going on requires deeper analysis, consistent follow-up, and a commitment to acting on feedback.

‍With Leapsome Surveys, you can build eNPS into a broader listening strategy, segment results by team, tenure, or role, run targeted follow-ups, and use AI to help uncover what is and isn’t working across your organization’s employee experience. 

You can also ensure more honest, representative results with built-in anonymity safeguards. When deeper insight is needed, initiate an anonymous dialogue with respondents to clarify key points as you move from feedback to action.
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🤩 Get more from your eNPS insights

Leapsome Surveys leverages AI to analyze responses and understand the best next steps.

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