Great talent is hard to come by. Likewise, great employers can be hard to identify. Behind the fantastic perks and benefits lies the essence of a company – what it is they stand for and the kind of people they are looking to attract.
Having a proposition that helps define the two-way narrative between a brand and its employee is a great way to inspire, educate and create a working environment that is truly aligned to the same values, goals and future vision of the company.
Think of it as a mixture of what potential employees might want to see and what you want to communicate to them. What can you offer them and what attributes do you expect them to uphold in return? It’s a mutual understanding and direction for both parties and a single set of statements or documents that help keep your global brands on the same page in terms of offering.
How to build a solid employer value proposition
A strong employer value proposition (often referred to as an EVP) should deliver 3 core outcomes:
- Excite and engage existing staff members;
- Differentiate you from competitors in and around your industry;
- Help candidates self-select in or out of the application process. If what you’re saying doesn’t resonate with them, then they are unlikely to proceed with applying for an advertised role.
Your EVP will be unique to your business, but there are several steps you can take in helping to establish it. If you have a dedicated employer branding team, they should ensure they carry out the following exercises, being sure to include both high-level decision-makers as well as a cross-section of opinions from various departments.
This is because it’s easy to become subjective when you’re embedded into the employer branding team – people who help deliver the work every day should be able to provide an authentic insight into what it means to work there.
Define your mission
Your mission is your reason for being as a company. While it needs to remain true to what you deliver each day, try not to get bogged down too far in the technicalities of what you do and think about the wider impact your brand has.
For example, if we were to take a company that sells hair dye, their EVP mission isn’t to sell as much hair dye as possible, but it might be to continue spreading positivity by ensuring everyone in the world can express their individuality.
If you are struggling to get to the bottom of what your mission is, use these questions as prompts:
- Why are you different as a company?
- What makes you stand out amongst competitors?
- What’s the single thing you admire about the company as an employee?
- If your company could be responsible for achieving one thing in 50 years, what would it be?
What’s your vision?
Your vision is a source of inspiration for your employees. It’s a common long-term view that outlines exactly where your company is heading, and hopefully makes them want to stick around for the journey. A vision statement tends to be emotive and thought-provoking, so try not to include too much corporate-speak – keep your audience in mind at all times.
Refine your values
Most companies will already have their values determined from the outset, but ensuring these are reflected in your EVP is integral for showing people what it is your company believes in. Take a look at these values (usually between 3 – 7) and really scrutinise whether they are upheld. If they are – how? If they’re not – why not?
Once you are happy that your values are an accurate reflection of who you are, look to refine these to appeal to a broader audience. Your values are essentially your ‘guiding principles’, and anyone who you look to hire must share these in order to make it at your company.
Outline your strategy
Your strategy talks about how you intend to achieve your goals and objectives. It can sometimes be called a road map, and details your individual tasks and action points to reach your vision. In its simplest form (and if you have limited time and resources), you can just create bullet points. This strategy is usually part of your 3 to 5-year business plan, and helps new recruits, as well as existing employees, understand what they are becoming a part of.
Create your EVP
Now you have laid the foundation and scratched much deeper than the surface of your company, you can look to create your EVP. This can be a statement or a fuller document that delivers the following things:
- The expertise, expectations and experience any employee should bring to the company
- Focused on talking to employees while being sympathetic to wider business strategies
- Drive high-quality employee attraction and retention
- Tells people why they should want to work for your business
What does an employer value proposition look like?
Some companies have an EVP that is a few sentences, others have full booklets dedicated to explaining every facet of their employer branding.
While an employer value proposition will incorporate a number of key things, how this is communicated and presented will vary greatly depending on your company’s budget and the importance it places on exercises such as these. Ultimately, as long as your EVP communicates why someone should work for you in a clear and concise way – you’ve nailed it.
How does this differ from an employee value proposition?
An employee value proposition is purely focused on the individuals they are aimed at. An employer value proposition aims to bridge the gap between what the employer wants from the employee and vice versa. It helps to communicate internally and externally while differentiating you from your competitors.
What’s next?
Now you have your EVP in place, it’s important to make sure this is communicated effectively across your countries and territories. If you can afford to, taking a day to re-educate employees on the newly aligned employer value proposition will really help to embed it into your culture, as well as prepare employees for any recruitment activity moving forward. Investing in a DAM can help you keep all documents accessible to teams anywhere in the world. BAM by Papirfly™ gives you the power to create printed and digital assets using smart templates, educate teams with your branding documents, guidelines and assets, and allows you to store and share absolutely any digital file.
To align your employer branding across the globe, get in touch today.