Even the briefest of glances across LinkedIn reveals myriad tales of unemployment, redundancies and green ‘#Opentowork’ profiles. As Rishi Sunak’s furloughing support scheme begins to unwind, it’s hard not to conclude (and worry about) the trajectory unemployment will subsequently take. The EY Item Club is of the opinion that our domestic economy will not return to its pre-lockdown size until 2024 and that this year will witness a GDP decline of 11.5%, with unemployment touching 9%.
It’s an economic and labour market scenario simultaneously sobering and driving many of us to drink.
And yet, in many ways, it is a misleading representation of today’s jobs market.
The Institute for Employment Studies reports there were 169,000 new vacancies across the UK economy in the first week of August. And that new vacancies increased – albeit from a low base – by more than 50% in July. New vacancies are now running a third below the figure for the same time last year. A month ago, that figure was two thirds below the respective 2019 number. Just today, Tech Nation reported that the number of advertised vacancies in the digital sector had climbed 36% since early June.
Instinctively, it might not feel this way and worse may be around the corner, however, the employment market is anything but closed.
(For more insight around what candidates are looking for, here’s some recent research https://employerbrandingadvantage.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/zoek-nh237-white-paper-final-version-august-2020.pdf).
But how employers go about accessing the jobs market is not without its own specific Covid-19 challenges.
It’s definitely under the category of first world problems, but I can’t be the only one regularly bemoaning my phone’s face recognition challenges when confronted with a mask.
And in many ways, Covid-19 has had the effect of putting a mask over an organisation’s Employee Value Proposition.
A great EVP is individual, recognisable, bespoke and authentic. But today? How recognisable and valid is your organisation’s EVP, compared to pre-Covid? Does the reason great talent joins your organisation and chooses to stay with you still exist? Is Covid obscuring your EVP, your employment ‘why’?
“It’s a given that, post-Covid, employers will need to get a lot more creative when it comes to landing their EVP. Strategies relying on EVP osmosis to occur in high concentration work environments are rendered defunct by the normalisation of remote working. Employee expectations have also changed, so employers’ understanding of what their workers want and need have to be redrawn. The challenge is that none of us have the answers yet. “Unprecedented” is certainly in the running for most overused word of the year but for EVP, as in many contexts, it’s kind of true”. Daley Pritchard, Director and Talent Strategy Consultant @PowwowPeople
KFC is in the news right now as a result of dropping its longstanding tagline ‘Finger lickin’ good’. Clearly today, it’s a line and a promise that’s impossible, or certainly ill-advised, to keep given the presence of Covid-19. And what sort of discomfort and awkwardness does an EVP share with KFC’s customer proposition right now?
Let’s examine some of the key employment attributes around which organisations will typically frame their Employee Value Propositions and, at the same time, probe the extent to which such attributes have been impacted by the virus and the subsequent lockdown.
Collaboration – I worked with a tech firm last year to frame their EVP and much of it centred around the amount of collaboration that was possible within the organisation. Talented people with different technical backgrounds had so many opportunities to share thoughts and ideas. How much has this been impacted now that people are sitting at home, staring at screens and Zooms?
Collegiality – having the support, confidence and backing of co-workers is massively important with everyone working to the same or synergetic ends. Again, how collegial and unified do employees really feel without regular in-person contact with team members right across their organisation?
Role modelling/mentoring – the ability to grow and develop through working alongside and observing how others go about tasks, go about their work, go about their careers, is critical. We all approach our work in an individual way but much of this has been picked up through watching what works (and what doesn’t) in those around us. This ceases to be possible when our role models are largely invisible to us.
Socialising – it might not always feel that way, but through our daily interactions, sharing a coffee, a sandwich, even an after-work beer, we celebrate the good times and get through the not-so-good by spending such times with our colleagues. Lockdown does the opposite, enforcing isolation and social distance upon us.
Culture – every workplace has its own unique, evolving culture. It might be a culture we relish walking into every morning or it might be a culture that an employer has worked hard to influence. But it’s a culture that’s much easier to recognise as we wander through a building than when we’re peering at colleagues through flickering wifi via Google Meet.
Psychological safety – this is a theme I’ve touched on recently. Working in an environment in which people feel confident enough to speak their mind and to be honest with colleagues tends to inspire openness, innovation and risk taking. Covid-19 has clearly impacted our personal safety in terms of both physical and mental health. It is also a major root cause of professional fears and apprehensions around redundancies and the very survival of our employer.
Bigger picture – understanding the difference an employer makes to its consumers and stakeholders tends to create organisational pride. The bigger picture has been replaced by a 13” screen.
Working from home – this is obviously not without irony. For years, people have wanted more and more in terms of the ability to work remotely. With some very clear exceptions, organisations are now falling over themselves to offer a longer and longer commitment to working from home. Because so many of us are now working from home, it ceases to become a differentiator. And for many, the attractions of working from home may have dulled somewhat.
