Do you want to develop an Employer Value Proposition (EVP) – in other words, employer promise – that will help you become and remain a strong employer brand? Then follow the next six steps. Takes (too) much time? Nonsense. With a thorough EVP development process you will ultimately be faster, more efficient and more effective. You will soon gain back this time investment twofold. This step-by-step plan provides an authentic employer story with ambition and the right internal support to bring your EVP to life for the next three to five years.
Step 1: take the plunge
One of the first things you will do is delve into the employer vision and the desired employer positioning of the organization. How do we believe that, in our role as an employer, we enable our employees to contribute to realizing the ambitions and goals of the organization? And what ‘brain position’ do we want to take in the minds of our target groups? What do we really want to be known for and be better at than our labor market competitors?
Once you have a clear idea of this, you can start thinking about what promise you want and can make (and keep) as an employer. What makes our organization fun to work for? What sets us apart from others? What are other points of attention for our organization as an employer?
The promise of employer brands
Strong employer brands have a clear, recognizable and distinctive promise that is consistently reflected in their behavior and communication and they deliver on their promise. By keeping that promise, they create loyal fans (ambassadors). Ideally, your EVP consists of 80% identity (what you are already good at) and 20% ambition (what you want to grow towards as an organization and employer). By maintaining this 80/20 ratio, you avoid promising (much) more than you can deliver.
More concrete? In this step you will discuss the employer ambitions with the most important stakeholders within the organization (20% of your EVP) and you will discuss with employees about the employer identity of the organization (80% of your EVP). Your employees therefore play a very important role in the development of your EVP.
In addition, you of course use all other studies and information that is already available within the organization (for example, employee satisfaction surveys and exit interviews). This gives you a good idea of the employer identity of the organization.
Step 2: Look over the fence
What are your employer competitors doing? What do they promise on the labor market? How do they distinguish themselves? What does their labor market communication look like? Take a good look over the fence and investigate which position is still ‘available’ on the labor market. You can have a good story, but if it is too similar to someone else’s, it remains difficult to stand out and distinguish yourself positively.
Step 3: Explore the options and make choices
After all that research, interviewing and ‘spying’ on the neighbors, you have collected a lot of information. And then comes the most fun (and hardest) part: putting everything together and making choices. You often come up with different options for your EVP. Then it is important to make choices with the most important stakeholders and assess the impact of choices. What promise can we make to current and future employees that is not too far from reality and is distinctive and contains a healthy dose of ambition? Find out what feels good for you and what you are aiming for. And whether it can be achieved through communication, HR and leadership.
Step 4: build your EVP with building blocks
What an EVP should look like? This is often asked, but there are no real rules for it. It is especially important that your EVP is constructed with a number of building blocks. It is precisely the combination of those building blocks that makes you unique as an employer.
Your EVP should be ambitious enough to inspire people, but also stay close enough to reality not to make empty promises. Remember the 80/20 ratio. Nobody likes a pig in a poke, right? Your EVP must also be able to help you as an employer in daily practice when it comes to making decisions about your communication with the labor market and your behavior as an employer (from HR or managers).
Step 5: from the WHAT to the HOW
Your EVP is the ‘what’ of your employer brand: what do you promise, communicate and deliver (or will you deliver) to attract and retain employees? This is more of an internal ‘policy document’ or vision document. But how do you communicate that EVP in a creative (visual and textual) way and with the right appeal to both internal and external target groups? And what hook or theme do you use for this?
This is what you call your EVP concept or employer brand concept. In organizations this is sometimes called ‘the (labor market) campaign’. However, there is another difference between the overarching concept and a campaign. A campaign is an elaboration/activity that you can link to the overarching concept.
Developing a good concept always starts with drawing up a creative briefing, on the basis of which a specialized creative team can develop a powerful and flexible concept.
Step 6: Bring your EVP to life, internally and externally
With your EVP and concept in hand, it’s time to get going. After you have included everyone internally in the new course, the outside world can also hear it. But just launching your new employer brand is not enough. You need a well-thought-out plan that helps you to convey your EVP consistently and recognisably to your target groups with the right labor market communication and to ensure that you as an employer deliver on what you promise.
Creating a strong employer brand – in other words, employer brand – is not an end in itself. This means that you have to be clear about which ‘problems’ you actually want to solve (recruitment? retention? pride? ambassadorship?), which strategy you choose and that you examine the entire ‘candidate and employee journey’.
With this step-by-step plan…
- As an employer, do you show your position on the labor market: you stand and go for something;
- Can you communicate consistently and recognisably and do you deliver on what you say;
- Do you stand out and attract people who really suit you and want to stay;
- Is your promise much more than just a nice campaign or nice slogan;
- And you have an EVP as a framework for ‘what you say outside and do inside’!
In short: with this EVP step-by-step plan you will become an employer who is distinctive and communicates distinctively.
Source: www.frankwatching.com
