50+ Best eNPS Survey Questions in 2026 (By Category)
Last Updated June 23, 2026
The employee Net Promoter Score question is one question: how likely are you to recommend this company as a place to work, on a zero-to-ten scale. That single question produces a number — the eNPS score — that tells you at a glance whether your workforce is more advocate than critic. What it doesn't tell you is why. A score of plus thirty is useful as a benchmark and as a trend indicator. It tells you nothing about whether the number is being driven by compensation, by manager quality, by growth opportunity, by culture, or by something specific to certain teams that isn't visible in the organization-wide average.
The questions that surround the eNPS question are where the diagnostic value lives. A well-designed eNPS survey includes the core question, a follow-up that invites explanation, and a set of driver questions that connect the score to the specific conditions most likely to be moving it in either direction. The result is not just a number — it's a number with a narrative attached, organized by the factors your managers can actually act on.
This guide gives you 50+ eNPS survey questions organized by category — the core question, follow-up questions, driver questions across the dimensions most correlated with eNPS score movement, and questions for specific use cases like team-level eNPS and post-change pulse surveys — along with guidance on how to use them together to build an eNPS program that produces genuine insight rather than just a quarterly metric to report.
What Is an eNPS Survey?
An eNPS survey is a short employee survey built around the Net Promoter Score methodology adapted for the employee experience. The core question asks employees to rate how likely they are to recommend the organization as a place to work on a zero-to-ten scale. Respondents who answer nine or ten are classified as promoters; those who answer seven or eight are passives; those who answer zero through six are detractors. The eNPS score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters, producing a score between negative one hundred and positive one hundred.
The eNPS survey typically extends beyond the single scoring question to include a follow-up asking for the reason behind the score and, in more diagnostic versions, a set of driver questions that measure the specific engagement conditions most correlated with promoter and detractor status. The full survey rarely exceeds ten to twelve questions — the brevity is intentional, and surveys that expand significantly beyond that length produce lower completion rates and less reliable data.
How to Use These Questions
Not every question in this guide belongs in every eNPS survey. A quarterly pulse eNPS survey should be short — the core question, one follow-up, and three to five driver questions — so it takes under three minutes to complete and doesn't create fatigue in a workforce that will see it four times a year. An annual deep-dive eNPS survey can include more driver questions across more categories, running to ten to twelve questions, because the longer cadence justifies slightly more depth.
The core question always comes first, before any driver questions, to avoid priming effects. Driver questions that ask about specific aspects of the employee experience should come after the score has been given — not before it — so the score reflects overall sentiment rather than the last thing the respondent was thinking about. Follow-up open-text questions work best immediately after the core question, while the respondent's reasoning is fresh.
Always run eNPS surveys anonymously. Employees who don't trust the anonymity score conservatively — toward the middle of the scale — producing a compressed score that understates both satisfaction and dissatisfaction and trends less meaningfully over time. The diagnostic value of eNPS depends entirely on honest responses, and honest responses depend on employees believing that no one can connect their specific score to their identity.
The Core eNPS Question
Every eNPS survey starts here. This question should always appear first, exactly as worded or in close paraphrase — changes to the wording affect score comparability over time and against benchmarks.
1. On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend [Company] as a place to work to a friend or colleague?
Scale: 0 (Not at all likely) to 10 (Extremely likely)
Why this question matters: The zero-to-ten scale and the specific framing around recommendation to a friend or colleague are not arbitrary. They produce a response that reflects overall advocacy — the composite of everything the employee thinks and feels about working here — rather than any single dimension. Employees who are promoters (nine or ten) actively recommend the organization in conversations you're not in. Employees who are detractors (zero through six) actively discourage others from joining, or will if asked. The passives (seven and eight) are neither actively advocating nor actively discouraging — and they're the most likely group to move in either direction based on their next significant experience at the company.
Follow-Up Questions
Ask one of these immediately after the core question. The follow-up connects the score to a reason — without it, you know where sentiment is but not why. Open-text follow-ups work better than forced-choice options here because the reasons for high and low scores are specific and varied; a predefined list of options captures the most common reasons but misses the ones that are most actionable for your organization specifically.
