Your Employee Value Proposition: Let it shine!
If the reputation of a company’s products and services is its face, the talent brand is its heart and soul— Hank Stringer & Rusty Rueff [i]
Previously, we’ve written on revitalising reward communication, unleashing purpose power within an organisation to attract top talent and how to onboard with impact. All great stuff… but reward, purpose, or even onboarding communications are meaningless without a solid Employee Value Proposition (EVP) pulling together all the business components. You may have the best company face, but does it have heart and soul?
As the landscape of work changes, younger workers (chiefly, Gen X and Millennials) are no longer motivated by the same factors as previous generations. A job for life won’t cut it. Instead, a work-life balance and a sense of career purpose is championed and sought after. This has led to a working ‘gig’ economy where moving jobs is the norm.
According to research conducted by life insurance firm LV=, the average UK worker will change employer every 5 years. Over in the US it’s slightly less, with the US Department of Labor reporting an average job tenure of 4 years. For Millennials, however, the full force of the working ‘gig’ economy can be witnessed by looking at average job tenure rates. Gallup reports that almost a quarter of all millennials surveyed reported changing jobs in the last year. This is three times more than same number of non-millennials surveyed (Gallup, 2016).
Of course, this presents a real challenge for employers – losing employees is costly. Not only is the company expertise and resource impacted, but financials too - it costs £30,000 on average to replace an employee, reveals Oxford Economics. Yikes!
Whilst there is an obvious business case for investing in attracting top talent, the emerging ‘gig’ economy means that it is of equal importance to get the best out of your people whilst they are with you and nurture existing talent. I think it’s time to let your EVP shine!
An Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is all about what makes a company unique. It sets out the company ethos, what benefits an employee can expect and what attributes/behaviours the employer expects in return. This all sounds very transactional, doesn’t it? A good EVP, however, is far from that. It is an authentic articulation of the heart and soul of the business.
A strong EVP is underpinned throughout by the company purpose, vision and mission statement and drives that competitive edge in the talent market.
More often than not we, as experts in employee communications, see brilliantly inspiring Employee Value Propositions fall at the last hurdle. It is at this crucial final stage where an EVP is made - embedding is everything. According to research conducted by Gartner (2019), organisations that effectively deliver on their EVP can both decrease annual employee turnover by 69% and increase new hire commitment by nearly 30%.
Whilst it is the nature of work that brings people together in proximity, it is the EVP that forges an emotional connection that brings together a diverse community to rally around a common purpose to increase engagement and productivity.
When communicating an EVP, it is essential to use every communication channel at your disposal to both inform and inspire. Let an EVP no longer be an occasional read, but an ongoing journey that rejuvenates company spirit. As the landscape of work constantly evolves, so too should the EVP. For this reason, the EVP should always be high on the HR agenda. Let your company heart and soul shine!
If you need help communicating your EVP, why not get in touch with one of our experts?
[i] Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. P.64, Prentice Hall, 2006. Web.
