Humour me for a moment, would you?
The London Underground’s Baker Street station provides access to no fewer than five different tube lines. From its hallowed platforms, a passenger has all manner of options and directions from which to choose. The world’s your Oyster Card.
Contrast that, then, with the Waterloo and City Line. Travellers can make their way between Waterloo and Bank. And between Bank and Waterloo. And that’s it. All very logical and generally efficient, but there are no other choices or diversions.
It’s my view, then, that the Employee Value Proposition is in the process (or has the potential) of transforming itself from the latter to the former.
Let me have a stab at explaining.
The construct of the EVP has been with us for some three decades now. It has many definitions. It is an organisation’s commitment to the employee experience it will deliver. It is the narrative thread creating consistency across all people communications. It is the articulation of what makes you the right choice for some, and anything but the right choice for others.
But, as its name suggests, the EVP is a proposition. A two-way transactional offer and promise between employer and employee. The give and the get. So, in return for my hard work and commitment, this is what I will receive from this organisation. And, by implication, it is not what I am currently receiving from my current employer.
Its two-way nature, however, renders it two-dimensional.
The proposition largely rests with talent acquisition, human resources or recruitment. Rarely, then, does this promise extend laterally as far as hiring managers or senior leadership. Such two-dimensionality limits its wider acceptance and take-up. It often has little relationship with either candidate or employee experience.
It exists in the moment. It can be fleeting, with little sense of employee experience longevity. It is a bursting bubble as the candidate experience makes way to employment reality. How many organisations take the time to engage with newish hires to understand how and how successfully the EVP is being delivered to them three months after their arrival? Is time being taken to engage with premature leavers to gauge whether the absence of the reason they joined, is contributing to their departure?
“If employers are to deliver on their EVP promise, new hires require high-touch, structured, and sustained engagement. Too often, however, new starter engagement extends little beyond a few days of onboarding razzle-dazzle and a company hoodie. Unsurprisingly, Gallup found recently that only 12% of employees agree their organisation does a great job onboarding. Companies, then, straight out of the gate are failing to meet the expectations of their employees. And yet will expect their new employees to meet unquestioningly their commitments to the company? This inequity is problematic. But a strong new starter experience built around a commitment to EVP benefits everyone. Employee engagement, motivation and loyalty improve, which boosts employee productivity – up to 82% according to Glassdoor – decreases employee turnover and, ultimately, increases business growth and profitability. When getting it right is such a no-brainer, there should be no excuses for getting it wrong”. Daley Pritchard, Director and Talent Strategy Consultant @PowwowPeople
There will clearly be exceptions to several of the scenarios outlined above. But they are exceptions to a general rule.
Let’s test the apparently narrow reach of the EVP further.
I touched on this in another recent blog, but it bears repeat. When constructing an EVP, how often is the Diversity and Inclusion team, their thoughts, perspective, experience and initiatives factored in and reflected? Rarely? Seldom? Never?
Similarly, how often is the CEO, or similar, interviewed as part of the discovery process? Do they feature on the careers pages echoing, emphasising and providing additional heft to the impact and message of the EVP?
What relationship does the EVP have with organisational strategy and objectives? Its aim clearly is to facilitate the entry of new talent into the organisation. But to what end? Does it make it clear that the employer is recruiting in order for such hires to help drive corporate direction? Or does its remit exist purely in terms of the employer offer and its take-up by candidate audiences?
“For any overarching company strategy to be successful, it has to be underpinned by strong people objectives. A well aligned EVP will help you not only spread the gospel externally to attract like-minded disciples, but also provide the impetus in socialising internally to colleagues around the journey you’re on”. Tom Portingale, Senior Employer Brand Manager, Nationwide Building Society.
I’d suggest that the role, potential and contribution of the EVP is changing.
Such change has certainly been driven over the last three to five years by factors such as the greater harnessing of digitalisation. The ability to apply metrics to audience sentiment and the results of employer branding initiatives are much more readily available. The EVP is, too, being landed more effectively through the use of stories – its narrative possesses so much more empathy and association through the experiences of an employer’s people.
However, if the scope, reach and perspective has perhaps been developing of late, such evolution has been accelerated significantly by the impact of Covid-19.
The promise or proposition that organisations make to their workforce has never been under the forensic gaze of the microscope to the extent of the last four or five months.
It’s hard to look much further than thinking that your EVP is effectively how your organisation treated and supported its people during lockdown. Did you keep your promise to them during this unique time? Or was such a promise pushed aside when the need to survive took over?
“Companies whose values and pre-crisis culture didn’t deviate, but have been accentuated during this period, will be the brands consumers and candidates will gravitate towards. Your EVP needs to stand strong and stay true to its company roots.
When we come out the other side, companies will be judged on ‘What was your response? And what did you do?’. Never before has your EVP been so important in helping to protect your organisation’s reputation. Getting it right is likely to be the difference in attracting top talent and retaining the brilliant people you have”. Tom Portingale.
Let’s examine further the extent to which your EVP is multi-dimensional.
