The pandemic has caused many companies across all industries to stop and readjust. Everything from their business model to updating their customer value propositions. But what about the employees who are on the front lines of creating value for these customers? Properly aligning your employee value proposition (EVP) with what current and future workers want and need most is vital for attracting, motivating and retaining employees.
The first thing to think about when it comes to updating your EVP is Messaging vs. Strategy. While messaging to employees has been a core component of every organization's pandemic response plan, many HR organizations have been too busy to conduct a strategic evaluation of their pre-pandemic EVP. With the recovery period expected to extend into 2022, it's a necessary time to move beyond tactical messaging to create strategic alignment between corporate strategy and your value proposition for current and future employees.
Next, we've narrowed down the three necessary steps organizations should take to evaluate and update their EVP.
- Survey Employees: Employee engagement surveys provide objective, scientifically valid feedback to formulate your EVP and evaluate its relevance over time. If you haven't surveyed employees recently or previously, you can add questions to determine how the pandemic has influenced employee perceptions, priorities and needs.
- Update Your Strategy: Based on survey results, update your strategy to reprioritize the what's-in-it-for-me (WIIFM) advantages of working for your organization. Be realistic in setting expectations and don't over-promise. However, do make sure your organization's values, purpose, ideas and commitment to employees are clear and in easy-to-understand terms.
- Partner with Marketing: Engage your internal marketing team early in the process of developing or updating your EVP and in creating the communications programs, tools and experiences that will help make it compelling and relevant. Also, when you include the internal team, they'll be sure all the marketing materials needed will be cohesive with one another.
Updating your EVP helps to ensure alignment between employees' needs and corporate strategy to ensure relevant, consistent messaging. With all the changes that have happened over the last 18 months, employees' minds are racing, and understandably so. Employers should think about adjusting their thinking to focus on their employees because they are why you're still in business. And when your employees are happy, recognized and engaged, this translates into better experiences for customers and your teams.
Authors Note: This article originally appeared in our Sound of Leadership eBook.
