Make your business more attractive with an employer value proposition

What’s in it for me? It’s the burning question in most candidates’ minds as they consider their next career move. If your firm fails to answer this question or explain what makes you different from every other organisation, you’ll struggle to recruit and retain the right talent for your business.

To create an EVP that packs a punch, you’ll need to create a strong employer brand and communication plan that creates clear job roles, effectively communicates your total reward offering and demonstrates how this aligns with your organisation’s mission.

MAKE FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT

How does your organisation come across in terms of brand, the clarity of your total reward package and job role and your organisation’s mission, vision and values?

If the answer is less than clear, it’s time to create or revamp your EVP. Doing so boosts employee engagement, attracts and retains top talent and it can even improve the bottom line for your business.

Research from Willis Towers Watson finds that your EVP should go beyond what employees get in return for their labour and incorporate cultural items too. A complete EVP should include:

• Compensation – competitive salaries that are established using fair process
• Benefits – including company car, pension, health cover, flexible working and anything else you provide
• Career and personal development – the opportunity to train and develop professionally and, increasingly, personally
• Environment – a clear understanding of the role and responsibilities, recognition, autonomy and challenge
• Culture – organisational mission, vision and values, expected behaviours, supportive colleagues and leaders, working style, approach to communication, social responsibility and trust

CREATING A POWERFUL EVP

To create an EVP that packs a punch, you’ll need to create a strong employer brand and communication plan. Your EVP roadmap needs to cover these key steps:

1. Find out what’s working well and what needs improvement

Review any feedback from your employees to understand what your organisation does well and what’s lacking. You could look at employee engagement surveys or create a specific questionnaire to gain detailed feedback on your employee experience.

2. Create clear job roles

A critical part of the recruitment process, clear job roles and person specifications help to filter out unsuitable candidates before the interview stage. The best position your business in a favourable light, explain what’s unique about your organisation and give insight into the role and the requirements that will placed on the individual.

3. Combine and communicate your total reward offering

From compensation and benefits to career development and all the added perks you provide, lay out every part of your reward package in one place. This will help you decide what to put front and centre and will ensure you don’t miss anything out. You could consider introducing total reward statements as part of your hiring process to demonstrate the full value of your complete package.

4. Explain how reward aligns with your organisation’s mission, visions, values and behaviours

Ensure that employees and candidates have a clear line of sight between their reward and your HR and business strategy. Reinforcing this link clearly sets expectations and gets everyone pulling in the same direction from their first day in the business on.

Helping potential new hires to understand your business enables them to apply only if they’re genuinely excited to work for you and if they think they’ll be a great fit. This will save your recruitment team hours of CV sifting and will deliver a better pool of candidates to interview.

5. Communicate and deliver on your EVP

It’s not just candidates who need to hear about your EVP – your existing employees will benefit from this big picture communication too. Once your EVP is out there, solicit and act on any feedback. Perhaps your staff and candidates think there are certain areas that could do with a boost. Take their comments on board and get ready to continuously improve and adapt your EVP.

You should also analyse the impact your EVP has on the quality of hires, how well they fit your organisation and wider business performance data.

Creating a strong EVP takes a little time and effort. But in return, you’ll get employees who are five times more likely to be highly engaged and your organisation will be twice as likely to achieve financial performance significantly above your competitors’.