As the battle to attract and retain talent intensifies, having a strong employer brand and an effective EVP (employee value proposition) has never been more important.
While Covid changed the way we work, for many people it’s the ‘why’ that has and will continue to change in the ongoing quest for workplace happiness. The recent trend of employees voluntarily resigning en masse began in early 2021 and has led to retention pressure throughout 2022. As organisations compete for a limited talent pool, data published by Gartner cites only 23% of HR leaders believing most employees will continue working in their current organisation. Gartner research also shows that delivering an effective employee value proposition (EVP) can decrease annual employee turnover by around 70% and increase new hire commitment by nearly 30%.
What makes a good employee value proposition?
A great EVP makes a promise that authentic and powerful. A promise that elevates your organisation as an employer of choice and helps you attract and inspire the right people for your team.
While it is you internal promise, it should be shareable and outward facing - it should even work as the headline on a job ad. A clearly defined EVP speaks to all of your people and encapsulate the sum of their experiences. It will focus everyone in the business on opportunities to enrich their lives and on your shared business objectives.
An effective EVP should:
- make a powerful promise that employees will value
- be authentic and ring true to those within your organisation
- build on compelling truths as reasons to believe
The Hive EVP BrandScope methodology is our approach to creating an effective EVP. Just like a microscope, it comprises a series of lenses arranged to achieve clarity and focus.
Working collaboratively, we explore the work your people do, the rewards they enjoy, the people beside them and the organisation that supports them.
The areas where lenses overlap help us focus on the personal growth you offer, the sense of purpose you provide, the connections you foster and the care your organisation offers.
Why is employer branding so important post-covid?
Three factors have converged to make employer branding mission critical post-covid. The first is the impact of the great resignation and the on-going great negotiation which is elevating turnover, increasing staff costs, creating a candidate-driven market and fuelling shortages in sought-after skills.
Second is the transition to a hybrid workplace and a more nomadic workforce which look to be with us for the foreseeable future. These newly found freedoms are great but they are not without their complications. Whilst the positive impacts include greater work-life balance and autonomy, culture and performance can suffer due to less incidental interaction and a more transactional workday carved up into a string of back-to-back teams meetings.
Finally a mix of technologies and related cultural shifts are re-defining the future of work and continuing to change opportunities for organisations and individuals. From meeting in the metaverse to a 4-day work week, immersive interactions, Web3 finance systems and unlimited personal leave. These new paradigms and news modes of working will require greater trust across the board and ensure that more change is the only certainty.
What impact should good employer branding have?
Having a powerful and well articulated employer brand can send positive ripples across your organisation. Whilst the primary objective of most employer brand projects is to decrease staff turnover and increase new hire commitment, building a reputation as a best-in-class employer will support far more than just your human resources function.
Many of your organisation's most important relationships are shaped by your reputation as an employer. Your employer brand is the promise you make to all of your stakeholders; it offers an important opportunity to shape conversations and build authentic relationships that are both encouraging and rewarding.
Your employer brand is a deployable creative articulation of your EVP. Communication assets can be designed to inspire employees and candidates as well as internal and external stakeholders. For employees it's why they go to work, for candidates it's a doorway to opportunity, and for leaders it's a filter and a metric for progress and for all stakeholders it's a relationship tool.
The benefits of an evolved employer brand support your people, culture, operations and stakeholder relationships, including government, industry, investors and the media.
From strategy to creative or implementation, we're here to help.
Like with any brand work, a solid strategy and compelling creative are absolute must-haves, but the journey will be different for every organisation and Hive can play a part at different stages in the development of your brand.
Village Entertainment engaged Hive to design their EVP and develop an employee brand that connected and motivated people across the organisation. With their external rebrand complete, the challenge was to bring that to life internally and engage all employees to be the human face of the new brand. A purely internal project undertaken with one eye on the customer lens, the client described the outcome as “a strategic North Star for all our employees".
The Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) manages Victoria’s triple zero services, and already had the building blocks of an EVP. They came to us to turn it into an employer brand that would get cut-through in a brutal jobs market. The brief was to help ESTA inspire the best candidates to become employees, and it came to life through print, digital and video in a campaign entitled “Together we make a difference”.
For the City of Melbourne, Hive was engaged to strategically develop and apply a new master brand system that would enable all stakeholders - including its people - to make the most of a revolutionary new identity. Effectively establishing the internal proposition alongside the external brand as it evolved, the internal focus was just one pillar of a broad suite of brand work, with the objective of galvanising the organisation’s commitment to its unique culture.
Ready to talk about your employer brand?
Pandemic or no pandemic, an effective EVP and employer brand are vital to success in today’s business landscape and we love bringing employer brands to life.
If you’re thinking about reviewing your EVP, updating your employer brand or just starting out, get in touch with Wayne at wayne@hive.com.au to find out how our approach can work for you.
