everything you need to know about building a strong employee value proposition.

EVP is not just about creating any messaging to attract potential candidates. An authentic EVP takes into account the fundamental perceptions of key stakeholders within the organisation – including current and past employees and their honest opinions about the organisation's basic human resource value proposition. This also includes feedback from candidates who declined a job offer and their specific reasons for doing so.

By acquiring honest critical feedback and reviews from internal and external stakeholders, organisations can gain deeper insights into their employer brand and draft a more reliable, clear EVP.

Each organisation has its own ways to devise meaningful strategies for building a powerful EVP and an employer brand, but the following steps serve as a general guideline:

1. Acquire necessary data

This is the first stage in creating a good EVP. Build a data repository with useful information gathered from employee engagement surveys, onboarding data, exit interviews, and other hiring metrics. Once the necessary data is in place, it is of utmost importance to analyse this data and draw meaningful trends from individual experiences and collective perceptions.

2. Derive deeper insights into identified trends

It is necessary to discuss with key internal (current employees including the senior leadership) and external (past employees, potential candidates who have interviewed / are interviewing for various positions in the organisation) stakeholders and glean deeper insights into the various trends identified from useful data gathered during the process. This is important as it gives clear interpretations of specific perceptions about the organisation as an employer.

3. Build the actual EVP

Based on all the data and insights gathered, the next step is to build the actual EVP that should be simple yet compelling enough to attract and retain skilled talent. This is also the stage where key factors supporting the EVP are established – parameters such as employee growth and development, work-life balance, etc. Finally, it is important to ensure that the EVP is in line with HR's primary objectives and goals. A good employer brand is one that exhibits synergy between the EVP and core business strategies. Organisations with a good EVP project high levels of employee commitment. Research indicates that in well performing organisations, 30%-40% of the workforce displays heightened levels of commitment, as against less than 10% in organisations that show poor performance. It is clear that brand ambassadors, EVP champions, CEOs, and HR teams have to lead from the front and the necessary programs and platforms have to be created to use employer branding effectively.

4. Communicate the EVP to candidates and employees regularly

It is essential to clearly deliver the brand message to employees and potential candidates. Whether it is recruitment advertisements, performance reviews and training materials, internal H R discussions, or social media conversations, the entire employee experience needs to come through positively in the messaging with an emphasis on the exceptional and highlights on specific areas for improvement. The results of communicating the value of employment through an EVP can lead to an estimated 29% increase in access to passive job candidates. The EVP needs to be communicated periodically to employees – both present and potential – to build brand identity and create more brand value.