As a CEO, Employer, Hiring Manager… do you ever sit and wonder why talent is joining other organisations?
Do you really know for certain why talent joins your company over another?
Do you care?
You should!
Using Employee Values Proposition (EVP), you can find out:
- Why someone loves working for your company
- How likely they are to leave your company
- WHY they might leave your company
- What engages (and disengages) your employees
The best thing about EVP is that you can bring this information to the surface with a non-anonymous survey, creating a safe space for your employees to talk openly about what’s great and what’s not so great, but also what’s important and not so important to them about your company.
In this edition I’ll break down
1) Why this information is important,
2) how you can get that information, and
3) what you can do with this information to improve outcomes.
But before I do, a reminder:
EVP is the balance of the rewards and benefits that are received by employees in return for their performance at the workplace.
(If you did not know that, and you’re new to EVP, please take a moment to read my previous article here to find out more about this concept)
Understood?
Let’s look at what you get out of EVP as an employer:
It’s important to know this because:
Happy employees produce better results. It’s proven.
Finding out what motivates people will help you focus on what’s important to unlock your employees full potential.
How can you get this information?
With an EVP you’re doing what companies often don’t do… you’re actually asking them.
With all of the things you offer, using an EVP you ask
1) How well do you deliver (or how good), and
2) how important is this offering.
You’re asking people why they love working for your company, and if what you offer is important.
Often people can guess, or make assumptions, or rely on anonymous surveys, but with EVP you’re getting the qualitative data as well as quantitative, so you don’t just find out what’s good and what isn’t, you also find out how much employees care about topics!
What can you do with this information?
Quite straightforward – but knowing why people work at your company is powerful for others to hear. People want to know from people in your company, and what motivates them.
When implementing EVP, you can get current employees to tell their story about the love of a particular topic, getting rich stories first hand to use in an employer branding campaigns to attract talent. This information can also be used internally to help promote the great things you offer!
It’s important to know this because:
You can take action!
You can plan better for someone leaving, or better still, prevent it from happening!
How can you get this information?
During an EVP, you focus on what’s great – but doing so you can also reveal what is not so great. You’re also asking employees ‘what’s important to them’.
Let’s say you offer 100 benefits. If your employee rates 90 of them as poor, and of those 80% are really important things to the employee, there’s a strong chance that they might leave.
What you can do with that information?
You can take action!
With anonymous surveys you might find out that people are unhappy, but not know exactly who or what’s the real issue, so therefore difficult to take any action.
With EVP you’re able to build trust, tackle things head on, and be able to improve happiness of employees and ideally keep them. If it’s too late, or your not aligned, you can at least prepare accordingly, and in future improve on your hiring efforts.
It’s important to know this because:
Either they’re not right for the company, or what you’re offering is not right for the employee.
That knowledge will help you take action, rather than sleepwalk into employees leaving without ever truly improving your retention
How can you get this information?
In the same way EVP helps you understand what people love, highlighting the good things that are important to them, it also tells you what’s not great yet still important to them.
What you can do with that information?
Either you take action to improve engagement, or you communicate if you’re not to take action. The more information you have the better equipped you are to engage with your employees (and them engage with you).
You’ll build trust, and help identify areas of weakness, together.
It’s important to know this because:
You can improve your communications, your retention rates, build a more positive workplace culture, and productivity and performance will rise. This will result in a better reputation, better customer satisfaction, employee wellbeing, better alignment to goals, and did I mention financial performance?
How can you get this information?
First of all, you’re getting engagement from people completing the EVP. It’s collaborative, positive, and gives employees a voice.
Second the information is actionable, and you’re able to tailor your communications depending on the outcome of the EVP survey – both internally and externally.
What you can do with that information?
EVP internally is used to develop tailored engagement programs, improve communication (and trust), help shape your recognition and rewards, and choose from ‘wholesale changes’ or the minor tweaks that can make MAXIMUM impact.
Guess what else… it’s (whisper it…) Fun!
I’ve rolled out a few of these sessions and they bring groups of people together from different teams, different rungs on the ladder, and different backgrounds.
Have you ever heard that said about an engagement survey before?
If you have, I want to hear from you – maybe there’s a better approach, but until then I’m Championing Happiness, Employee Engagement, and Results – or Cheer! at work.
That’s all well and good, but.. What about ME?
Yes, you, the individual, the employee. Great your business gets all of this information from you, but what do YOU get from knowing your own EVP?
How can you use EVP to improve your happiness, deliver results, or maybe find out what company is best for you?
Fear not, the next edition is for you. I’ll provide you with some different ways to identify your EVP on your own, or in line with your current employer, depending on what you want to achieve.
For more information on EVP, or how CHEER can help you implement it in your company, click here