Know it or not, your employee value proposition is in everything you do
Originally published in The Mandarin
Everyday language and casual conversations support or undermine your APS employee value proposition. (Madeline McMahon/Private Media)
How’s work? How is your day going?
What you’re really going to tell me with your response is why would someone want to work in your team, your department and possibly in the Australian Public Service (APS) more broadly.
Spend a moment to think about how you and your team members would respond to the headline questions, now, on the spot.
Would your responses be strategic, positive, purpose-focused, and something that would make me want to know more — and ideally want to work with you?
If so, celebrate, you’re on track, and you should probably capture that if you haven’t already.
If not, you are probably part of the APS majority.
Your employee value proposition (EVP) is everywhere
Another way of asking the same question is: ‘What is your EVP’ and your response is the EVP you put out into the world on behalf of your organisation, multiple times a day.
I regularly ask public servants I meet: “How’s work?”
I hear things like: “Oh you know, same old. Delayed starts, tight budgets, impossible deadlines, frustrating processes, stressed bosses, poor systems. It’s almost Friday”.
Unless all the people I bump into, work in security agencies and are simply trying to bore me out of further conversation about the work they do, then this mindset and language are not helpful.
Particularly when we consider the significant initiatives underway at the whole-of-APS level to improve the public image, professional status and career appeal of life as an Australian public servant. These initiatives will take time to take hold, and they need the full and active support of everyone on the ground if they are to be credible.
What is an EVP, and why is it important?
In a market where talent has the upper hand and your organisation is one of many trying to attract and retain it, you need to proactively compete to attract the premium candidates for your next recruitment round or key role.
Many agencies, divisions or branches reasonably identify the need for a good EVP campaign, and often the first thing that jumps to mind is a social media strategy that raises profile, with vox pops, employee success stories, and some great action shots — and they go and get one, and then deliver a glossy message that is not backed up by reality, or their workforce’s perceptions of reality.
This campaign — with its great promises — might attract some potential talent, and you might recruit them into your organisation. And then what? If you don’t deliver on your promise — starting with the recruitment and induction experience to the top three priorities of salary, work-life balance and satisfaction they find in the work you ask them to do — they likely won’t stay.
The measure of any EVP campaign should include short-term suitability and conversion rates, as well as retention and satisfaction rates at the 18-month mark. To achieve great results with the latter, your EVP needs to be authentic, for an internal and external audience.
According to the APSC, ‘an employee value proposition is a set of attributes that employees perceive as the value they gain through employment with an organisation’. Authenticity is critical.
How do you get a good one?
To attract the right talent, and then retain and grow it, you need to understand your actual EVP — not the statement creatives create, but the reality for your workforce. You also need to understand your competition.
What do they really think, feel and believe about your workplace and their role within it — because that is what you are offering new candidates.
If you explore this well, you’ll get past any superficial niggles referred to above, to the more meaningful reasons they invest their time and effort in what you are doing.
Collecting data across segments will help you to understand what your high-performing, highly desirable team members value as employees, and this information can inform several actions.
Firstly, you will have the information you need to go to the market in a far more targeted way. Your campaign will be built for your specific target candidates and will highlight the organisational attributes and values that resonate with your potential high performers, using language, channels and campaign strategies that will draw their attention to you. It will also create points of differentiation from the competition, and provide candidates with compelling but honest information about what you can offer, so they too can make an informed choice.
Secondly, you will have deeper information to support internal culture initiatives to reinforce the mindsets and behaviours you are seeking more broadly. A well-crafted EVP statement guides leaders in ‘walking the talk’, reminding them where they may have gaps in the EVP promise, that need their attention — and thus reinforcing the culture you are seeking.
Thirdly, and not ideally, you may discover you need to do some work internally to improve your current EVP, to become a genuine employer of choice, starting with your own employees — and that’s important to know too. If your current employees cannot relate to or support the EVP you are developing for external audiences — it’s not an EVP, it’s just a story you are telling yourself.
It’s also valuable to look beyond your own backyard when developing your EVP. A more comprehensive EVP research strategy will help you to understand how your organisation is perceived within the employee market; how your offering compares to your competitors; and what leading external candidates are seeking. This information should then be used to improve your organisational offering to candidates and employees, which will in turn enrich your own EVP beyond the perspectives of those who have already chosen to join your ranks.
What does a good EVP look like?
The answer here very much relies on what your high-performing employees — the ones who are driving your business forward — value most about your organisation — across all roles. One organisation can be valued by different segments for different reasons.
Some may love the transactional benefits such as job security, superannuation benefits, proximity to the city or free parking; others may feel aligned with your demonstrated commitment to equity, diversity, inclusivity and physical and emotional wellbeing; others might be inspired by the impact you have on society or be hungry for the clear training, development and career progression program that you offer.
Your EVP is your organisation telling the world why you are a good place to invest their time, skill and effort — what are you offering to your candidates and employees that makes you attractive, and worthwhile?
If you’d like further information on what ‘good’ looks like, here are some examples prepared by On Q Recruitment. You’ll see that they are also reluctant to provide a slogan and say ‘this is a good EVP’, because there’s a lot of research and thinking that goes into one, to achieve what looks like a quick slogan pitch.
How will I know if mine is bad?
A quick test is to ask your current employees what they think of the EVP you are presenting to the external world. If they love it and it makes them feel proud, if it matches their experience of working there, it’s a good one. If it doesn’t feel true, if you’re overstating, or making promises that you can’t keep — even if you’d like to, it’s not a good EVP, it’s misleading.
An EVP can have an enormous impact on your organisation. It can consolidate everything that is good about working with you, as a great internal reminder and motivator, as well as a way to build your brand and attract the right talent to help you build your future. It starts with solid research and a commitment to authenticity.
