Defining your Employer Value Proposition
If you work with us to define your Employer Value Proposition (EVP), we’ll leave you:
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Immediately able to attract candidates better
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With a solid foundation to grow your reputation as an employer
We see an EVP as a narrative that spells out the perception of your organisation, as an employer, that you want to influence people towards.
And we will define an EVP for you that is:
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Distinctive – you have something to say that is different, from the competition
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Attractive – you have something to say that is relevant to the needs of your audience
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Realistic – you aren’t making promises you can’t keep, and giving useful context
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Consistent – you won’t be sending scattergun, or potentially confusing messages
That means that, from Day 1 with your new EVP, every job listing, every job description, every setting the scene discussion can focus on the topics that you know will be the right ones for the right people.
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And it means that as you think about your careers site, your social media presence, each part of your candidate experience, you have the messaging, the evidence and the language to draw on that you know will influence people towards you.
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Your EVP is a hugely powerful tool, and we will help you get maximum value from it.
Defining your Employer Value Proposition
Finding what makes you Distinctive, Attractive in way that is Realistic and Consistent
You may mind it hard to attract the right quality of people to your organisation.
And that might be because the people you’d love to work for you don’t know you or understand what it would be like to work for you.
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The Employer Value Proposition that we define will allow people to quickly understand what kind of experience they will have when they work for you, what’s expected of them and everything they will get in return.
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It will reflect your organisational brand, your purpose and values, your heritage and future plans. And it will be all about the real experiences of the people that work for you. It will show the people that will thrive and the people that won’t.
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Having clarity on all of the reasons why people should work for you will enable you to recruit more easily, more quickly or more cheaply.
What we'll do
Every employer is different. They have different strengths and issues. They have different existing insights. So, the exact programme is different for everyone.
Our insights process is likely to include a review of what you can already tell us, interviews with the key stakeholders, workshops or focus groups and a survey.
What we will uncover
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what’s truly different about working for you
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what keeps people here and keeps them motivated
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what your candidates think about you; what they do and don’t know
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the language and culture that are distinctive for your organisation
Our Promises to You
​We’ll ensure:
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you will be able show - and prove - what is most meaningful to your people
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you can talk in the terms that your target audience responds to
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you can avoid cliché, fluff and sameness
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your EVP will complement your overall brand
So you attract the right people for your organisation
What it might cost
As an example of prices, for our planning, listening, reporting and recommends:
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Under 100 people: c£1,500
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Around 100 people: c3,000
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Around 250 people: c£4,000
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Around 1,000 people: c£6,000
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Around 2,500 people: c£8,000
The smaller the organisation, the faster we can work. But we like to give you practical outputs within 4-8 weeks.
What you'll get:
Your EVP in summary and long-form
A statement, brand model and structured narrative demonstrating your uniqueness and points of difference.
This becomes your guide for all communications: you’ll know you’re giving the most powerful messages to your potential candidates.
Your evidence pool and audience priorities for your EVP
All of the sources, data and sentiment to draw on to prove why people should consider you. Segmented by your targeted audiences, so that you know what to emphasise for who.
This gives the inspiration for your communication; you’ll know you’re giving the most accurate and appropriate messages for each candidate.
Your next steps for your EVP
Advice and examples of how you can start to activate your EVP. Recommendations given in terms of the ease, time and any cost to apply.
This gives you a way to prioritise the things that make the biggest difference to attracting and converting candidates.
EVP CASE STUDY: Active Care Group
"It's not what I expected ... but I recognise our organisation in it. It feels balanced, it's the reality, it's honest"
"There's so much positive messaging in this"
"This IS what our people say"
"There's some lovely language, it picks up on the small things we do too"
Active Care Group wanted to develop their Employer Value Proposition.
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Care is a hard sector in which to recruit and retain staff. Society hugely values the work carers do. It is hard, demanding, relentless, and important, yet often less well-paid than more menial roles.
So, ACG wanted to give people the real insight into their organisation, and strong reasons why people should consider them, and then commit to them.
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It wasn’t the most straightforward project – this is a busy organisation. They had to work this in amongst other priorities, and that meant the work took longer than it might, and it meant we didn’t get to speak to as many, or as varied groups of, people as we would have liked.
