Agile EVP: Faster, Braver, More Credible

A problem with Traditional EVPs

Your EVP should be what sets you apart from your competitors.

It’s the reality of what you are, placed in terms that your audience will respond to, expressed in a way that your competitors are not.

It needs to be pretty bold.

However…

EVPs often fail to deliver. Not due to a lack of effort or engagement, but because the process takes you down a path of insight/scrutinise/launch. That scrutiny in traditional EVP - an “all-up testing” approach - means there is a creeping tendency toward the safest possible version of the truth. 

Why this problem happens

An EVP, as traditionally approached, is a big thing to do. It needs to fully represent you, as an employer, for now and for the foreseeable future, for all types of people and audiences that you’d like to attract and retain.

A big thing needs a big process, and a big process needs a lot of investment behind it, and a lot of investment needs a lot of people to be on-board.

That means that a lot of people need to agree. And all of us, in many different contexts, know how hard it is to reach that kind of consensus.

Now think about when you’re saying: “This is about reputation, we’re talking for the organisation, publicly”

That’s harder still, there’s going to be scrutiny. You’re likely to see two things happening.

1)      You likely to need to gather your insight once, at the start. You need all your proof points, for all possible use cases – so you tend to get a single crack at the most major insights. The consequence is that your insights are frozen. Before you even start, your insights are arguably out of date.

2)      You will need to work with lots of people. Many opinions will inevitably mean some compromises. Each one might seem minor, even incidental. In aggregate, they can become significant. It can mean you get dragged further away from the bold statement you want to make.

What this all means is that your final, agreed EVP may be more of a reflection of what your organisation is comfortable with than what your audience really needs to hear.

Introducing Agile EVP

An Agile EVP is a way to avoid some of these issues.

What I’ve described to this point is a Traditional EVP with a rigorous process that is well – and properly – scrutinised. While an Agile EVP isn’t for everyone, it certainly isn’t for those that are looking to escape rigour and scrutiny.

Rigour and scrutiny are still there, they are just as important. It’s just the rigour moves. From all upfront, to as you need it. There’s a first phase, and then ongoing insight.

In the short first phase, you decide the areas where you can be Distinctive, Attractive and Realistic. But that’s based on what’s already, known, agreed and ideally, already public. There should be very little here that requires lengthy approval or debate. You’re merely using what already exists and using the aspects that are most relevant to an employee audience.

Then you continuously build on that to meet the organisational people priorities that arise. What you learn and discover at each stage all feeds back into your understanding and definition of what your EVP is.

Now your EVP is no longer a static “monument”, it’s a living system that adjusts as the world around it does.

Agile Works Harder for Each Audience

If we don’t have a static EVP, then there is more opportunity to flex for a different audience. There’s the opportunity for each audience’s needs - not your internal consensus - to become a central driver.

You can get the insight you need for your next phase of activation, at the point you most need to understand that audience. Live, current and fresh.

Since you’re addressing one priority at a time, the scope is smaller, you don’t need as many eyeballs. In fact, you only really need the people that understand this priority and audience the best.

It’s less internal validation, but better quality.

You get the opportunity to test in motion too. You evolve the EVP as the audience evolves their expectations, and as their perception and understanding of you evolves too.

A note here: it would be easy to think of this as throwing-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks. No. It’s still ONLY what is Distinctive, Attractive and Realistic. It’s finding what works for this audience at this moment, and being prepared to try different ways to do that.

This is how you use your EVP to build something that stays connected to how people actually think, choose and change. 

Agile Offers Greater Opportunity to Be Bold

We are now looking at iterative insight - what is true for what we’re trying to achieve right now.

By comparison with a traditional process:

• Traditional EVP processes necessarily create high stakes, that means high scrutiny, and that means low boldness.

• Agile processes are all about lower-risk iterations, that means more experimentation, and that means greater freedom and courage. When you need to ask permission, it’s for smaller steps, not giant strides.

Ultimately, you’re trying give reasons why the best people would choose you and commit to stay with you.

What has the greatest chance of success, the safe message, or the more challenging one?

We’ve all in our careers been persuaded by the safe option. Very often, we’ve been persuaded by ourselves. Working in an agile way takes down the risk, it allows more courage.

In these terms, courage isn’t a creative indulgence it’s a competitive advantage.

Agile Offers Greater Opportunity to Stay Aspirational

If boldness is about real truth, aspiration is about staying relevant. The problem with many EVPs is that aspiration gets frozen.

Meantime, careers are longer, paths are less predictable, tenure isn’t what it used to be. On top of that, organisations, and society, change faster than before. So, your plans and ambitions for the future can’t stay still. Reality is they AREN’T staying still.

The facts are that:

• People stay when they can see a future for themselves

• People join when an organisation when the ambition is clear

• People perform when they feel part of something advancing

So ,your aspiration – your vision of a near future – needs to keep moving too.

Aspiration only works when it stays credible. An Agile EVP has the opportunity to evolve with reality, so it is both aspirational and honest.

Again, this isn’t about drifting with the wind. There is structure behind an Agile EVP, there is clear documentation of where you were and where you’re going. This is a course-correction, not a new direction

Do Pillars Belong in an Agile EVP?

If your EVP is Agile, does a fixed structure of how you describe it work anymore? What does the documentation look like?

Traditionally EVPs have been backed up by brand models / houses and traditionally these have pillars. Somewhere between three and six of them that describe all the major themes of your proposition.

Pillars are useful but have always been potentially restrictive, some elements just don’t fit well. They might feel like a precise definition of truth. It’s really an accessible and practical definition of truth – built for your convenience.

If we accept that audiences and motivations move fast, then that kind of imprecision is only going to compound over time.

So, what are other options?

Narratives are one way to stay fluid, to tell an ever-changing story. As inputs and needs change, the story you tell to inspire your work changes along with it. And you can keep a complete record of those changes over time.

Cluster are another. They work in the same ways as pillars, but they can be broken and reformed, added to and subtracted from as you learn and gain more insights. You keep the structure and the consistency – you enable the fluidity and relevance.

In either case, there is still discipline and consistency, just not rigidity.

If Your EVP Feels Frozen, You Have a Choice

I’m a huge advocate for EVP. I hope I’ve shown that in the detail above. I hope too that I’ve shown that the thinking, strategy and process of EVP should not stand still.

I’d advocate for Agile EVP in these terms:

• If the gap between what you say and what people feel or need is widening, then the effectiveness of your proposition is dwindling.

• An Agile EVP is not a lesser process; it’s a more responsive and effective one.

• If you prioritise motion over inertia, you can create employer brands that live, not just launch.

This is where HR and employer brand leaders reclaim EVP as a strategic asset, so it feels less like a bureaucratic output.