What makes you get out of bed in the morning?
As an employee, here is a 5 step approach to uncovering your own EVP (Employee Value Proposition).
Step 1: Categorise why you work, and begin with Non-Negotiables
To do this, a head start would be to set up categories of reward and benefits, or reasons that you go to work.
Under each categories, list what your non-negotiables are for each category. These are the things that – no matter what – are required for you to justify working. This is usually the easy part. Think what you would typically search for on a job board or discuss with a Recruiter. i.e. “minimum £20,000 salary” for monetary, “Location within 5 miles of home” for environment, “WFH 2 days a week” for wellbeing, “Opportunity for promotion” for progression, “25 days holiday”, “no weekends” etc.
Step 2: Business As Usual Items.
Next, imagine you’re been asked the question on Family Fortunes
‘Name something you see at work’.
Think through your day, your environment, your interactions, and start to build these under the categories. Important point to mention here, is you list these whether you think your company is good at them or not.
Examples could be “My Team”, “Manager Meetings”, “Performance Reviews”, “Free Tea/Coffee”, “Desk Set up”, “Company Brand Presence”, anything that you might go to work for (for inspiration, you’ll find my current company EMJ’s list here)
“Performance Reviews? A benefit?” I hear you ask.. yes they’re not necessarily a traditional benefit, but think of it this way – imagine you were at a company where you didn’t have a chance to assess performance, and then someone who you think you’re performing better than gets a promotion, and you’re overlooked for a payrise…
Look past what might be considered ‘mundane’ as there are a number of benefits a company may offer, that are worth including, somewhere, in an EVP.
Some of these are stating the obvious, but they all build up a picture of work for you.
With all of these entries, be realistic. For example: One might wish to work 8 hours a month and get paid £12million a year. Unless you’re a Premier League footballer that isn’t necessarily going to happen!
Step 3: Check list vs Careers site, and the careers site of your dream company
We’re 3 steps in and we’re still compiling a list!
But this list is important. What else is listed as a ‘reason to work’ that isn’t listed on your list. Look at what your current company says they offer, and what your dream company say they offer, and add all these things to your list. Whether you like them/use them or not.
For example – your company offers a Cycle to Work scheme but you don’t cycle… add this on too!
Here is an example of what that list MIGHT look like at this stage. I’d imagine there would be a lot more topics in there, but for illustrative purposes, you now have a list of:
- Non negotiables at work
- Everything that you might have in your current company (good or bad)
- Everything that you might think about having in another company
Step 4: Get your highlighters out! Rank the items
Now you have a comprehensive list of reasons to work, it’s time to rank them based on your CURRENT role, this is to understand if you are getting what you need from your current employment BEFOREconsidering a move.
You can use your own colour coding if you like, but for each of the examples on this list do the following:
- Red: Important to you, but you don’t have this i.e. You’d love a cycle to work scheme but your company don’t provide it
- Yellow: Important to you, you have this, but it’s not very good i.e. Cycle to work is really important, but it’s rubbish at your current company
- Green: This is really important to you, and your current company are great at offering it i.e. Your work’s cycle to work scheme is great and this means a lot to you
- GREY OUT COMPLETELY: Anything that is NOT important to you, whether your company offer it or not – be harsh with this, compare with other things, does it really matter?
Look at each item next to each other, be harsh, be honest to yourself, and take some time to do this. It may look like this below.
Step 5: Analyse your EVP
You may have figured it out – but you’ve just created your own EVP.
Green is why you get out of bed in the morning, Red and Yellow is why you don’t get out of bed in the morning. Green is what would make you stay in a company, and Red and Yellow is what would make you find work elsewhere!
In the example above, providing the team can grow, and they might be able to improve their salary, they should stay at their current company.
Of all of the things important to them (because the things that aren’t important are greyed out), it’s an overwhelmingly ‘green’ place to work.
If you made a few more of those non-negotiables Red or yellow, then you’d suggest maybe the time isn’t right.
I’d also say to this person, ‘speak to your line manager about your salary, maybe introducing a personal development plan that could get you there’.
Try it yourself. It might take an hour or two, but if you can visualise how you feel about where you work, and literally block out anything that isn’t important, it may give you clarity on your HAPPINESS at work, and the steer to improve that happiness.
What next for my EVP?
Finally, here are some further suggestions for the items you have listed:
Greyed out / Not Important
It may be that these topics become important later down the line, so although the advice is to block them out, don’t completely disregard them when you revisit this task.
These are less important to you, so the temptation will be to say ‘don’t sweat’ them, however make sure you check if your business thinks the same. For example if one of your topics is ‘Company Values’ in this bracket and it’s front and centre of how your company operates, you might want to think about how this can bump up your priority list – this may be the difference in getting ahead in your career.
Yellow.
Put these items on a watchlist, and find out why they are the way they are in your company.
Question: Why do you think this topic is not very good where you’re at now? Do other people think the same as you? Could you ask other people who might think differently?
These things are important to you, so you should investigate and figure out what YOU can do to improve these points. Take positive action, as a company may not know their own blindspots. So if enough people believe this topic is important and the company are aware they’re not delivering, you as an employee may have the power to make a difference. If you do take action, go with solutions, rather than moaning or negativity though!
Red:
Similar to Yellow, you should take positive action, but if you have a LOT of Reds, then chances are you’re not happy in your role. Is this company right for you? Or are there things that you can see that mean change is happening. Could you take action, go with solutions, and make a difference? Or are there enough ‘red flags’ to look elsewhere. If you repeated this exercise on a company you’d like to work for – I appreciate you’d have less first hand knowledge – but would it turn the page green??
Green:
Become an advocate for the things that stand out, particularly if you wish to stay in an organisation. The company should know that what is making their employees happy is being appreciate. This might give you a bit more positivity moving forward, and this positivity is infectious – you could support the company as someone who is aligned, and you should where possible support the company by promoting the green topics to others.
If you don’t have too many green highlights, the opposite is not necessarily true, it might just mean that you have a few clear reasons why you work, and as long as they’re fulfilled, you’ll be happy!
For more information on EVP, or how CHEER can help you implement it in your company, click here