2. What is the main reason for the score you gave?
3. What would need to change for your score to be higher?
4. What is the one thing that most influences how you feel about working here?
5. If a friend asked you what it's really like to work here, what would you tell them?
6. Is there anything specific that happened recently that influenced your score?
Why these matter: Question 3 — what would need to change for your score to be higher — is the most directly actionable follow-up question available. It asks detractors and passives to name their price for advocacy, which gives managers and HR specific, employee-generated improvement targets rather than inferences from aggregate data. Question 5 — what would you actually tell a friend — produces the most honest and most vivid qualitative data of any eNPS follow-up, because it asks employees to simulate a real conversation rather than write a formal survey response. The answers are often more candid, more specific, and more useful than responses to direct questions about satisfaction or engagement.
Manager and Leadership Questions
Manager quality is the single factor most consistently correlated with eNPS score variation between teams. Organizations where manager behavior is strong tend to have high and stable eNPS scores; those where manager quality varies significantly between teams show high eNPS variance between teams even when the organization-wide score looks healthy. These questions identify the manager-level drivers most likely to be moving the score.
7. My manager supports my growth and development at this company.
8. My manager gives me the feedback I need to do my best work.
9. My manager treats me with respect and recognizes my contributions.
10. I trust my manager to make good decisions for the team.
11. Senior leadership communicates honestly about the direction of the company.
12. I trust senior leadership to make decisions that are good for employees, not just for the business.
13. Leadership at this company follows through on its commitments.
Scale: Strongly Disagree / Disagree / Neutral / Agree / Strongly Agree
Why these matter: Questions 11 through 13 — on senior leadership honesty, trust, and follow-through — are among the strongest predictors of detractor status in eNPS data. Employees can have a strong relationship with their direct manager and still be detractors if they believe senior leadership is dishonest, inconsistent, or indifferent to employee wellbeing. The driver analysis that separates direct manager quality from senior leadership trust often reveals that an organization-wide eNPS problem is concentrated in one of those two places — which has very different implications for what needs to change.
Growth and Development Questions
Growth opportunity — the sense that skills are building, that capability is expanding, and that a credible path forward exists — is one of the most consistent promoter drivers in eNPS research. Employees who see growth tend toward promotion or passive status; those who feel stagnant tend toward detractor status regardless of how positively they rate other aspects of their experience.
14. I have real opportunities to grow and develop my skills at this company.
15. I can see a clear path for career advancement here if I perform well.
16. This company invests in my professional development.
17. The work I do here is helping me build skills I value.
18. I feel challenged by my work in a way that helps me grow.
19. My manager actively supports my career goals, not just my current role performance.
Scale: Strongly Disagree / Disagree / Neutral / Agree / Strongly Agree
Why these matter: Question 15 — whether a clear path for advancement exists — is the growth question most predictive of near-term voluntary departure. Employees who answer Disagree or Strongly Disagree are not necessarily unhappy in their current role; they're telling you they don't see a reason to stay long-term. Identifying this at the eNPS survey level, segmented by team, shows you where the growth ceiling perception is most acute and where manager conversations about career trajectory are most urgently needed.
Meaningful Work and Purpose Questions
Meaningful work — the sense that the work matters, that it connects to something larger, and that the employee's specific contribution is visible — is the most consistently identified intrinsic motivation driver in employee research and a strong predictor of promoter status. Employees who find their work meaningful are more resilient through organizational difficulty and more likely to speak positively about the company even when other conditions are imperfect.
20. My work feels meaningful and worthwhile.
21. I understand how my work contributes to the company's goals.
22. The work I do here has a positive impact beyond just my team.
23. I feel a sense of purpose in what I do at this company.
24. The company's mission is something I believe in and care about.
Scale: Strongly Disagree / Disagree / Neutral / Agree / Strongly Agree
Why these matter: Question 24 — belief in the company's mission — is the most powerful single predictor of promoter status across industries. Employees who genuinely believe in what the organization is doing and why are natural advocates regardless of whether they would be otherwise. Organizations whose eNPS score is strong on mission belief but weak on growth or manager quality are in a different position from those whose score is weak on both — the mission believers are more likely to be retained even as other conditions are improved, because their advocacy is rooted in something that doesn't depend on management behavior to sustain.
Autonomy and Work Environment Questions
Autonomy — the sense that employees control how they approach their work rather than being micromanaged toward specific methods — is a primary intrinsic motivation driver and a significant contributor to eNPS score variation between teams. Work environment questions capture both the autonomy dimension and the physical or remote conditions that affect day-to-day experience.
