In a competitive job market, your employee value proposition can be crucial to attract and retain the talent your business needs; but creating one is not always easy.
In recent years, it’s become increasingly clear that talented employees are in high demand. Around 75 percent of companies across the world have found it difficult to hire, with major skills shortages in industries such as healthcare, life sciences and information technology. With the supply of employees lagging far behind demand, businesses need to rethink how they are attracting and retaining staff.
The question companies need to ask themselves is: what do you offer an employee besides their salary? The answer – which should encompass benefits and incentives, company culture, growth and development opportunities, work-life balance, and more – is the start of your employee value proposition (EVP).
This proposition can be a guiding principle you can follow to attract the best employees. It might seem like a minor aspect of running a business, but two-thirds of companies are losing business value due to their poor employee experience. To prevent this, you need to ensure your EVP is everything it needs to be.
Defining ‘Employee Value Proposition’
At its most basic level, an EVP is simply a statement of what your employees will get in return for their time, skills and expertise. Employers often focus on salary here, and that’s certainly an important part of the proposition, but any company can offer a competitive pay and benefits package. Your EVP should show why people should be working for you over any other company in your field.
This is a crucial part of recruitment, especially in fields where there is high competition for talent. Nearly two-thirds of candidates have left a hiring process due to the company’s poor EVP, which not only prevents those organisations from accessing the employees they need but also harms their overall reputation as an employer.
Some of these companies might actually be great places to work, but are not communicating that effectively, which is another reason why an EVP is crucial. By having a clearly laid-out proposition, your business can effectively sum up what it can offer to new employees in a manner that is integrated with your business goals.
The results are clear: a strong EVP helps attract and retain the best talent, and this in turn helps your business perform beyond expectations. One study found that organisations with strong EVPs were twice as likely to report better financial performance than their peers, and three times as likely to say their employees were highly engaged. Creating this proposition is not a ‘nice-to-have’; it’s essential in order to stay competitive.
How to create great employee value proposition
The first step to creating an EVP that gets results is to outline exactly what your company currently offers employees. Start with the basics: salary, bonuses and benefits. Make sure you’re covering everything. Then you can move on to the less-tangible aspects: your company culture, your working environment, and your learning and development opportunities.
You should then talk to your current employees. Encourage frank conversations; you can always solicit anonymous feedback if you are concerned about not getting accurate information. See what they think the main benefits of working for you are, as well as the drawbacks, and use these to adjust your EVP.
Once you have all of this information about the strongest benefits of your business, you should develop some target employee personas to understand your audience. The ideal EVP is a combination of what your company can offer and what your potential employees want, so you need to know who those potential employees are and what they’re looking for from a job.
Finally, you should filter everything through your business goals and values. The EVP should be aligned with your company’s culture and its purpose; otherwise, it could come across as hypocritical or disingenuous.
Once you have done all this, you should be left with a set of the most important reasons why someone should work for you. You can now craft this into an EVP, using persuasive language and clearly outlining to a potential employee why you are the best option for their career.
How to promote your EVP
No matter how well-crafted it is, your EVP is worthless if you don’t promote it. Putting it on your website’s blog and sharing it on social media are two good first steps, but promotion should go further than that.
Whenever you advertise a job, your EVP should be at least referenced if not fully linked in the advert. It should be a standard part of your job applications. It’s important to communicate it internally as well, as if everyone is aware of the EVP it will be much easier to implement it. Consider running training sessions on it, or including references to it in staff emails.
Measuring the success of your EVP
Like any business goal, you should have an idea of what a successful EVP will look like for your organisation. Will you see more job applications? Improved employee retention? Reduced candidate drop-off during the hiring process? Whatever the anticipated results, you should be measuring them so you can assess whether or not your EVP has been a success.
This is also an opportunity to tweak your EVP. You don’t have to re-evaluate every aspect of it, but think about how things like the wording and presentation are contributing to its success. You can even A/B test it; for example, you can link the standard EVP to one job advert and the revised one to another, then see which gets more applicants.
Whatever you choose to do, it’s crucial that you have an EVP that matches up with your values, your purpose and your overall recruitment goals. If you’re still not sure how to achieve this, why not get in touch? We’re an experienced international recruitment agency with years of experience ensuring our clients can provide excellent candidate experiences. Contact us today for a consultation.
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