EVP – Time to Get Your Story Straight

If we believe the hype, this begs the question – is our Employee Value Proposition (EVP) still fit for purpose?

The EVP is a “key driver of talent attraction, engagement and retention” so it stands to reason that as part of workforce planning we’re all going to have to rethink our employer brand if we are to keep the people we want and attract the new people we need (2).

You may or may not be familiar with popular EVP’s but take Apple for example – “Join us, be you.” Simple, yet sends the message that Apple wants employees to thrive in being themselves.

There are a multitude of reasons why employees are now thinking about handing in their resignation; lack of support, re-evaluating individual priorities are just a couple of examples. The pandemic was a catalyst for employees to clarify what is important to them and weigh up the pros and cons. This means that there will be a large pool of candidates looking for new opportunities and existing employees will be considering their loyalty to their organisation. This is the perfect time for you as an organisation to review your Employee Value Proposition to ensure you attract new diverse talent, keep your current staff engaged and loyal.

The Laws of Attraction

We recently worked with a client who was shaking up their recruitment strategy.

Instead of recruiting ‘field-specific’ thinkers, they wanted creatives and innovators from diverse backgrounds and industries. However, they found that they weren’t attracting the latter – they were getting the same type of candidates again and again.

In exploring why this was the case, we found that job seekers actually had no idea what the organisation really did or was capable of. The general perception of this client was that they were a ‘traditional’ engineering company working on typical projects – when in fact this organisation was at the forefront of science, including building innovative parts for rocket ships.

Like this organisation, your company might be selling itself short and not showcasing the truly exciting projects that you work on or the contributions you make to wider society. To help frame their approach to recruitment, we worked with this company to support the redesign of their employee proposition, aiming to attract a pool of candidates that they wanted and needed.

Do you need to update your employee value proposition to ensure that you are sending out the right message to attract the right talent? Over lockdown, your organisation might have taken on new and exciting projects, ways of working and new technologies. The message you send out to the world about your organisation will determine the types of people that are on your Board, make the decisions and are members of your team.

Engagement: it’s a State of Mind

The second part of the EVP is about engagement – how will you keep employees energised, inspired and motivated in their role?

Hackman and Oldham’s Job Characteristics model (3) outlines three key psychological states that keep employees motivated and satisfied. My colleagues Mark Goodridge and Mike Thackray explore this model in their article. Drawing on this research, there are three questions organisations need to consider:

1. Are we making it clear enough to employees that their work is meaningful? and how could we make closer links between job design and organisation purpose?
2. Are we giving employees responsibility for the outcomes of their work – by rewarding and recognising them in the right way?
3. Are our leaders communicating to employees how their work impacts the wider organisation and contributes to the bigger picture? (knowledge of actual results of work activities).

In a previous article I wrote about differences in motivation and working preferences across the generations (see “From the Grafters to the Dopamine Addicts…” ).

One component that is common to all and relates to the model’s third psychological state is feedback. Feedback keeps us developing. It’s one of the key areas of being a ‘continuous learner’, a mindset we develop and encourage in the design and delivery of our workshops. Having said that, giving feedback for the sake of giving feedback isn’t helpful.

First of all, there has to be a feedback culture – an openness, a safe place for honesty and constructive criticism. Then to maximise engagement feedback has to be delivered in the right way – have you given:

• Context? What was the situation?
• Evidence? What did you see and hear? Overt and covert behaviours can both be drawn on
• Impact? What was the impact of what the other person did/said?
• Outcome? What do you want the other person to do next time?

Above all, it’s about the individual. These conversation help Leaders realise the need to learn to have the right conversation with members of their team: what is important to them at work? What is it that keeps them at the organisation?

Loyalty: an Alignment of Values

Are your employees right for you and are you right for them?

Many employees stay loyal to their organisation because their personal values align with the organisation’s values and values are the core component of the EVP. This fits well with Hackman & Oldham’s point about meaningfulness and the desire to work for organisations’ with a clearly defined purpose.

Is your organisation still living and breathing the same values from pre-lockdown? Have they changed? If so, how? For example, has the organisation stepped up its emphasis on wellbeing? Or with more hybrid working, is the way in which decisions are made different – perhaps teams have greater autonomy? If your employees are not equipped to demonstrate these behaviours authentically then perhaps they are no longer a good ‘fit’ for your organisation…

Conclusion

Now is the time to think about how your organisation has changed over the last eighteen months and reflect on what this means for both your customer and employee value propositions.

The EVP is a key lever in the attraction, engagement and retention of talent. It is a dynamic statement and needs to be regularly reviewed to ensure the organisation remains competitive. So in summary:

• Attraction: re-evaluate your approach to attracting new talent – what is the message that best communicates your values and what kind of talent do you need now and for the future? Read Paolo & Felicity’s article to spark your thinking about attributes and whether to hire externally or promote from within;
• Engagement: Refresh your memory on the principles of motivation – the very nature of work is changing so revisit the fundamentals of job design to create more meaningful roles. See Mark & Mike’s article on ‘Bringing Life Back to Work’ to explore the Job Characteristics model in more detail;
• Retention: Listen to your employees; what is it that will keep them growing within the organisation? Go beyond the obvious expectations around pay and benefits and develop your understanding of the psychological contract. As Julie explains in her article, not addressing this contractual issues leads to ‘trickle down’ where employee’s feelings of disappointment leak out to affect others in the business.

With so many employees currently considering their options, a passive approach to EVP risks losing your best talent and failing to attract the people you need. So get your employer brand story straight then go out to make some noise during the big shuffle!