So, here’s a potentially awkward question. Do you think you’re getting the maximum return from the investment made in your EVP?
And it’s usually no small investment. Making the business case for one during the last two years will have been anything but straightforward. There will have been hurdles, questions and doubt.
But you got it over the line. Kudos.
But what now? How do you make your EVP really pay for itself?
Sure, there is what you might call low hanging fruit.
Traditional EVP applications
You’re using your EVP and its constituent research and findings as the basis for your recruitment marketing and your careers site. There’s a clear, consistent message for candidates and real clarity about why talent should apply. In time, you’ve every chance of landing some impressive metrics – less applicant pipeline dropout, less third-party agency spend, reduction in premature departures. All good.
You’ll then extend such employer branding to include the candidate journey. Your candidate communications and key elements of the interview process, assessments and on-boarding will all reference your EVP. This serves to remind candidates why they applied, why they were initially so inspired and the key areas of differentiation between you and other employers they might be contemplating. It also validates their decision to leave their current employer, particularly when the current economic climate might be making them think twice about a career move.
You’re also likely to have used your EVP in partnership with your agency partners. Your EVP is now the essence of the message your third-party agencies are delivering to candidate audiences. It’s providing them with the clarity and the content to differentiate your career story to those of your talent competitors.
Sweating the EVP asset
Excellent, your EVP is already looking like a solid investment. But don’t let’s stop there, let’s sweat the asset to an even greater extent. You’ve got in your hands an important platform, which combines where your organisation is going with the thoughts, feelings, experiences and stories of your people. Don’t forget both the investment you’ve made and the breadth and depth of insights, stories and richness you’ve created through the research that produced your EVP.
Make the contribution of your people very clear
Apart from anything else, you have the opportunity of giving even greater voice to your people – who, let’s not forget, are the source of such research and findings. You’re telling the story of working life within your organisation – it’s important that message is delivered by your people, in their own words, in their own voices.
Let’s look at how we might extract additional value from your EVP investment.
If you’ve engaged with your colleagues within internal communications during the EVP discovery phase, then it should be a logical step for the stories, the messaging and any subsequent visual content to be used internally. It should feature in your newsletters, benefits announcements, new joiner heads ups, etc.
Clearly, telling internal stories which speak to engagement, inclusivity, development, growth and investment is of huge importance. It also serves to remind those employees who have contributed to your research, through their insights and stories, that they have a voice and a voice which is being listened to.
It’s also an important validation for new joiners – the people who have come on board having been exposed to your EVP and the promises it makes. They are now working for you and are seeing employee messages consistent with this every day.
Advocacy and bridges
Front of mind, you’ll be looking at how to translate the essence of your EVP for employee advocacy and referral purposes. How best can your employee advocates promote your organisation externally – with a common, clear and cohesive voice? That’ll be through your EVP.
Promoting your EVP internally also builds organisational bridges – as my previous blog alludes to. Workforces have all too many factors and characteristics which can work against employee alignment – different departments and locations, different lengths of tenure, ages, ethnicities, faiths, etc. Delivering an EVP which emphasises that the contribution of all employees will help deliver on mission is a hugely cohesive initiative.
Bottom up and top down
How about taking this a step further, flexing your EVP to an even greater extent? It’s likely that senior leadership will have been involved in the shaping of your EVP. You’re likely to have a senior sponsor, and leadership will typically have given up their time for strategic interviews.
Why not encourage leadership to make use of the EVP essence in their communications? Again, this creates greater connectivity across your hierarchies. It means people are speaking the same language throughout the organisation. They are driven by the same goals and working towards the same objectives. Your EVP feels both bottom up and top down. Everyone is on the same page.
Let’s go further. You’re likely already to have a set of values. Assuming these values still feel relevant, they should remain as they are. However, let’s work the EVP messaging into how we explain what they mean and how your people should live them. The more exposure, the more repetition your people are exposed to, the more real, the more tangible your EVP will feel.
Internal mobility
Quite rightly, internal career mobility is receiving the bandwidth it should. Employees shouldn’t have to leave to develop their careers. Organisations should encourage lateral career moves, without departmental talent hoarding taking place. What better way to facilitate such mobility, than through your internal EVP messaging? We talked about the EVP creating internal bridges throughout an organisation – let’s extend that analogy to include internal career bridges, publicised and facilitated by your EVP.
It doesn’t stop there. Make your EVP part of your performance appraisal process. When your people are sat down with managers, an element of this conversation should be about how they feel they are living the EVP.
All these applications of your EVP enable you to elevate it from transactional device into strategic driver. It becomes less about the simple give and the get, and more about a unifying, cohesive presence driving mission.
You’ve worked hard to construct your EVP – make sure you’re getting the most out of what has the capacity to be a significant strategic driver for your organisation.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 