Every company, regardless of sector, has a unique and inspiring story. An Employee Value proposition helps tell that story to talent and potential candidates. An EVP is instrumental in helping organizations rally their teams and inspire people to join,...
Every company, regardless of sector, has a unique and inspiring story. An Employee Value proposition helps tell that story to talent and potential candidates. An EVP is instrumental in helping organizations rally their teams and inspire people to join, stay, and give their best. A truly Human-Centred EVP is more than a strategy or words on a page – it is a strategic, comprehensive, and a deep-seated part of the organization’s culture. As we dive into 2024, designing, articulating, and implementing an effective Human-Centred EVP is more important than ever for attracting and retaining top talent.
This blog offers a path through the four development stages of a holistic and Human-Centred EVP. Successful organizations understand the need to listen, develop, communicate, and ultimately activate their EVP, thereby progressing through an EVP journey that broadens their appeal as an employer of choice and creates impact that balances people, performance, profit, and organizational pride.
Stage 1: Listen
The first stage of creating a Human-Centred EVP is to listen actively. This process involves conducting targeted, insightful research to discover what talent – both current and future – value most about your organization. This listening involves understanding why talent joins, stays, feels inspired and connected with your organization.
Listening should also be focused on identifying current employee experience strengths and aspirations is key, to identifying opportunities for the EVP to shape growth, engagement and retention. Uncovering authentic challenges and threats to the employee experience is also key at this stage as it will allow for the solution to elevate employer brand reputation, trust, and loyalty. Alignment is another critical part of this stage. An EVP should not only reflect what talent value most in today’s experience, but should align to the leadership vision, direction, and future state aspirations for your company. This step is critical to uncovering opportunities to align the EVP to inspire action and drive business impact. Finally, examining existing people & culture programs and analytics are all integral parts of listening.
Stage 2: Develop
Once you’ve gathered and aligned insights, it’s time to synthesize and analyze so that you can uncover a magnetic story from the lens of what matters most to talent. This is where rich insights are distilled into a comprehensive Human-Centred EVP that acts as a touchstone for your organizations overall strategic efforts, culture development, talent acquisition & recruitment, and talent retention. What makes a Human-Centred EVP different is that you look internally, from top down, to understand at each level, and within each unique demographic, what matters most for your talent, and how to most effectively deliver on that experience. When you’ve done this work you can develop an EVP that inspires and connects from the top down and from the bottom up.
The develop stage focuses on both codifying and strategizing for action. To codify your Human-Centric EVP you work to create an easy-to-understand structure that resonates with your current culture and is attractive for top talent. When strategizing for action you are laying the foundation for a plan that will bring your EVP to life and ensure that your EVP does not end up as only words on a job posting or careers site.
Stage 3: Communicate
After your Human-Centred EVP is developed, the next phase is communication. This critical stage involves sharing your newly crafted EVP both inside and outside of your organization. The intent of communicating your employer brand is to create excitement and a deeper understanding of what your organization’s employees and future employees value most.
Start your communication stage with internal launches that include leaders and managers with a goal of helping them to see how your Human-Centred EVP will improve their jobs, and overall well-being of talent. With renewed pride and buy-in you can move towards company-wide communication.
When communicating your Human-Centred EVP company-wide the sky is the limit. Involve leaders, managers, and high-potential talent to help in the process of creative ideation through engaged and authentic storytelling. These stories will play a key role as you develop brand ambassador programs, launch events, videos, photography, EVP playbooks, and EVP themed games and training modules.
External communication is your opportunity to share your Human-Centred EVP and show that you’ve listened from the start of the Human-Centred Life Cycle and have integrated and connected your EVP to what potential key talent are missing from their current employers. This is your opportunity to use your Human-Centred EVP to show perspective talent, how working with you, will enable them to live a more fulfilling life that is aligned with what they value.
With both internal and external communication, creative asset development, an effective launch plan, and a robust ongoing communication & media plan are all essential. When designing your media plan be mindful to show up where key talent live and spend their daily lives in addition to showing up on job boards. The goal of a Human-Centred EVP is to meet your talent where they are, build awareness, preference and enthusiasm, not just covert applications. Break out of the standard talent acquisition box and go to them instead of requiring them to come and find you.
Stage 4: Activate
Achieving your Human-Centred EVP does not stop at communicating it – you need to bring it to life across the company. This is where activation comes into play. The most effective companies integrate their Human-Centred EVP into cultural practices, HR strategy, leadership, and into departments and functions across the entire organization.
Walking the talk is what truly sets employers of choice apart. By embodying their Human-Centred EVP into every aspect of their business, they inspire trust, authenticity, and connection in the workplace. Top employers of choice know the impact of balancing people, performance, profit, and pride.
You’re not in this journey alone
No matter where you currently stand on your employer brand journey, Blu Ivy Group can help. Our passion is helping companies like yours to design, articulate and implement a Human-Centred EVP that drives meaningful change across your entire organization. Whether you’re laying the foundation or ready to bring your EVP to every corner of your company, we’re here to guide you through every step – and every stage of your journey.
Blog Contributor:
Alex Meers
Director, Employer Brand & Culture
About Us
Blu Ivy Group is a global leader in employer branding, organizational culture, and recruitment marketing. We help organizations across the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors build extraordinary employee experiences, magnetic employer brands and high-performance cultures.
Connect with us today and let us help you transform your organization into a workplace that inspires your employees, leaders, customers, and shareholders.
Contact: sparker@bluivygroup.com
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