If your organisation still clings to the school of thought that “all that our employees should expect from us is a paycheck!” it may be heading for troubled waters.
As more and more companies embrace the remote working model as a tool for recovery from the effects of the pandemic, one of the upshots is that there are no more geographical barriers to talent acquisition.
Organisations today can now compete for talent all over the globe if their employee value proposition is good enough. The effect of this fierce global competition for talent is already playing out as 57% of recruiters now say their top challenge is differentiating their company from the competition (LinkedIn).
In addition, research from Gartner has predicted that through 2023, 70% of companies that do not have a clearly articulated and compelling EVP will be unable to hire and retain critical talent to meet their needs.
The prognosis is simple: the business landscape has metamorphosed, and only organisations that deliver magnetic EVPs will attract and retain the best talent.
These are the worst times for organisations to pay lip service to their employee value propositions by every indication. Those that continue to do so might find that the cost to their business is higher than they can bear.
We built the EVP series to walk your organisation through the process of developing and delivering a compelling employee value proposition (EVP) that will enable it to attract the cream of the crop—top talent to take your business to the next level.
The article you’re about to read is the fourth in the EVP series, and it focuses on the second and third stages of the 5D Implementation Model: Design and Develop.
*The 5D Implementation Model is Workforce Africa’s proprietary EVP development framework. For a quick recap on the model, please view our article on 5 Fundamental Steps for an Exceptional Employee Value Proposition.
**If you haven’t read the third article, How to Diagnose an Existing Employee Value Proposition, we recommend that you do. The articles in the EVP Series are sequenced, and you might not be able to derive the total value from each article if you read them independent of each other.
How to Design & Develop a Sustainable and Attractive EVP
First things first
We’ve often found that when organisations commit to developing their EVPs, there are two traps in the EVP landscape that they risk falling into:
Trap One: Under-valuing and under-selling the things that differentiate them as an employer, such as certain behaviours, qualities, and experiences.
For instance, an organisation we worked with to develop their EVP placed great importance on closing the office by 5 pm sharp! In addition to that, no manager was allowed to call any employee after office hours.
This single attribute of the organisation turned out to be one of the most highly rated elements in the organisation’s overall value proposition. It was the one thing that kept top employees loyal for years.
Trap Two: Selling an experience that isn’t accurate or aligned with the reality of their organisation.
Even though your EVP defines how you’d like to be seen and experienced by employees and candidates, it must be completely authentic. Saying one thing and doing another will ultimately damage your corporate brand.
After diagnosis comes analysis
If you did a thorough job in stage one and have deeply dug into the heart and soul of your organisation to uncover the facts about your current EVP, congratulations!
You are well on your way to avoiding one of the top mistakes companies make when creating their EVPs: focusing their EVP on the ideas of their company’s leadership rather than making it employee-centric.
It would help if you never forgot that your employee value proposition (EVP) MUST speak to your existing and prospective employees’ needs. This is what makes it powerful, nothing else.
And so, if you have succeeded in the first essential step of diagnosing the existing EVP of your company, then you should have accurate information on these four critical issues:
- The unique qualities, behaviours, experiences that set your organisation apart from other organisations.
- The factors that attract top talent to your organisation.
- The core reasons why your best employees have chosen to remain in your organisation.
- The critical reasons why your top talent is leaving (or have left) your organisation.
After analysis comes the design of the critical components of your EVP
Once you have collated this data and discussed the findings with other members of the c-suite, you will be able to identify the core values and unique selling points that your employees’ rate highly. This is key to attracting and retaining top talent.
Use the research from your diagnostics efforts to design an EVP that speaks to:
- The compensation and employment benefits that attract your target candidate persona.
- The compensation and employment benefits that retain your top performers.
- The career growth opportunities that attract and retains your choice employees.
- The company culture that supports your existing employees and enables them to succeed at work.
- The ideal work environment that your existing employees and target candidate persona value.
Employee Value Proposition: One for All?
In our experience, the question of having one or multiple EVPs usually arises. Although it’s OK to have an overall EVP, what matters most is a winning EVP for the critical roles that matter most to your business.
