economy

It rather feels self-evident that the current economic outlook does little to encourage investment in a new EVP and its associated employer branding ecosystem. 

It’s a strange economic landscape, not without hints of positive sentiment, including GDP, however, the majority of that sentiment has hardly inspired a booming labour market. The ONS recently reported the 37^th consecutive monthly fall in vacancies to a figure (718,000) fast approaching half that of 2022. UK profit warnings increased by 20% in Q2. And all the major listed recruitment firms have reported significant recent profit falls. 

If we’re weighing things up, let’s look at the evidence against developing a new EVP right now. 

Thanks in part to AI, in part to the market, any job you push out as an employer will be attracting significant numbers of applications, regardless perhaps of quality. Your business will assume that recruitment in the current market is a fairly straightforward affair. (And, typically, the business won’t necessarily associate EVP with any meaningful contribution beyond recruitment). 

Indeed, your business may not be in the business of recruiting at all. Whether through market pressures or through AI optimisation, it may well be foregoing any headcount addition. Another function of the current decline in available vacancies is that fewer people within your organisation will be leaving voluntarily. The exterior market can feel insecure, harsh and unwelcoming right now. Far better, then, to stay put – even if that’s not necessarily the best decision for the individual or the employer. 

Let’s assume a yet darker scenario, whereby your organisation is making redundancies and freezing salaries. The investment, focus and time taken up by EVP development may seem an indulgence and not appear to represent the best use of corporate resources in the current climate. And, given such a climate, it can be easier for TA professionals to keep their heads down, grateful for a job rather than an EVP project.

So, the not entirely uncompelling case against EVP rests. But is that the whole story?

Now it’s the turn of the defence. 

I think perhaps the most important audience to consider in this debate is your internal one. Your employee base. In many organisations, morale, motivation and engagement is unlikely to be at stellar levels. Your people may have seen colleagues leave the business abruptly. They may be frustrated by salaries moving at glacial pace and certainly slower than inflation. They may be concerned about the implications of embracing AI. They may be worried both about staying with you and the absence of alternative employment choices. 

Given such a scenario, is this, then, a workforce likely to be actively embracing innovation, enterprise, entrepreneurialism and risk? In which people feel psychologically safe?

The process of constructing an EVP calls for contributions, stories and advocates from right across your business. It calls for a unity of message and direction. And that’s exactly what an organisation today is likely to need. The caution and fear touched on earlier is likely to lead to silos, polarisation and a wariness to collaborate and share. The process of building an EVP functions as a cohesive force at a time when your organisation risks internal division and corporate fissures. 

In a way, you’re better off with no EVP than an out-of-date EVP. If you created your EVP in, for example, 2021 or 2022, then you did so in a vastly different hiring landscape. But you know that. 

If you retain your EVP from three or four years ago, it is pointing backwards, referencing a market, a set of objectives and parameters which simply don’t exist today. There’s little chance that your organisational strategy has not evolved significantly from those days – and you should be deeply worried if that isn’t the case. 

Your people messaging should be aligned to corporate objectives. People should be aware of how they are contributing to organisational direction and success. There should be clarity in the difference they are making. Such clarity is unlikely to exist if current people messaging relates to yesterday’s direction and objectives. 

We talk politely and endlessly about EVP authenticity. Let’s be more blunt. If an EVP isn’t authentic, it’s simply lying. It’s positing a working culture, an organisational direction, an employment reality which no longer exists. Let’s be more honest about this. Inauthentic is simply a euphemism. 

If the process you’re going through in order to re-calibrate your EVP doesn’t inspire pride, then something’s probably gone wrong. Such a process will involve engaging with significant tranches of an employee base, listening to their stories, their trajectories, their experiences. Yes, at the same time you’ll hear about challenges, about set-backs, about frustrations. But if you’ve done the job well, everyone will have a sense of contribution about where they, their careers and their organisation is going. And the pride associated with this. 

We touched earlier on a sense of potential lack of engagement and motivation. The process of constructing an EVP underlines to your people that they remain a resource worth investing in. That despite the current challenges, your people, their stories, their successes all matter. The very act of building EVP suggests to your people that you are listening to them, acting on their suggestions, interested in their stories. 

And the case for the defence of EVP has one more trick up its sleeve. 

Despite the metrics outlined earlier, is there actually more optimism about than we might imagine? The latest KPMG Private Enterprise Pulse suggests that 93% of business leaders are optimistic about the future and are confident about growth, expansion and investment. Recruiter Morgan McKinley reported a 10% growth in London-based finance vacancies in H1 this year. And S&P’s Consumer Sentiment Index rose two points to 47 (admittedly under the 50 point threshold). 

Yes, there are plenty of reasons not to revisit your EVP right now. It would represent the easy and obvious response. But this would be to ignore what an EVP (and the process behind an EVP) should inspire within your business. It is also to ignore what could be a quiet turning point in the economy.

Investment in your EVP right now is likely to put you ahead of the competition, demonstrate positivity to both your internal audiences and the market, enhance internal engagement and help provide a roadmap for employees seeking direction and purpose.