How An Employee Value Proposition Can Help You Win the Talent Game

The One Minute Takeaway: When you capture the essence of what matters most to your people through an Employee Value Proposition, you’ve created a powerful tool for keeping them engaged and for attracting more talented individuals like them. Here’s how to make your organization stand out.

What’s your organization’s employee value proposition? If it hasn’t necessarily been well-articulated, now might be the time to start thinking it through. Because done right and effectively threaded through all of the aspects of your HR program, it’s a great way to capture the hearts and minds of your current and prospective employees. And in the process, you’ll also be creating valuable brand ambassadors to the outside world.

An employee value proposition (EVP) is a statement of the value and benefits that come from working for your company. It is the foundation for your employment branding focus, reflecting the things that matter most to people, like your mission, culture and style. Not only are these things they can believe in and support, but they make your organization stand out from the crowd.

The EVP is intended to dovetail with the externally facing company brand, and the mission and vision that drive your organization with all stakeholders and customers.

One study found that employers who use EVPs successfully are five times more likely to consider their employees highly engaged. That makes one case for putting a lot of effort into getting their input on the tangible and intangible benefits that they value. And these days, your people consider those intangibles as important as compensation, if not more so. That’s especially true for Millennials.

Some of the most effective employee value propositions are encapsulated in succinct, catchy, memorable taglines that capture a sense of the environment and culture. They are used across the spectrum of communications and channels facing employees and prospective employees. Among those that are often held up as examples:

  • Google: Do cool things that matter. Work at Google.
  • BMW: We’re driven by passion. How about you?
  • Deloitte: We have a playful culture with serious intent.
  • Yelp: We work hard, throw Nerf darts harder and have a whole lot of fun.
  • Loreal: A thrilling experience, a culture of excellence.
  • Facebook: We design products one connection at a time.

While taglines draw people in, it’s what backs them up that’s important: A fully formed EVP statement that lays it all out in more detail. For example, Facebook’s page on Glassdoor, the influential job and recruiting site, includes this expansion of its tagline:

“Facebook is defined by our unique culture – one that rewards impact. We encourage people to be bold and solve the problems they care most about. We work in small teams and move fast to develop new products, constantly iterating. The phrase ‘this journey is 1% finished,’ reminds us that we’ve only begun to fulfill our mission to bring the world closer together.
Mission: Our mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” An EVP is one of the most powerful tools you can use to communicate the spirit and DNA of your organization.  When you’ve cultivated an environment where people are happy to show up, enthusiastic about their jobs and stick around even if the pay is less than the competitor down the street, that’s value worth celebrating.

Sometimes, your EVP may actually be aspirational: You know what you want to achieve with your organization, and what kind of environment you need to cultivate to be able to attract the people who can help make it happen. Then, you have to put the measures in place to foster it all because it’s not going to happen by accident.

An EVP is one of the most powerful tools you can use to communicate the spirit and DNA of your organization.  When you’ve cultivated an environment where people are happy to show up, enthusiastic about their jobs and stick around even if the pay is less than the competitor down the street, that’s value worth celebrating.

HUB International’s HR experts with its Human Capital Consulting practice are available to help you work through employee value propositions, total rewards programs and other strategic HR needs. 

If you have any questions, please contact your HUB Advisor.

Amanda Balistrella | HUB International Insurance Services | 318.470.6615 | amanda.balistrella@hubinternational.com | https://www.hubinternational.com/products/employee-benefits/