So, the time has come to curate a new EVP, or sense check the existing one, or perhaps better understand your candidate journey, maybe to gain more insight into employee engagement factors or to appreciate with more clarity how external audiences process you and your career proposition.

You know what you want to achieve and have a pretty good grasp of how to go about it.

But who to work with on such an exercise? Such projects are important, high profile and capable (but not guaranteed to) of creating real organisational value. Who you partner with is a fundamental decision.

You might want to opt for one of the Big 4 or the likes of the McKinseys’ of this world. They will all do a superbly thorough, analytical and structured job for you.

You could always have a crack yourself. Trouble often is that you’re looking for internal audiences to open up and articulate their experiences – how independent and objective do they consider you?

You could use a recruitment communications business – and, chances are, you have done at some point – and you’ll have a choice of boutiques right through to the full service players. There is some serious talent out there, but it’s going to be touch for them to deliver a solution that doesn’t relate to their core market and offering. A boutique shop is unlikely to come up with an EVP which doesn’t call for a creative solution. And one of the major players are likely to have one eye on their assessment or RPO offering. Or, indeed, both.

Gaining a more forensic and topical understanding of where the hearts and minds of your workforce are has rarely been so important. The economy continues to do well but doubts around the full and eventual consequences of Brexit are not about to go away any time soon.

Using a combination of guesswork and/or the wrong partner doesn’t seem like the smart choice today.