It’s been said time and again that the pandemic has taught many employees the importance of being adaptable and agile in the workforce in order to anticipate changes as abrupt and sudden as the ones we all faced in 2020. But what many overlook or forget from this lesson is that employers themselves too must remain agile in anticipation of rapid and drastic change. After all, the job market is changing drastically regularly, and with demands for in-office work on the rise once more, it is sure to fluctuate even more this quarter. So, how do you remain agile as an employer in such a precarious job market? It starts with considering how your EVP will support your business long-term.
What Is an EVP?
An employee value proposition (EVP), is what employees place value in within your organization in exchange for exceptional performance. Certainly, these include competitive salary ranges, bonuses, and other perks like free dental or prescriptions.
But, perhaps more crucially, your EVP, as Emily Heaslip writes for Vervoe, is the promise you make to your employees. It is what you promise to offer them in return for their loyalty and dedication to your organization.
So, naturally, when you go back on these promises, as many who are now revoking or reducing previous offers on hybrid or remote working models, naturally, your employees might feel a bit resentful.
And while many of the employers who are revoking their hybrid working model opportunities are not simply removing them, but are rather replacing them with other EVPs—that is, incentivizing returns to the office to compensate for another shift in their work processes—many employees will still feel as though they’ve been lied to or cannot trust the organization any longer, since the organization ultimately went back on their promise.
So, instead of going back on your promises and risking your employee retention rates, consider the following to ensure your EVP is sustainable and beneficial for all involved.
How to Ensure Your EVP Will Support Your Business Long-Term
As Mark Mortensen and Amy C. Edmonson note for Harvard Business Review, establishing an EVP is not as simple as paying employees a competitive wage, nor is it about offering whatever perks they might show particular interest in at the time of their hire or last salary negotiation meeting. Even if you dig deep into the organization’s funds to pay to keep employees happy with competitive salaries and perks, there will always be another organization offering even better salaries and benefits.
Instead, you’ll want to make sure your EVP is consistently and accurately representing your organization and what you value in your employees. This all starts with the following steps.
1. Establish an EVP That Supports Employee Retention
As Mortensen and Edmonson suggest in “Rethink Your Employee Value Proposition,” your EVP should not necessarily only include what employees currently want in exchange for their hard work. It should also include what they will need in their position long term.
And crucially, your EVP should not only offer paid workshops and other training sessions to further their careers at your organization. It should also offer further opportunities to grow within your organization and ways to connect with the community that can support an employee’s overall feeling of purpose and fulfilment.
This is because when employees feel connected through their work to something greater than the work itself, they’ll be more likely to stay long term and continue to feel driven in their work in the long run.
2. Integrate Your EVP into Your Branding
To revisit Heaslip’s article for Vervoe, an EVP not only is for internal candidates; it further seeps into the culture and statements that influence the organization’s branding for external candidates and customers alike.
Nike’s EVP, for example, includes fitness membership discounts, retirement plans, and advanced learning opportunities to encourage healthy, productive growth among each individual employee. In doing so, their EVP also further supports and reiterates the company’s collective manifesto: “Win as a team.”
And this, of course, continues to establish brand recognition and legitimacy—it shows they’re walking the walk.
So, use your EVP to reiterate and demonstrate to your employees your organization’s values, thereby demonstrating to your employees what you value in them. Through their EVP, Nike, for example, is demonstrating that they value employee wellness, growth, and opportunity. And this shows employees that their slogans and other marketing tactics are not just for show!
3. Update Your EVP
As Megan Hogg suggests for Recruitics, “it is worth revisiting the EVP every six months to ensure it is up-to-date. This helps ensure that employment benefits continuously align with staff expectations and the company’s reality.”
That is, if your EVP is either not as transparent as it could be or if it is promising something the organization even might go back on months in the future, it’s worth updating.
Make sure your EVP is only clearly outlining sustainable and deliverable promises. These will, after all, reflect on the organization and, ultimately, your own employer brand. And, crucially, make sure your EVP is not only clear to prospective employees but also for current employees.
After all, retaining employees all boils down to maintaining trust and transparency.
What is your EVP and how do you ensure it’s deliverable and sustainable? Do you have any tips for ensuring your EVP can support your business long-term? We want to hear from you! Share your ideas and suggestions in the comments section of our post for this blog on our LinkedIn page. We can’t wait to hear what you have to say.