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That made good research design even more important, and methods – like chat rooms rather than video groups – to ensure we got the most from every piece of listening.
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We listened hard to every insight we got, we drew on previous experiences within and without the sector, and we added a testing phase to enable us to move more quickly to final delivery.
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That all got us to a brand model, pillars and a narrative – to which we received the above comments.
And it’s not just some abstract strapline. It’s clear direction on messaging to candidates about what it's like to be here, what you can gain, the reason why you should (and shouldn't) consider this job – all linked to the behaviours that ACG expect from every employee.
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That proposition is now being developed by ACG’s creative agency. We can’t wait to see what this looks like when it goes live.
What should you invest in defining your EVP?
And why?
Let’s not beat around the bush – creating an EVP is going to cost time and money.
It’s going to need the involvement of your staff, potentially quite a lot of them.
So, you’ll want to know that investment is worth it, that the outputs improve your ability to attract, hire, engage and retain the best people for your organisation.
You’ve got four choices:
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Continue as you are
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Do it yourself
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Bring in a pro
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Go large
If you continue as you are, you’ll get the same results. If it’s tough to recruit, if you don’t get the right people coming through, if you’re not finding a good cultural fit when people start, then it’ll remain so.
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So, let’s look at your other options:
Do It Yourself - A Functional EVP
COST
None!
TIME
A good chunk – and seeing as it’s probably your first rodeo, it’s going to take longer
OTHER STAFF TIME
As much or as little as you like – but given that you haven’t done this often you’ll probably involve more people to ensure belt and braces.
EFFECTIVENESS
One of the hardest things to do for yourself is ensure objectivity: “You can’t read the label if you’re in the jar”.
There’s a risk that you won’t get to the most distinctive, attractive, realistic or consistent expression of who you are.
Bring in a Pro - An Expertly Researched EVP
COST
Some!
But it might not be as much as you think.
For an organisation of up to £250 people, prices start from £2000.
TIME
As the price suggests, we’re not spending weeks with you, and neither are we keeping you waiting for weeks either.
There’s no reason why you can’t activate your new EVP within a few weeks
OTHER STAFF TIME
Again, as much or as little as you like. The more people we can speak to the more robust the findings will be. But that’s not always easy, or necessary.
You’ll already have a lot of the insights and data we may need, we’ll work that hard!
EFFECTIVENESS
We’ve created EVPs for dozens of organisations – giving them the evidenced narrative and language that they can immediately take to their target audiences.
They can begin improving their employer marketing the next day.
Go Large - An Expertly Researched and Segmented EVP
COST
More!
You’re going to take this option if you’re bigger or more complex as an organisation. That means that there are more facets to understand, and that naturally means more cost.
TIME
It's going to take longer to understand all the different sides of you, but we can still move rapidly.
It may take more than a month, but there’s no reason we can’t get to a great place in 2-3 months.
OTHER STAFF TIME
It's likely we’ll need to hear directly from many people to understand all of the nuances that apply in different roles or territories or functions.
We’ll work with you to find the right balance of investment of time vs value of the outputs.
EFFECTIVENESS
As well as the evidenced narrative for the entire organisation, we can also show how to best communicate with all of your segments too. And we can show ways to activate and continually evidence your brand too.
It's the foundation of a complete employer marketing plan.
EVP CASE STUDY: Bright Network
Bright Network needed an EVP.
They had a great customer value proposition, and a great reputation for heloping students get into the right kind of career.
But, to the people they most needed to attract to come and work for them, they were pretty unknown.
So they needed a strong, evidenced story of the reasons to come and work for them.
They were also a fairly simple organisation, and in a little bit of a hurry to start applying their EVP. So we kept things simple, and my insights consisted of focus groups with employees and interviews with leaders.
That process alllowed us to document and evidence 13 themes, mostly positive, but also with the unvarnished reality of working in Bright Network. And those came together as a brand narrative, under five pillars, which could be amplified for different key spegments of their workforce.
And because they were keen to get going, we worked up a Employee Value Proposition that also functioned as a ready-to-wear strapline. (And one that rather nicely dovetailed with the consumer proposition - so they could lean heavily into that reputation).
And I'm pleased to see that's how they've presented themselves since the start of 2022!