Typically, we recommend that an organisation should have one principal EVP that can then be further customised to reflect the requirements and preferences of crucial workforce segments such as core-skill employees, high-potential and top performers.
Furthermore, it would also prove very beneficial if you segment your EVP to accommodate the different career lifecycle stages. For example:
- Your EVP for new graduates should be customised to attract competent candidates for your entry-level position. To ensure relevance, you’d need to highlight things like learning and development, career growth, a fun office environment, positive employee experience, and employee perks.
- Your EVP for professionals must be thoughtfully designed to attract and retain talent already established in their careers and personal lives. A good EVP for professionals will speak to career stability, child-care support, and work-life balance.
Once you have determined what you can offer sustainably for your organisation, translate it into statements that candidates can quickly understand and relate to. Now your strong employee value proposition is ready!
How Designing and Developing an EVP Works in Practice: The Case Study of Poju PLC
First, the EVP design
After we collated the critical information from our diagnosis of Poju Plc., we presented the management team with the top attributes identified as critical to talent attraction and retention for the organisation.
The management team then assessed the cost of implementing the identified EVP elements to determine relevance, importance and if the HR budget could support them.
The management team also evaluated how implementing the attributes found in the Employee Engagement Survey would help the company differentiate from competitors.
Once we concluded this evaluation, we set up an out-of-office lunch meeting with a selected group of employees from across the organisation. This group, known as the EVP Project Team/Committee, comprised diverse members from the different workgroups, teams, and all job levels.
We brainstormed and came up with exciting ideas around the design and implementation requirements of a compelling EVP in the meeting.
The Project Team/Committee meetings served a dual purpose. Firstly, it provided a channel for further engagement and testing of the drafted EVP to reveal how it resonated with and motivated them. Secondly, it ignited the buy-in needed to make the EVP accurate and operative because it was a collaborative effort.
Then the EVP development
After pulling together the insights gained from the employees’ survey, our discussions with the management team, and the brainstorming session with the EVP Project Team/Committee, our next step was to develop a compelling and straightforward EVP that would attract the target employees and retain the best performing employees.
One critical question we repeatedly asked Poju’s management was what they would love to overhear employees say about the organisation (in a way that supported the HR strategy).
With this information, we formatted the EVP into concise and straightforward bullet point statements. This ensured that the EVP was realistic, easy to interpret and meaningful to all employees irrespective of department or level in the organisation. You can download a sample of an EVP document here.
Finally, we planned the relevant HR policies and programs that would have the most impact during the implementation of the EVP and also programmed metrics to monitor how the return on investment of the EVP would be measured.
In Summary,
Dear HR & Business leaders, considering that the battle for talent has never been fiercer, you must give a definitive promise to those who have chosen to spend some of the most productive years of their lives with you and those who are intending to.
Moreover, this promise must compellingly speak to them: It must be bold enough to get their attention and strong enough to sustain their loyalty. We recommend that you target your EVP to address the unique needs and desires of individual employees.
For example, by clustering attributes such as life stage, family status, career level and particular preferences to create unique groups or personas, you can design an EVP that better targets individual needs.
Deploying your EVP to cover attributes that your top talent values the most will give you a winning edge over your competition.
The next step in the EVP creation process is the Delivery of your value proposition. Here’s the link to the article: How to deliver your EVP to attract and retain top performers
If you need an excellent guide to help you develop your EVP, you can access the EVP series here:
- How Compelling Employee Value Proposition Is Crucial to Organisation Success
- 5 Fundamental Steps for an Exceptional Employee Value Proposition
- How to Diagnose an Existing Employee Value Proposition [With Case Study]
- How to Design & Develop an Employee Value Proposition that Works [With Case Study]
- How to Deliver Your Employee Value Proposition to Attract & Retain Top Performers [With Case Study]
- How to Weave Your Employee Value Proposition into Your Organisation’s DNA [With Case Study]
If you’d like to fast-track the development of a compelling EVP that attracts and retains your top talent, TALK TO WORKFORCE AFRICA today.