A consulting firm fixes the “squeezed middle” — manager eNPS jumps from +9 to +24.
Sector benchmarks looked great at +33, but project leads sat at only +9 — caught between client demand, partner pressure and time-zone chaos. Role redesign and a staffing voice closed the gap.
The challenge
A European professional-services partnership with more than 800 FTE booked on sector benchmarks that showed professional services among the top eNPS performers, reporting +33 in Q1 2025. Their own baseline pulse ranked +29 overall — but the split by seniority told a different story.
Baseline diagnostics
Managers were notably less positive — consistent with external data showing manager engagement has dropped globally. Autonomy scores were significantly lower at manager level than in other cohorts.
Voice of employees
Text comments from managers consistently surfaced three themes:
“Stuck between client, partner and team.”
“No say in staffing.”
“Hybrid chaos — meetings at all hours across time zones.”
Interventions
- 01
Role redesign at manager level
Managers were invited to co-create their role, leading to clearer expectations (including what is not their job) and renewed commitment. For high-stretch roles, managers received a virtual assistant for admin.
- 02
Project staffing board
Managers were invited to staffing meetings and gained more voice over which projects they accepted. By listening to managers' experience with consultants, projects also improved staffing through better skill-to-requirement matching.
- 03
Hybrid meeting norms
Professionals could opt for three no-meeting blocks per week, and core collaboration hours per region were established to align regional presence across time zones.
Outcomes
After 12 months, the overall NPS slightly improved with manager eNPS jumping sharply — and hiring metrics improved alongside.
Dr. Norbert Hölzl, “Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS): Logic and Evolution of this Ratio, current Benchmarks compared to iBDP, and selected Industry Case Studies”, Leadbacker, 2025. Pages 11–12. Composite, anonymized case based on patterns observed across Leadbacker client deployments.
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