25. I have the autonomy to decide how to approach my work.
26. I am trusted to do my job without unnecessary oversight or approval steps.
27. My work environment — whether in-office or remote — allows me to do my best work.
28. I have the tools and resources I need to do my job effectively.
29. My workload is manageable and sustainable.
30. I have flexibility in how and where I work that fits my life.
Scale: Strongly Disagree / Disagree / Neutral / Agree / Strongly Agree
Why these matter: Question 29 — workload manageability — is one of the most reliable leading indicators of burnout and departure in eNPS driver data. Employees who consistently rate their workload as unsustainable move from passive to detractor status over successive survey cycles even when other conditions remain stable. Tracking workload scores quarter over quarter, segmented by team, identifies burnout risk before it reaches the point of resignation — which is typically six to twelve months after the workload perception first appears in survey data.
Compensation and Recognition Questions
Compensation is not the primary eNPS driver in most organizations — employees who are paid at the threshold of adequacy and perceived fairness are not reliably moved toward promoter status by additional pay. But compensation below that threshold is a strong detractor driver, and perceived unfairness in pay is one of the most corrosive factors in eNPS data because it signals organizational values misalignment, not just a financial gap.
31. My compensation is fair for the work I do and the value I contribute.
32. My total compensation — salary, benefits, and other compensation — is competitive with the market.
33. I feel recognized for the contributions I make to this team.
34. When I do good work, someone notices and acknowledges it.
35. Recognition at this company feels genuine, not performative.
36. Pay decisions at this company are made fairly and transparently.
Scale: Strongly Disagree / Disagree / Neutral / Agree / Strongly Agree
Why these matter: Question 36 — pay decision fairness and transparency — is consistently more predictive of detractor status than the absolute level of compensation. Employees who believe pay decisions are made opaquely or through favoritism experience a specific form of demotivation that erodes discretionary effort and advocacy regardless of how their own pay compares to the market. Organizations that invest in pay equity and communicate compensation philosophy clearly to employees tend to see fewer detractors on compensation grounds than those that pay well but explain nothing.
Team and Belonging Questions
Relatedness — genuine connection to colleagues and the sense of mattering to them — is the third pillar of intrinsic motivation and a consistent contributor to promoter status. Employees who feel genuinely connected to their team are more resilient through organizational difficulty and more likely to stay and recommend the organization even when other conditions are imperfect.
37. I feel like I genuinely belong at this company.
38. My team is collaborative and supportive rather than competitive or siloed.
39. I have at least one close working relationship at this company that I value.
40. I feel included in my team's conversations, decisions, and social culture.
41. This company is a place where people from different backgrounds are genuinely welcomed.
42. I would describe the culture on my immediate team as positive and healthy.
Scale: Strongly Disagree / Disagree / Neutral / Agree / Strongly Agree
Why these matter: Question 39 — having at least one close working relationship — is one of the most specific and most predictive belonging questions available. Research on workplace connection consistently shows that employees who have even one genuine relationship at work are significantly more likely to be engaged, to stay, and to recommend the organization than those who have none. It's a low bar — one relationship, not a social network — and organizations where a significant share of employees can't clear it have a culture problem that no engagement program substitutes for.
Psychological Safety Questions
Psychological safety — the team-level belief that it is safe to speak up, admit mistakes, challenge decisions, and propose ideas without fear of retaliation or humiliation — is not typically included in eNPS driver frameworks, but it is one of the strongest predictors of the conditions that produce promoter status. Employees in psychologically safe environments can engage fully with their work; those who spend energy managing the risk of speaking up are employees whose motivation is being consumed by threat management rather than channeled into performance.
43. I feel safe speaking up with concerns or ideas without fear of negative consequences.
44. Mistakes at this company are treated as opportunities to learn, not occasions for blame.
45. I can challenge decisions I disagree with without it being held against me.
46. My manager and team take my input seriously when I offer it.
47. I feel comfortable being honest in this survey, including about sensitive topics.
Scale: Strongly Disagree / Disagree / Neutral / Agree / Strongly Agree
Why these matter: Question 47 — whether employees feel comfortable being honest in the survey — is a meta-question about survey data quality and should be included in any eNPS program that takes anonymity seriously. A meaningful share of employees answering Disagree or Neutral on this question tells you that your score data is compressed by distrust regardless of what your anonymity policy says. It's the most direct diagnostic available for whether your eNPS program is producing honest data or managed responses.
