Get to a certain age and the opportunity for new experiences can start to recede. Better, then, to grab them with open arms. And, so it was, that I found myself, hand in hand with my wife and another close family member, exhibiting at the Gay Wedding Show. Exhibiting shirts, before you ask. And rather fine ones too. It was a wonderful and rather touching event, not entirely dissimilar to a straight wedding show, I’d suggest. Except with more drag queens. And, again, rather fine ones. The point of the event was less to sell vast quantities of shirts, not entirely unpleasant though that would have been, and more to begin networks, sow seeds, initiate partnerships. And, it transpired, to consume industrial quantities of exhibitor sweets. In our efforts to network, we came across the individual who co-ordinates the events. Very lovely he was too. The gentlemen in question is something of a reluctant gay rights activist. He spoke with pride at being half of one of the first civil partnerships. With substantially less pride he also touched on the significant rise in hate crime and homophobia. The timing of which he associated entirely with Brexit. There is a clear link between the fractious, polarising Brexit debate of the last 3-4 years and an ugly increase in destructive, divisive, polemical outbursts.
But not all links are as clear or as well articulated as this.
Let’s consider organisational culture and your Employee Value Proposition. Do we immediately associate them? Do we think one feeds the other and vice versa? Or do they exist in not so splendid isolation?
Workplace culture is much to the fore right now. And rightly so. However, it’s often easier to define it in terms of what it isn’t – bean bags, for example, table tennis tables, free bars, petting dogs – than what it really is: an environment where people feel both safe and inspired, trusted to be themselves and to be effective within teams, happy to express their views, thoughts and ideas and to listen with interest to those of their colleagues. Or, in the case of many employers, entirely the opposite.
There’s a fascinating piece of research recently published by Glassdoor. 77% of its research participants suggested that they would consider an organisation’s culture before they progressed to applying to that employer. (Glassdoor being the obvious place to make such a consideration). Similarly, the same study indicated that 56% of individuals viewed culture as more important to salary in terms of their engagement levels. Perhaps more pertinently, a hefty 70% of employees would seek to leave that organisation were the culture within their employer to deteriorate.
And yet how do we measure culture? We certainly recognise culture – corrosive or inspiring – as soon as we walk into a building. But measurement? What metrics should we apply to something clearly so important to engagement and retention? And, in the words of the great Mr Drucker, what gets measured, gets managed.
And who owns culture within an organisation? The easy answer, clearly, is everyone. But, more practically, who acts when culture is on the wane? Who takes such responsibility? And, in the absence of appropriate metrics, what indicators suggest that organisational culture is being challenged? Is in need of attention? It seems counter intuitive that something so influential and impactful can appear nebulous and without ownership.
And ownership is something often raised when the construct of an EVP is being discussed. In whose wheelhouse rests the EVP? The CEO? Marketing or the owners of the corporate brand? Or talent acquisition?
The latter for me. It’s vital to get senior leaders involved and endorsing the EVP, confirming it is adding to strategic direction. And marketing should be a key part of the delivery team, ensuring consumer brand synergy. But, given that no one gets judged against the performance of an EVP quite like talent acquisition, it seems to make sense that they take ownership of its construction and delivery.
There is a clear relationship between what great culture can do for an organisation and the benefits of a compelling EVP. The latter adds significantly to any organisation’s ability to hire – a recent survey from LinkedIn suggests that 83% of employers felt that their EVP was a tangible influence on their capacity to hire. And the same source suggests that having a poor EVP adds 10% onto external hiring costs.
If both a positive culture and enticing EVP can help drive engagement and recruitment, what is their link? And how much analysis do we put into such a link?
Clearly, the happier and more engaged a workforce is, as a result of a positive culture, the more likely they are to act as employer brand ambassadors and advocates, communicating the benefits of your EVP to external talent audiences.
Having such a culture plays a key role in retaining, engaging, as well as hiring. And a strong, authentic EVP facilitates the attraction of new employee pools who are attracted by such a culture and who ultimately will play a role in its evolution.
Again, neither culture nor an EVP stand still. They are plenty of moving parts which will impact them both – competitor activity and practice, the market and prevailing economy, as well as your organisation’s vision, mission and direction of travel.
The one supports the other. Your EVP makes a promise to candidate audiences that your true workplace culture has to deliver. Whilst culture has to make a key and tangible contribution to your EVP. The two have to work hand in hand. There have to be real synergies between the two. The one drives the other forward.
The value proposition you extend to both candidate and employee audiences is either delivered or destroyed by your people’s exposure to your culture. And your people are not an optional extra when it comes to your EVP. Theirs are the stories and the experience which carry your culture. Or not…
But if such a link feels clear and logical, it remains under-articulated. Assumed and presumed but rarely acted upon. Both culture and an EVP can feel nebulous, without owner or defender.
The advent of pulse surveys allows organisations to have a much closer and empathetic feel for culture – what is impacting it? Could it be improved? Will it enable organisational direction? How about we make much more use of such pulse taking? In addition to engagement, how about we ask questions relating to culture – when was the last time you felt comfortable about speaking out? How do people engage and interact with each other? How easy is it to collaborate actively with neighbouring teams? How do people acknowledge each other within the office? And so on.
By asking such questions regularly, we can build up a culture mapping picture. How is it trending? What factors are impacting such trends? More to the point of this article, what impact does the internal and external launch of a re-focused EVP have on culture?
Whichever way Brexit, finally, takes shape, I hope that might represent the start of a UK society with fewer cracks, divisions and fault lines. Where the link between Brexit and polarising views begins to erode. And at the same time, I hope that the link between EVP and culture becomes more recognised and more actionable.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 