Are you facing rising attrition? Tired of using compensation as your primary attraction strategy? Or perhaps you’ve noticed a gap between your employer brand promises and the actual employee experience. In any case, a structured Employee Value Proposition (EVP) review can provide clarity and direction.
A thorough evaluation helps organizations address four key EVP challenges:
- Aligning authenticity with aspiration
- Balancing business objectives with employee expectations
- Standing out while maintaining industry standards
- Ensuring global consistency while embracing local relevance
Before diving into these complexities, it’s crucial to assess your current state. A meaningful EVP review starts with honest self-reflection.
This means looking beyond what you believe you offer and understanding what employees truly experience, what candidates genuinely seek, and how all of this aligns with your organization’s future direction.
Let’s break down the key steps.
Step 1: Assessing Your Current EVP
A thorough EVP review begins with understanding where you currently stand. This honest evaluation will help identify both strengths and gaps in your EVP.
A comprehensive audit should compare your stated EVP—found in career sites, job descriptions, and recruitment materials—with the actual employee experience. This means examining:
- Employee engagement survey results highlighting gaps between intention and execution.
- How well recruitment messaging aligns with the day-to-day realities of the workplace.
- Insights from exit interviews on unmet expectations.
Identifying these disconnects is essential for refining your EVP. The goal isn’t just to document your current EVP but to assess its effectiveness across different talent segments and career stages. This lays the groundwork for key considerations like business alignment, authenticity, differentiation, and local relevance.
Step 2: Issues an EVP Review Should Address
A well-structured EVP strategy must tackle four fundamental areas.
Balancing Business Needs and Employee Expectations
How effectively does your EVP align organizational goals with employee expectations? Consider what does the business needs to achieve its strategy, and what do employees seek
For example, if your company prioritizes cost leadership while employees value maximum compensation, how do you reconcile this gap? Your review should assess this alignment across multiple dimensions.
Key aspects to analyze include:
- Market positioning
- Future skill requirements
- Long-term business goals
- Transformation initiatives
Next, understand what motivates employees today and in the future using tools like surveys and focus groups.
A sophisticated approach to workforce data collection is essential for predicting future talent needs. While industry-wide labor market surveys offer valuable insights, they can be costly. Try identifying internal employees who embody the skills and mindsets critical for future success. This approach ensures your EVP remains relevant to both current and future workforce demands.
Authenticity vs. Aspiration: Striking a Balance
How aspirational can your EVP be while remaining authentic?
Some organizations manage this by maintaining two EVP versions: a public version reflecting current realities and an internal version outlining aspirational goals. As progress is made, they update the public EVP.
Others choose a bolder approach, communicating future intentions alongside present realities—but only when backed by actionable commitments from leadership. The key is identifying realistic, high-impact improvements.
Must-Haves vs. Differentiators: What Sets You Apart?
Your EVP review should determine what makes your organization stand out in the talent market.
Consider healthcare organizations. Many frame their EVP around a mission to improve lives, but this is a common industry theme. To stand out, organizations must go deeper.
Part of an EVP review should include analyzing talent competitors from multiple angles. Gathering insights from past employees, interviewees, and industry connections provides a more comprehensive picture.
The goal isn’t differentiation for its own sake—it’s about identifying essential competitive elements and areas where your organization can authentically stand apart. Your review should assess whether your stated differentiators genuinely resonate with talent.
Global vs. Local: Creating a Flexible EVP Strategy
For organizations with a global footprint, EVP reviews become more complex. How can you maintain consistency while adapting to local needs?
This balance is especially critical in diverse cultural and market landscapes. If your EVP primarily targets professional employees, it may fail to engage hourly workers, leading to retention challenges. Likewise, perks and benefits that resonate in one region may fall flat elsewhere.
Your review should assess how well your EVP translates across various audiences, considering geographic variations and differences in employee segments, job functions, and career levels. This approach forms the foundation of an effective global EVP strategy.
Step 3: Establishing the Right Performance Indicators
Once you’ve analyzed and updated your EVP, the next step is measuring its effectiveness. A strong EVP strategy requires looking beyond surface-level metrics to truly understand its impact.
Start with What You Can Control
Begin by tracking fundamental metrics—those directly within your control. This includes monitoring EVP activation across your channels, from career site updates to social media presence. While these are easy to measure, they only scratch the surface.
Measure Employee and Candidate Experience
To understand how well your EVP resonates, evaluate employee and candidate perceptions. Key indicators include:
- Employee satisfaction surveys
- Engagement surveys
- Retention rates
- Candidate experience surveys
Assess Compensation and Business Impact
One of the most telling signs of EVP effectiveness is compensation premiums—if your EVP isn’t compelling, you’ll need to offer higher salaries to attract talent.
Additionally, track business performance through:
- Time to hire and cost per hire
- Quality of applications and hires
- Employee productivity
- Retention rates
- Revenue and profitability
- Customer satisfaction
Remember, no single metric tells the whole story. Instead, look at trends over time to assess how well your EVP attracts and retains top talent.
Step 4: Evolve Your EVP for Long-Term Success
In today’s evolving talent landscape, regularly reviewing your EVP is more essential than ever. The benefits are clear – organizations with strong, well-maintained EVPs experience greater employee commitment, reduced hiring costs, and stronger talent attraction. Conversely, failing to adapt can leave companies struggling to stay competitive.
As workforce expectations shift, your EVP must evolve alongside them. The organizations that thrive will be those that authentically align their employee experience with their commitments while remaining agile in response to changing talent needs.
The battle for talent is fierce. Now more than ever, your EVP must be your competitive edge.
Susan Hunt, Search Consultant, The Regent Group