Internal surveys: Employee-NPS can provide a corporate lifeline

It gives employee feedback on acceptability of work environment.

LAHORE: One simple question can give companies an insight into their organisational culture, employees’ perception and acceptability of the company and managers amongst the employees.

The question is very simple and direct: On a scale of zero to ten, how likely is it that you would recommend this company as a place to work?

NPS (Net Promoter System) gives the company a picture of how customers show their loyalty to the company and its products. However, employee-NPS provides feedback of the employees as to how they feel about the company and if they will recommend it to their friends or not.

Employees’ answers are parked into three categories: Promoters, Passives and Detractors. Those who give 9 or 10 scores are taken as promoters of the company.

Less than 6 means the employee is a detractor. Both the types (promoters and detractors) are vocal about the company and create good or bad word of mouth for it. Passives are not vocal but they can be easily influenced by any of the two sides.

In eNPS, the role of promoters and detractors is far more significant than the passives as eNPS is not about employee satisfaction only. It is more about recommendation.

The question wants to know if the employee is enthusiastically promoting the company or he is just okay with the days he is spending at his workplace. There is a grey area between satisfaction and recommendation. When someone talks about his satisfaction, he tends to compromise on many grounds to ensure his job security.

A satisfied employee may like the salary but dislike the environment or vice versa. However, when someone talks about recommendation, he actually keeps his company’s culture, brand name, environment, perks and benefits, and many other intangible things in mind while introducing it to others.

He would never like a potential candidate or his friend to feel disappointed about the company he specifically recommended. Above all, the subsequent question, “Why would you recommend/not recommend your company as a place of work?” can highlight the real issues that employees consider the most.

If a company’s internal stakeholder is not recommending it to the external customers as a workplace, then the management must know that the damage has already been done and they need to work on findings of the eNPS survey right away.

Products and services

Through eNPS, companies can also get their employees’ input on the products and services they offer to their customers. Customer care and sales departments have direct interaction with the customers. They usually use the product first and then recommend it to their customers, friends and colleagues. There are a lot of products which are not liked by the frontend staff as they feel that the products are not user-friendly.

Their customers will come back with complaints and these would eventually harm their own repute so they remain hesitant in recommending it to others.

Companies must get the eNPS done periodically, especially about the most critical products. To evaluate products or services, eNPS suggests one question: “How likely would you recommend this company’s products or services to a friend or colleague?”

Above all, what fears the companies most is another million-dollar question, which is, “How likely would you recommend your line manager to a friend or colleague?” This question helps the management reach a productive decision by asking another subsequent question as to why the employee would or would not recommend the line manager to their friends or colleagues.

This can actually highlight the manager’s acceptability amongst his subordinates. Moreover, it helps the managers find areas to improve. On the results of eNPS, they can revisit their policies, relationship and attitude with their peers.

To get best results of the eNPS survey, companies must ensure that most of the employees attempt the survey with the trust that their responses will be kept confidential so that they do not face any undue pressure from the line management and above all, their actual issues get addressed.

If there are more silent (not passive) employees than those who attempted the survey, then the company must revisit its policies as lack of interest in attempting the survey shows that employees are either hopeless and believe that the company does not value their input or they feel threatened and prefer to avoid it instead of attempting it.

A satisfied and happy employee is more likely willing to create promoters for the company. He influences his colleagues, friends and above all customers who will eventually generate more revenue and more promoters.

The writer is a corporate training specialist

 

Published in The Express Tribune, April 6^th,  2015.

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