EVP Isn’t Just a Strapline — It’s Your Competitive Advantage

Too often, EVP is mistaken for a branding exercise — a catchy phrase or a benefits list. But when done right, it’s far more powerful: a strategic tool that helps solve people problems before they become business problems. Whether you’re an instinctive advocate or a sceptic, it’s time to reframe EVP as the engine of organisational performance.

Finding the Value

For some, an Employer Value Proposition, their EVP,  is a very natural concept. It’s instinctively what they would do to enhance their brand, not just as an employer but as a whole organisation. They may not have written it out from start to finish, but they know all the topics they’d alight on if asked to present themselves as an employer, positively and distinctively.

For others, it is a bit of an uphill battle to get them to see the value.

For a variety of reasons, it isn’t what they would automatically do. And so, it’s important to talk to them about value, and that’s going to need to be about value to the organisation, not just HR and TA.

What is an EVP, really?

I’m a really big fan of EVP being what you want it to be. Of letting your priorities and some of the existing projects, priorities and even your preferred language being allowed to shape its direction and how you think about it.

What I also know is that to enable that, you need to spot-on, crystal-clear about WHAT you’re doing and WHY. So let’s start with the what.

I’m not married to these precise words, but I am to their meaning. An EVP is:

An expression of the entire experience you offer as an employer... ...that is... meaningful and attractive to the people you want to attract and retain... .. and also ... differentiated from what your competitors can offer

Those three ideas can be expressed in this Venn diagram:

Keeping those ideas and that visual in mind will help you to remain focussed.

The value is in the problems it solves

You’re not doing this for the hell of it. You’ve got better things to do and other demands on your time. You’re doing this to solve people problems in the organisation you’re engaged with.

And you’re looking to solve people problems, because people problems become business problems.

Some organisations truly, properly care about their people, and more yet make a pretty good effort at doing so. That doesn’t mean it’s because people problems keep leaders awake at night. Business problems do.

It’s important to keep the impact on the performance of the organisation at the front of your intentions at all times.

An expression of the entire experience you offer as an employer...

In an entirely literal sense, people work for you because you pay them to do so.

(Yes, there is a huge and glorious army of volunteers out there, without whom the country would fall apart. But they need bread on the table and a day job.)

Money makes them turn up, but it’s everything else that allows them to perform.

So, it’s not just the money, and the benefits. Unfortunately, I increasingly see EVP as being used synonymously with total package. That’s a big misconception, and one of the reasons the full value is not being seen.

The definition of total package can be really broad at times, and cover wellbeing, all manner of working patterns, inclusion efforts.

You need to include a lot more to describe the entire experience.

What you do. And don’t many assumptions about what people know about your organisation, its purpose, its history and the people it serves. Everyone – including your current workforce! – will have gaps. You don’t need to tell everyone, everything, all the time, that would be exhausting, but you should constantly signpost it.

Why you do it. What’s your purpose. What makes people not only get up in the morning, but want to give their best for you.

How you do it. The atmosphere people expect from others, how you behave, what you value and what you celebrate. If appropriate, what you do not tolerate.

How you make people feel. We all love to think that important decisions, jobs, houses, marriages are based on logic. They’re not. They’re emotional and we need to show the emotions people experience as part of your organisation

…meaningful and attractive to the people you want to attract and retain...

First, you need to know who you want to attract and retain. That’s not necessarily as easy as it used to be. Demands on organisations change more quickly, technologies change more quickly, what’s even possible changes more quickly. It’s harder to be certain about the people you need.

It’s important not to be fazed by the challenge. You may not be able to be 100% sure for the next 20 years. But what % sure can you be for the next five years? If that’s as good as your certainty is, go with that.And then find out the things that matter to them.

As far as possible, you should look to triangulate data. You have some of these people within your organisation, you can learn from them. There will be at least some research, surveys, even opinion that’s already published.

