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Employer Value Proposition (EVP) – Standing out in a crowd

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​No matter the state of the economy, and what we’re all going through right now, standing out in the crowd is a challenge and attracting the talent you want in your business is a key factor to your success as we come out of the current pandemic.

Understanding and defining your Employer Value Proposition (EVP) is essential to retaining current employees and attracting new hires.

Being clear on what your EVP is, telling a compelling story, and highlighting why you are a destination employer is becoming ever more important; as we come out of the current pandemic, your message to the market as a great employer will be essential to take advantage of those who have put their career move on hold or have been laid off recently.

What is your EVP? The steps to understanding, defining and marketing your EVP need to be clearly followed to document and communicate your position as an employer of choice.

First Step: Understand the elements of your EVP

Tangible:

Compensation– Covering salary and bonus, will an employee be satisfied with the overall compensation structure and how it works?

Benefits– This will include health, dental, vision, life insurance. Paid time off (vacation, holiday & sick days) and retirement planning. Will an employee be satisfied with the overall benefits on offer?

Career– This covers two key areas: stability of the job and further personal developments available, which will include training, education and receiving feedback on performance.

Intangible:

Work Environment– What sort of environment is on offer and what is the company known for. Is this a positive based work environment and is there active recognition for an employee’s work?

Culture– Sometimes seen as the hardest to define, though potentially the most important. Is the company seen as having positive relationships internally and is the management team known for collaborating positively, especially in difficult times? Culture creates the strongest emotional connection for prospective new employees and could make all the difference.

It’s important to note that your EVP won’t be attractive to everybody and knowing who you want to attract is a key factor to getting your EVP set up and being an alluring proposition.

Taking this further, your EVP will vary depending on the level of individual you are looking to attract; a graduate will be looking at different factors compared to an experience industry professional. The EVP needs to be created and work for both employee profiles.

Second Step: How do you define what your EVP will be?

To start defining what your EVP is, you need to do your research.

Starting with your current employees, understand what they like the most and what else you can offer to motivate them further.

Dive deeper and look at your top performers and understand what they appreciate and motivates them the most.

Finally, what does the passive job applicant think about your business and what would they be looking for if they were to accept a better offer from your business.

Understanding each of these will define what retains your employees, motivates them further and what prospective employees will look for to join your business.

Third Step: Marketing your EVP internally and externally

EVP doesn’t finish here, once your EVP is defined it needs to be known and marketed to see a return. Marketing your EVP will be both internal and external by reviewing the stage that an employee is at within their career and ensuring that you as a business are holding to what was promised within your offering. Constant touch points along an employee’s career path is essential to ensure you retain and develop the talent you want and ensure you are holding to the values in your EVP.

Your external marketing is likely to consist of social media, blogs, networking events, news articles, speaking at events, all of which will promote the company brand and how the company defines itself. The combination of these channels will create the presence externally which leads to standing out from the crowd and attracting great employees when hiring.

Further benefits of a strong EVP will be to your customer and client base. Customers and clients want to know they are working with a business that attracts and retains top talent because this will result in a better result when using or working with another company or customer.

REMEMBER

Your EVP is not just a series of unrelated statements or commentary that talks to an unrealistic vision of the real organization and the opportunity. Many organisations fall foul of creating a powerful EVP message, only for that to be “found out” as not being the true environment, culture or opportunity.  Align the message to the positive attributes and, if necessary, change the processes and practices to the message and vision you wish to present.

deverellsmith talent solutions

No matter a company size, having a well thought out EVP that reflects your company and the stage it is at in its evolution has never been more important.

deverellsmith works with companies of all sizes, where we provide a tailored service to review and develop your Employer Value Proposition.

We work with you on how evolving your EVP will positively impact your business, especially right now when standing out from the crowd is increasingly challenging and the crowd is changing in their wants and needs more than we’ve ever seen. Read more.