Organisational behaviourKPI / metricModelAccessible

Staff advocacy score

How should staff advocacy score be measured and interpreted?

AccessibleStrategicTeam2 min read

Contents

A concise employee-survey measure of willingness to recommend the organisation as an employer.

Employees who believe in an organisation often express that confidence in customer interactions, operational care and what they tell friends or relatives. Their recommendations can affect both demand and the organisation’s ability to attract talent.

When to use it

Answer the performance question: “To what extent are our employees advocates of our business?”
Assess advocacy within the employee perspective.
Specify the collection method, formula, reporting frequency and data ownership required for the KPI.
Compare results with an internal trend, relevant target or cautiously selected benchmark.

Origins

Staff advocacy adapts customer-loyalty measurement to the employment relationship. After Fred Reichheld introduced Net Promoter Score in the early 2000s, organisations applied a similar recommendation question to employees, often calling the result employee NPS or eNPS. The adaptation is simple to administer but does not replace a validated engagement survey. Anonymity, cultural context and the reasons behind a rating are essential to interpretation.

What it is

Perspective: Employee perspective.

Key performance question: To what extent are our employees advocates of our business?

Employee views can travel widely through professional and social networks. In a competitive talent market, public accounts of working life influence whether candidates see an organisation as a credible employer.

Treating employees as internal customers draws attention to their own expectations and experience. The core survey asks: “How likely is it that you would recommend this company as an employer to a friend?” The answer provides a compact signal of satisfaction, loyalty and potential word of mouth, but it does not explain the cause.

Responses are grouped into:

Advocates
Passives
Detractors

The resulting index gives management a visible measure of employee advocacy and creates accountability for how the organisation treats its people.

How to use it

Measurement

Protect confidentiality, define the eligible population and establish how results will be reported when teams are small.

Data collection method

Collect the rating through a survey delivered by mail, online or telephone. Use a neutral process and communicate how the organisation will act on the result.

Formula

On a 0 to 10 scale, subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of advocates.

Advocates (score 9–10) are enthusiastic and loyal employees likely to recommend the organisation as an employer.

Passives (score 7–8) are broadly satisfied but unenthusiastic and may be open to another employer.

Detractors (score 0–6) are dissatisfied and may discourage others through negative word of mouth.

Staff advocacy score = (% of employees that are advocates) − (% of employees that are detractors)

Frequency

Many companies run the survey annually. A rolling design can provide more timely trend information: survey a representative sample, such as 10%, each month so that the whole workforce is covered across the year. Ensure the sampling method does not repeatedly exclude small or hard-to-reach groups.

Source of the data

Use confidential responses from employees, together with optional qualitative comments.

Cost/effort in collecting the data

An external research provider can make design, collection, analysis and reporting relatively expensive, although the single rating is cheaper than a comprehensive engagement study. Paper surveys add printing, distribution and manual data-entry cost. Secure automation generally lowers routine effort.

Target setting/benchmarks

Few directly comparable staff-advocacy benchmarks exist. Customer NPS examples sometimes place strong organisations between 30% and 90%, but employee populations and survey cultures differ. Internal trend and response quality are usually more informative than an unadjusted external league table.

Example

Consider an organisation with 1,000 employees. It receives 976 responses distributed as follows:

Apply the formula:

Staff advocacy score = (% of employees that are advocates) − (% of employees that are detractors)

Staff advocacy score = 36.8% − 34.4% = 2.4

Top practical tip

Pair the rating with two open questions: “What do you particularly value about working here?” and “What should be improved?” Then publish the actions management will take.

Top pitfall

Do not treat one score as a diagnosis. Response bias, fear of identification and local culture can move the result, while the number alone cannot explain why employees are satisfied or dissatisfied.