And finally, you can reach out to a target audience directly, to find out what matters most to them at work. I can’t pretend this isn’t costly or hard, but it does then provide a further opportunity. You can directly ask how well they think you meet their needs.

That’s invaluable insight.

If you’re not delivering what people want, or they don’t know what you’re delivering what they want, then your people problems will be greater

And that means your organisation will have more problems than otherwise.

…differentiated from what your competitors can offer

And this is where your efforts can really pay off. It can be one thing to be able to show you offer a complete and rounded experience. Another again when you know that matters to the people you’re looking to attract.

But you take it to another level, when you know that you can position yourself outside of your competitors. Those competitors could be professional, they could be local. It’s whoever the people you most want would be mostly likely to choose if they don’t choose you.

And what they offer may appear very similar. It may BE very similar. There is unlikely to be one big ticket items that sets you apart. That’s why having a complete understanding of what you offer is so critical.

It’s the combination of things you do, the aggregation of the whole experience, perhaps even different emphases, that set you apart.

When you can evidence and build stories that show you ARE different, that brings a new level of confidence to your communication. It brings you an angle that is Distinctive, Attractive, Realistic and Consistent. That enables great branding.

And that means you’ve got a way to attract and retain more great people. You have more continued access to people you otherwise could not reach or keep.

And that diminishes your organisational problems.

Why an EVP keeps you ahead

As part of this process, you’ll know too where you fall short.

You can plot what’s in the upper-right of the Venn.

And right there is a plan to improve. To not let that proposition to employees stand still, but as a constant process, make this an agile proposition that grows as you grow, changes as you change.

It needs continual measurement and refinement, but that is the nature of the world. If you stop, you will get left behind.

You have a way to be current and relevant.

This is the continuing value. Where some people might have come to EVP thinking it was just a branding exercise, maybe even just a strapline, you can show them it’s much more. It’s a way to maintain competitive advantage.

When EVP needs reframing

Lastly, I want to talk about a group of people that will struggle with the value of EVP.

Very similarly to concepts like employee engagement, even corporate culture, there are a subset of influential people who – in the case of EVPs -  don’t get it, don’t buy it, aren’t interested in it.

They exist and, however you present EVP and your employer branding, they aren’t going to get onboard.

It’s important to prepare for that. It’s important too to know that you can’t win ‘em all. Something, which you may never truly understand, is stopping them from seeing this as a useful course of action.

It’s important to know that because it enables you to stop trying. Or at least stop trying on those terms.

Before you use up all your credit / their patience, back-off. Turn back to them and their needs. See what they would value. Assuming you’re talking to roughly the right person, it’s highly likely that some part of a typical EVP project WILL have value to them. Work on that, but adopt their terms.

Let me sketch out an example:

“OK, so we don’t need an EVP right now. But let me ask you, what’s your biggest problem?”

“Innovation keeps stalling at key stages”

“And what effect do people have on that stalling”

“We don’t have very good knowledge transfer”

“And why’s that a problem?”

“Key people leave at just at the wrong time”

“Want us to get to the bottom of that?”

“What might you do?”

“Well … compare exit interview and other data between these key people and some of their peers, examine where people are going to – and what their offer is, find out what is currently keeping existing valuable people here. How does that sound for a start? While we’re about it, we could find out some more about how knowledge is retained too, and how we could improve that”

“Sounds good, Go for it.”

We’re not calling it an EVP (or a TVP or XYZVP), but we are still looking at:

An expression of the entire experience you offer as an employer... ...that is... meaningful and attractive to the people you want to attract and retain... .. and also ... differentiated from what your competitors can offer

We’re doing key parts of an EVP. I’m not presenting this as an “Ha! Gotcha! That’s an EVP, sucker!” moment. I’m highlighting that you might need to reframe to the person that holds influence and purse-strings is often necessary. And therefore, the value can still be realised.

Whether you call it EVP or not, the value is real. The question is: are you ready to unlock it?