Agile EVP, enhanced by Events and Insights

Agile EVP process

I found the EB Space EB Uncut Unconference really refreshing and inspiring.

There was a lot of honesty in the room, and an almost complete absence of b0ll0cks.

Speakers, and indeed the attendees, were people at the heart of the profession who wanted to learn from each other, and were fully prepared to share to help that happen.

A different kind of EVP

A recurrent topic, and one that I’ve been advocating for, was a need for greater flexibility in EVP, to enable far more reactive management and activation of the employer brand.

It’s fair to say EVPs as slide decks were not valued by people in the room.

We all know that people buy slide decks for reassurance, rather than for practical tools. They want to be able to say, never mind the quality (or usability) feel the width. A surprisingly small number of people get fired for buying slide decks. Perhaps more should.

There was another phrase I made a note of too: EVPs are a “bloated manifesto”.

I think a manifesto is closer to something you can usefully apply, but “bloated” is going to take all that usefulness away. It shouts trying-to-be-all-things-to-all-people, when you should be trying to find only the right people. It sounds like hyperbole rather than reality.

An evolving EVP

What neither a side deck nor a manifesto, bloated or otherwise, is going to do is change anytime soon. They are stable, fixed and rigid. Which is wonderful for building a brand, provided everything else stays the same.

Thing is, what stays the same for more than five minutes? Very little right now.

Instead, an EVP should be able to move with the times. A lot of the foundation will remain the same, but it must respond to new insights and new events.

EVP must respond to insights and events

And that was the reflection I took, and what I immediately began scribbling about as a listened to the speakers. EVP should move in response to INSIGHTS and EVENTS

EVP definition has been traditionally built on insights, and which insights you needed was known and predictable

And you could be reasonable sure there wouldn’t be enough events – internally or externally – to mean that you wouldn’t need any more insights for two, three, maybe even five years.

So, you could spend the time (and the money) getting all of the insights upfront, secure in the knowledge that events would not overtake you for some time yet.

EVP being far more nimble

As things change with far greater frequency, there’s a need to change much more quickly.

And the flip / positive side to that is that it drives you to get started much more quickly too. If you don’t have an EVP, or have an outdated EVP, why would you want to wait the 3/6/9/18(?!) months it has sometimes taken.

Why wouldn’t you want to get going now?

A new way to create EVP

This is the model that I started to sketch as people spoke, and which is at the top of this post.

(And if anyone with any artistic talent would like to work on that, I would be thrilled!)

What I am seeing is your EVP evolving through time (in this case, left to right).

Your EVP starts today

You start with the simplest expression of who you are as an employer, pulled from sources that exist, and are known, approved and safe. You start on the safest possible ground, which allows you to apply the EVP with speed. You can’t be wrong.

And here’s another thing, it’s SO much easier to explain than many EVPs. You don’t have to get into the whole concept. It should avoid at least some of the many layers and rounds of approval.

It’s just your (existing, understood) brand, tilted towards employees.

You can use that EVP and start activating your EVP right now.

Making your EVP more right – First Step

Your ongoing objective then is to be continually more right.

So, you’re probably first going to start by applying that same EVP to the different parts or roles in your organisation. That’s a sensible, and again, safe way to do it. It doesn’t need loads of insights that could slow you down or complicate matters.

What it does need is application of the brand you’ve defined to the context of that function, or that location, or that level of role – or however it makes most sense to you to divvy up how you present yourself.

(Of course, you may be small and homogenous enough to not even need to do that.)

Making your EVP more right – Continuing Steps

This is where events and insights come into play

I’m not suggesting, at all, that your EVP shouldn’t be insight-driven. I’m just saying you shouldn’t wait to have them all before you start doing more practical work.

Insights that input into your EVP

Internally: Focus groups, workshops, interviews, surveys, observations, and a continual review of data and insights that are already produced that in any way talk about your people. The most obvious tend to be engagement surveys or exit interviews – but what else do HR or TA (or finance) know about your people?

Externally: You’re going to have less of this, and it will tend to be more expensive, especially if you want to directly find out what your target audience thinks about you as an employer.But there will be plenty of desk research you can do to find out what your target audience most values, what they think of your industry. And you can use proxies, new starters, perhaps even people-in-process, or decliners.

All of these insights add more depth to your EVP, and it is depth that helps you build distinctiveness.

Any fool can create an attractive EVP; it takes skill to be distinctive.

Events that input into your EVP

Just like the insights, events won’t always be purely positive. They should talk to the lived reality of working for you.

So, whilst it might be about growth, new services, additional benefits or great people policies, it might just as easily be about a struggle to grow, a need to scale back, of not being able to tackle all of your challenges.

And it might also be about your response to the world outside. AI and new trading conditions are the most obvious. But certainly, your continued reaction to the technological, political, economic and social changes that are affecting all organisations, on what feels like a daily basis.

You need to have something to say about these, or you won’t appear relevant or current.

But you don’t need to rip everything up and start again.

Record it all – insight and events - over time

It’s about recording what’s changed and adding it to your story.

It might very well make the basis of some new content BUT with a clear link back to everything you want to say about yourself that makes you Distinctive and Attractive and is Realistic and Consistent.

All of this adds to your evidence bank, and it enables you to tell many different chapters of your story.

Reflect and rework your EVP

There’s going to come a point where you’ve gained so many additional inputs, that the story you defined at the start might not naturally contain them.

That’s the time to take stock, and re-work that story.

And it is just a retelling, and updating, it’s not a new story. It’s not a new EVP.

Remember how difficult it is to explain EVP to everyone? Well, there’s no need to confuse them by telling them there is something new.

It’s the same EVP, made more up to date, and hence more useful to achieve what your organisation needs to achieve.

Refreshing your EVP?

And this process may iterate again every few months. Only when something fundamentally changes about your organisation, OR perhaps when this expression reaches the end of its natural life, will you need to start again.

But, if you follow the same process, that’s not really a biggie is it? You don’t need to lose momentum. No one needs to wait for the next big slide deck.

You can crack on, and do good stuff.