Differentiation – the essence of an organisation’s EVP: what is it that’s done differently at one employer? A space that can be owned, communicated and landed? A reason as to why talented individuals should leave one employer for another? It can increasingly feel that Covid-19 and lockdown mean that the only ways of creating employer differentiation is through the provision of a better, shinier laptop.
This is by no means a definitive list and I’m sure you’ll be able to name other attributes, but they are likely to have been equally impacted by the pressures and constraints of the last six months.
If your EVP is predicated around one or more of such attributes, attributes that no longer apply, exist or which have been covered up by the face mask of lockdown, then is such an EVP making a promise that your employment experience is no longer able to keep?
“During lockdown, we built and launched our own ‘Kinda’ app, an online tool connecting Nationwide colleagues who might need extra support. If our people were self-isolating, they could search the ‘Kinda’ database for fellow colleagues nearby who could help with getting everyday essentials. Why? Because as a mutual, we’re all about the power of the collective, that we’re stronger together than we are as individuals. And in response to COVID, we’ve made enhancements for our people and our members with that inalienable need to connect in mind, all whilst staying true to our core purpose and EVP”. Tom Portingale, Senior Employer Brand Manager, Nationwide Building Society.
“Employees whose organisations hung their EVP on values such as trust, integrity, fairness and kindness might well be questioning just how real these turned out to be. Businesses had to make tough choices, but their emerging employer brand will be viewed in terms of the empathy they demonstrated when making those choices”. Adele Swift, National Recruitment Manager, Handepay.
And by sticking with a pre-Covid EVP, what sort of message does this communicate to both employees and candidates?
“It seems to me that many organisations have hidden behind a Covid-19 statement on their career websites – a digital mask, so to speak. I wonder how many have changed their content or images that originate from their pre C-19 EVP and employer branding development? I think for many it has been an opportunity missed to differentiate themselves and celebrate what they are doing differently.” Mike Heal, Managing Director, WDAD Communications.
“This is a great time for employers to re-evaluate who they are and what they stand for, based on how they handled their employees over the past 6 months and what the post-Covid employment world looks like. Millions of people have been hurt by redundancy, so naturally security, stability and protection are going to be far more important to people than they were pre-Covid. As a candidate I would be doing my due diligence on how a prospective employer handled their people during this time”. Adele Swift.
There’s clearly a major tension starting to flex itself with, on the one hand, employers such as Twitter, Shopify and Slack offering their people the opportunity to work remotely on a permanent basis. On the other, a communications campaign from the Government, launching next week, aims to encourage people back into physical workplaces, in order to address the economic damage being done to city centres.
“One of the real challenges hiring organisations face today is around embedding their EVP with a new employee, particularly through their on-boarding experience. Every interaction is a ‘formal’ meeting through whichever remote conferencing tool is used. There are no opportunities to ‘feel’ the culture during coffee break/water cooler moments. It’s all too easy for this to be a vanilla experience which is likely to slow a new joiner’s effectiveness and productivity.” Paul Turner, Associate Director, Change Management and Communication, Willis Towers Watson.
I’d suggest that many of us are having similar personal debates balancing concerns about taking public transport and entering workplaces, against the desire to get out and reconnect with the world and our colleagues.
“My view would be that we now need to dig deeper, the usual slogans on lanyards don’t mean much and now is about how we actually live and breathe what we say. Slogans don’t mean much when there’s no one there to see them. For me, the future of EVP is about how we actually do things, the demonstrable acts. Have we actually thought about the benefits our employees need when they aren’t in the office? What practical steps can we take to ensure that there is a still a sense of what we value and recognise?
Practical steps and demonstrable acts – your employer branding is about behaviours rather than taglines”. Julie Griggs, Consultant, Greenhill HR and Talent.
Your organisation’s current EVP is likely to be experiencing such tension. The essence of the promise your EVP is making is likely to have been obscured and hidden by the realities of Covid-19 and lockdown. Many of the key attributes around which an EVP is constructed either simply do not apply right now or are hugely compromised.
“EVP may have been masked by Covid19, but the best companies will still be able to communicate a compelling EVP/PVP through their eyes, ears and facial gestures, if you like. The key attributes an organisation needs to communicate can be done so using imagination, empathy and nimbleness. Employers and employees alike can do the right thing through determination and a unified sense of purpose”. Sandy Wilkie, Associate Greenhill HR.
The labour market is not closed for business. Your organisation is hiring and will continue to do so. If lockdown is currently masking your EVP, it’s time to look more closely as to how, and around which attributes, you position your employment ‘why’.
Otherwise, your ‘why’ doesn’t go much further than a competition for the best laptop.
It’s time to take the mask off your organisation, your workforce and what now attracts the latter to the former.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 