Does it relate to the employee experience of the whole organisation? How were your diversity professionals involved? Was its essence and message tested amongst both internal and external audiences from all communities? Is it genuinely of your people, for your people, through your people? All your people?
To what extent does it have existence, traction and support throughout the organisation? Could your CEO talk an audience through your EVP? Are they a supporter, an advocate, an ambassador?
“At one of my previous employers, the CEO put himself at the heart of the EVP. He held listening breakfasts, fronted twice-yearly face-to-face events for all staff. He absolutely lived the values. At another, the CEO put herself firmly at the heart of our new values and role-modelled them. So yes, EVP needs to be led – but not in a process way, but from the leader’s heart”. Sandy Wilkie, DWS Associates.
In terms of the dimensions in which your EVP operates, does it look both backwards and forwards? Particularly through the lens of Covid-19, does your people narrative include topical stories of what your people have been through, how they have worked together, grown together and been helped through the support and backing of their employer?
“I have recently shifted from using a term such as Employee Experience to thinking more of the People Experience – employees, customers, suppliers, etc in a holistic way. Should we start thinking of EVP more in terms of a multi-dimensional People Value Proposition? Sandy Wilkie.
At the same time as looking back, do your internal communications provide a route map for your people for the next six months? Do they outline what you are trying to achieve and how your people can contribute to this?
Like so many other impacts of the virus, lockdown has been utterly unique. In terms of our working experience, clearly, we encounter breaks – holidays, sickness, maternity, paternity, sabbaticals. However, lockdown has been different. It feels like a once-in-a-lifetime line in the sand. Rather than the day-in, day-out continuum of working life, there has been a hard stop. People have had the chance to reflect and re-evaluate. To re-boot and re-start. They want to return to better rather than a return to normal.
How does your EVP contribute to this?
Perhaps the final way in which an evolving EVP can demonstrate its multi-dimensional nature is through its agility. Once again, this has been influenced in part by the virus. An EVP should never be something that stands still, indifferent to change. Your organisation, your markets, your competitors, the economy, the labour market – none of these remain static, they are dynamic constructs.
However, the virus appears to have accelerated so much. The possibility of working from home for millions became an effective reality in weeks, having been something people have talked about for years. The Nightingale Hospitals took shape in days, rather than decades. And progress on the vaccines has been startling. (Perhaps too startling in at least one example).
The new post-pandemic landscape is being constructed at bewildering speeds. Applying the same thinking as to how long an EVP should last, as we did prior to Covid, does not take into account just how much has changed socially, professionally, psychologically and environmentally.
“The post-Covid world offers an opportunity for organisations to really evaluate how they do what they do and what matters to them. This, of course, is central and integral to building a valid EVP. Given the chance of reflection and the continual backdrop of change, it no longer makes sense to confine our thinking around EVP to an activity merely to use as a platform to give us employer branding edge in the TA space.
EVP is often confused with employer brand as they often has that very linear relationship, what we now have is the opportunity to create real understanding of the value that EVP can weave through the entire employee lifecycle. I think we need more emphasis now on taking our EVP and using it to inform all the moments and touchpoints of the employee journey”. Julie Griggs, Consultant, Greenhill HR and Talent.
Think about your people messaging and the EVP that influences and guides it.
Does it feel pre or post Covid? Does it give the impression of being two dimensional or something much more adaptive, nuanced, relevant, engaging and topical?
Is your EVP both top down and bottom up? Does it exist beyond talent acquisition and recruitment? Is it inclusive, for everyone and through everyone? Does it point the way forward as well as acknowledging past events? Does it bring your people together and outline a way forward? A way forward to which they can both relate and contribute? How sustainable is it?
“The EVP or People Value Proposition must be dynamic, but it’s important it is shaped and re-vitalised with input from people at all levels. Having implemented a new set of values, I engaged with over 220 of our people. They helped choose the values. They fronted the launch. They appeared in posters with their own words. It got traction because the values fitted and were authentic”. Sandy Wilkie,
“We’re currently in the process of building a business-wide picture of the thoughts of our people. We’ll then take these reflections and themes, and start to boil them down into a clearly defined employer value proposition that can be used to influence our employer brand and marketing approaches moving forward. The base of this will be on the ‘here and now’, but with a forward-looking focus to ensure longevity. In order to support this, additional insight is being sought from recent new starters – both now and built into our processes longer term.
Our end goal is to capture the unique DNA at IWG. Both top down and bottom up, across multiple countries and job families. An EVP which exists for our people, beyond just an employer brand strapline / message which is then sustainable and brings to life the direction of travel for our employees. It’s then down to all of us to then communicate / share in the most authentic way possible to those people exploring us as a potential employer who don’t have insider knowledge”. Craig Morgans, Global Head of Talent Acquisition, IWG plc.
Finally, returning to the original metaphor, does your organisation’s EVP feel useful but essentially limited, shunting backwards and forwards between two communities. Or does it provide access to and shared purpose among the whole organisation, creating a much wider, more inclusive, more sustainable influence, impact and potential?
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 