Retention Intent Questions
eNPS measures advocacy — the likelihood of recommending the company to others. Retention intent — the likelihood of staying — is a related but distinct measure that is worth including in quarterly eNPS surveys because it converts the sentiment signal into the staffing outcome most directly relevant to business continuity. Employees who are promoters but quietly planning to leave are a segment that eNPS alone doesn't identify.
48. I plan to still be working at this company in 12 months.
49. I am currently looking for a job at another company.
50. If I were offered a comparable role at another company, I would seriously consider leaving.
51. I feel loyal to this company and want to see it succeed long-term.
Scale for Q48 and Q51: Strongly Disagree / Disagree / Neutral / Agree / Strongly Agree
Scale for Q49 and Q50: Yes / No / Unsure
Why these matter: Question 49 — whether the employee is actively looking — is the most direct departure risk signal available in survey form and is more predictive of near-term attrition than any indirect measure. Many organizations avoid asking it directly because the answer is uncomfortable. That discomfort is exactly why it's worth asking: organizations that know which employees are actively looking have the opportunity to intervene before the resignation. Those that don't find out at the exit interview, when the decision is already made.
Open-Ended Closing Questions
Include one or two of these at the end of every eNPS survey. Open-ended responses are where the most specific, most surprising, and most actionable data lives — the things employees want to tell you that don't fit neatly into a rating scale. They are also the questions that require the most trust in anonymity to answer honestly, which is why they belong at the end of the survey rather than the beginning.
52. What is the one thing this company could do that would most improve your experience of working here?
53. What do you value most about working here that you wouldn't want to see change?
54. Is there anything you've been wanting to share that this survey hasn't asked about?
55. What would make you more likely to recommend this company to someone you respect?
Why these matter: Question 53 — what employees value most and wouldn't want to see change — is the most underused question in eNPS surveys. Most organizations focus their survey analysis entirely on what's wrong and what's driving low scores. What's right and what's driving high scores matters equally: the conditions that are producing your promoters are worth identifying explicitly so they can be protected through growth, leadership changes, and strategy shifts that might otherwise erode them inadvertently. Knowing what your promoters are actually promoting is as important as knowing what your detractors are complaining about.
Questions for Specific eNPS Use Cases
Post-change eNPS (after a major organizational change — restructuring, leadership transition, policy shift):
56. I feel well-informed about the recent changes at this company and the reasons behind them.
57. I feel confident that the recent changes were handled fairly for employees.
58. The recent changes have made me feel more or less positive about working here.
Options for Q58: Much more positive / Somewhat more positive / No change / Somewhat less positive / Much less positive
Team-level eNPS (for manager-specific reporting alongside the organization-wide score):
59. I would recommend my immediate team as a great group to work with.
60. I would recommend my manager specifically as someone worth working for.
Scale: 0 (Not at all likely) to 10 (Extremely likely)
Why these matter: Questions 59 and 60 — team and manager NPS scores alongside the organization-wide score — are among the most powerful additions to a standard eNPS program for organizations where manager quality varies significantly between teams. An organization where the company eNPS is plus twenty but team eNPS ranges from plus sixty to minus fifteen is a very different management situation from one where scores are consistent across teams. The manager NPS question specifically gives HR a direct measure of which managers are building advocacy among their direct reports and which are eroding it — and it does so in a format that is immediately comparable to the organizational score.
Building Your eNPS Survey
Quarterly pulse eNPS (3–5 minutes, highest completion rate): The core question (Q1), one follow-up (Q2 or Q3), and three to five driver questions from the categories most relevant to your current organizational context. Rotate driver categories across quarters so the survey doesn't feel repetitive — focus on manager and leadership questions in Q1, growth and development in Q2, compensation and recognition in Q3, belonging and psychological safety in Q4. Total: six to eight questions.
Annual deep-dive eNPS (7–10 minutes, comprehensive driver picture): The core question (Q1), two follow-ups (Q2 and Q5), one question from each driver category, the retention intent question (Q48 or Q49), and one open-ended closing question (Q52 or Q53). Total: twelve to fifteen questions. Run this once a year to establish a full driver picture, and use the quarterly pulse to track movement on the most critical dimensions between annual surveys.
