The World of Work Has Evolved—and So Should Your Employee Value Proposition (EVP)

As the global pandemic subsides, the competition for talent looks noticeably different. With a variety of work environments now available (on-site, fully remote, hybrid), candidates and employees have never had more choice and control over designing their own personal, family, and career trajectories.

It’s truly a talent-driven market, with prominent new priorities—among them, better life/work harmony and the ability to choose an employer with an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) that enables that balance.

The Value of a Great Employee Value Proposition

An employee value proposition answers the question: “Why should I work for your company?” Differentiators that strike a chord should provide compelling reasons to be seen as an employer of choice. These may include a desirable brand image, emotional rewards that provide a sense of purpose, or any number of factors that top talent considers important. A strong EVP can give your company the inside track in attracting and retaining your unfair share of the best talent out there.

A strong EVP is critical for:

Attracting top talent: According to CareerArc’s “2021 Future of Recruiting Study”, jobseekers prize employer brand and culture, critical components of an EVP, when evaluating current and future opportunities.

It’s no longer only up to candidates to market themselves. Employers are now being interviewed, too, since top talent candidates have more choice and leverage than ever before.

Retaining top talent: Historically, employees often chose to align to a weak EVP and stay with a company for the sake of a mortgage and bills to pay. In today’s labor market, that’s changing.

According to a report by Mercer, only two out of five employees believe their organization has a compelling EVP. In today’s world, not having a strong EVP can be a costly misstep, leading to an unnecessary turnover.

Components of a Strong EVP

A strong EVP covers several components:

• Contractual Rewards: Salary, Healthcare Benefits, PTO, etc.
• Experiential Rewards: Wellness Benefits, Retirement Savings, 401k Plans, Social Interaction in the Workplace
• Emotional Rewards: Intangible but likely the most important.

These emotional rewards include things that make an employee feel like their work has a purpose, galvanize a sense of fulfillment, and create an emotional connection to work. Your EVP should also convey care and empathy—things that reinforce those emotional rewards.

The creation of your EVP should follow a data-driven approach that incorporates critical information, including information stored outside your HR technology platforms, such as focus group findings, labor market analyses, global employer surveys, and competitor analysis.

In the new world of work, benchmarks are a thing of the past and your snapshot of “now” changes frequently. With an evolving post-pandemic talent mandate, the best inputs to a strong EVP are tailored, actionable insights derived from “real-time” organizational and market data, along with predictive modeling.

Communicating Your EVP

As it turns out, only a small percentage of companies can articulate their EVP to candidates. Harvard Business Review reports that only 30% of medium and large businesses and 25% of small businesses articulate their differentiators to prospective employees. Furthermore, if your EVP cannot be clearly articulated to your main stakeholders—your current employees—you have no brand ambassadors to bring your EVP to life.

It’s not enough just to have a strong employee value proposition; it needs to be communicated with clarity and authenticity. And, with up to five generations in the workplace, this communication campaign is no simple undertaking.

Getting Ahead of the Talent Mandate

In today’s world, there’s a lot riding on your EVP—and it’s too risky to ignore this key differentiator. It’s worth the investment now to partner with an expert team that can accelerate your capabilities. PREDICTIVEHR has proven capabilities in designing rapid, comprehensive, game-changing solutions that help our clients get ahead of talent management issues.

In a practical sense, insight from your tailored data analytics and predictive modeling can eliminate the usual reactive response, giving you control in crafting your response to disruption. The company’s reply affects the business, the employee experience, and the brand. Communicating this to candidates and employees shows that care and empathy are major components of your EVP and employees care about that more than ever.