What to always include regardless of format: The core question (Q1) first, one open-text follow-up immediately after, at least one retention intent question, and one open-ended closing question. Everything else is configurable by cadence and organizational context.
How to Act on eNPS Survey Data
The most common mistake in eNPS programs is reporting the score without acting on the drivers. A score of plus thirty that has been plus thirty for three consecutive quarters tells you that nothing is getting meaningfully better or worse — but without driver data, it tells you nothing about what to do to move it. The driver questions in this guide are designed to connect the score to specific, manageable conditions: if growth scores are low, career development conversations need to happen. If manager trust scores are low, specific managers need coaching or accountability. If workload scores are declining, resourcing decisions need revisiting. The eNPS score is the headline. The driver data is the story behind it.
Share team-level driver data with managers monthly, not just at the end of the quarter. Managers who see their team's scores while there is still time to change the conditions that are driving them have the opportunity to act. Managers who see their scores in a quarterly report after three months of unchanged conditions are receiving a performance evaluation, not actionable intelligence. The difference in how the data lands — as an opportunity to improve versus a judgment of past performance — produces very different managerial responses.
Close the loop with employees. Every eNPS survey should be followed by a communication that summarizes what you heard, what you're going to do about it, and what you're not going to do and why. Employees who complete surveys and hear nothing are significantly less likely to complete the next one — and the ones who disengage from the survey program are disproportionately the detractors whose data you most need.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the eNPS question?
The eNPS question is: "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend [Company] as a place to work to a friend or colleague?" Respondents who answer nine or ten are promoters; those who answer seven or eight are passives; those who answer zero through six are detractors. The eNPS score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. The question should always appear first in the survey, before any driver questions, to avoid priming effects on the score.
How many questions should an eNPS survey have?
A quarterly pulse eNPS survey should have six to eight questions — the core question, one follow-up, and three to five driver questions. An annual comprehensive eNPS survey can run to twelve to fifteen questions. Beyond fifteen questions, completion rates decline and response quality degrades as respondents begin rushing through the survey to finish it. The brevity of eNPS is a feature rather than a limitation: a short survey run consistently four times a year produces better trend data than a long survey run once, and better honest responses because the time commitment is low enough that employees complete it thoughtfully rather than skipping it.
Should eNPS surveys be anonymous?
Yes, always. Employees who don't trust the anonymity of an eNPS survey score conservatively — toward the middle of the scale — producing a compressed score that understates both satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The diagnostic value of eNPS depends on honest responses from detractors, who are the least likely employees to respond honestly if they believe their score can be traced to them. Technical anonymity — enforced by the survey tool's architecture rather than just promised in a policy statement — is more credible to employees than promised anonymity, and produces more honest, more useful data as a result.
How often should you run eNPS surveys?
Quarterly is the most common and most appropriate cadence for most organizations. Quarterly surveys are frequent enough to catch meaningful sentiment shifts before they become attrition, and infrequent enough that the question doesn't become routine enough to answer on autopilot. Monthly eNPS is too frequent for a summary measure — the conditions driving employee sentiment don't change meaningfully month to month in most organizations, and monthly surveys train employees to complete the question quickly rather than thoughtfully. Annual eNPS is too infrequent — it catches deterioration only after a year of unchanged conditions, by which point many of the detractors may have already left.
What is a good eNPS score?
Scores above zero indicate that promoters outnumber detractors. Scores above plus twenty are generally considered good; scores above plus forty are considered excellent; scores below zero indicate that detractors outnumber promoters and represent a meaningful retention and culture risk. The more useful benchmark for most organizations is not the industry average but the organization's own trend over time. A score of plus fifteen that has risen from plus five over four quarters indicates improving conditions. A score of plus thirty that has fallen from plus forty-five over the same period indicates deteriorating conditions that a favorable absolute score obscures. The direction and rate of change matter more than the absolute number.
What follow-up question should you ask after the eNPS question?
The most useful follow-up is an open-text question asking for the main reason behind the score. This connects the number to a specific, employee-generated narrative rather than forcing the reason into predefined categories that may not capture what's actually driving the score. The second most useful follow-up is "what would need to change for your score to be higher?" — which asks detractors and passives to name their specific improvement priorities. Choose one follow-up for a pulse survey; both can be included in an annual deep-dive if the survey length allows.