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Maximise Your EVP Results

Joe Morrison
in
Maximise Your EVP Results

Maximise Your EVP Results

You’ve done a big survey, or a workshop, and worked tirelessly on identifying your company EVP. Great!

You care about what’s important to your employees, and chances are you have an idea of how well you’re delivering on what’s important.

So what next?

In a previous Employee Value Proposition newsletter, we gave an example of how you can identify your organisation’s EVP. Our Founder’s ego hopes you used our approach, but if not ours, you’ve used some method to identify what’s important to your employees, and how well you deliver.

Typically, you’ll take all of what you offer a business, and ask your employees 1) how good are these offerings, and 2) how important are they to them. You’ll include everything from ‘1-2-1’s with a manager’ to ‘healthcare’, ‘free fruit’ to ‘salary’ and everything in between, so you can map your findings out on a grid that might look something like this:

If you haven’t done this, pause here, as this newsletter is not for you right now. This time we’re going to look at what you should do with your findings. To CHEER, there are only THREE (yes three) options:

  1. Take Action

  2. Do Nothing

  3. Communicate

Simple right? You don’t have to take action on everything. That’s the point of EVP, ideally you focus on what’s important. Doing two out of these three things is usually the sweet spot. But let’s break them down with some examples.

 

1. Take Action: the obvious one

Something is important but not delivering? Take action to improve it. But get clarity on what it is from those that have a challenge. Seek more qualitative feedback, and improve it.

Something’s missing? Add it. EVP results act like a compass. It won’t just show you what’s broken, it will show you what’s broken and hurting your workforce..

The simplest example might be something like your performance reviews. If people are saying they’re really important, but not delivering, take action. Find out ‘are they being completed?’ ‘is anything being done with them?’ ‘are they adequately measuring performance?’ ‘do they need to change?’ and take action.

 

2. Communicate: the underrated one

Using the performance review example, you take action to improve performance, invest lots of time and energy on it, because your employees even told you it needs improvement.

Don’t fall at the final hurdle, communicate what action you’ve taken, and why. Demonstrate to your workforce that you are listening, and have made changes with them in mind. Communication is two way. I always suggest a ‘you said we did’ approach to communicating the action you’re taking, don’t assume people know what you’ve been doing in their interest!

Too many times EVP gold gets lost in translation. A benefit might be working well, but no one knows it. Or people don’t understand why you’re focusing where you are.

Using another example, your EVP shows your Cycle to Work scheme is delivering well, but not seen as important. what do you do?

  • You could do nothing. That’s valid. If it’s not broken and not critical park it (‘scuse the pun)
  • OR, you could try to raise its profile. A great way to improve the communications around a benefit is to use a passionate employee who loves the scheme as your “Cycle to Work Champion.” Let them tell their story in their words. Give them a platform, and a voice. This authentic storytelling is more compelling, AND gets you off the hook for doing all the heavy lifting so you can focus on other more important areas.

 

3. Do Nothing: yes, really

Sometimes, doing nothing is the best thing you can do, as long as you explain why, as long as you communicate, particularly on what’s important.

Being honest about where you’re focusing your energy builds trust. People are smart. They get that not everything can be a priority, and if you think you’re ‘getting away with it’ by not communicating, you’re not. Read back some of your exit interviews, there will be a whole host of things that people left for that they didn’t tell you about, that you didn’t tell them about.

An example for the ‘do nothing’ camp is free fruit. Usually people love free fruit, but usually people don’t find it that important. Congratulations! That’s something you can safely ignore (for now), because believe us, the internet will go wild if you communicate that, and your employees may too if you spend time and resource in improving something like that (unless they really do find it important – the beauty of EVP is it will tell you that too!)

 

The point is: you don’t need to overhaul everything.

This is the point of EVP. It’s about understanding what to do. A large number of areas you won’t be able to take action, but that’s ok, because a large number of things you won’t have to. EVP is a diagnostics tool to help you understand where to:

  • double down on what matters
  • show your working and improve engagement
  • letting go of what’s just “nice to have” to focus on what people care about

You will bring employer and employee closer together, motivate more, and deliver more – sometimes by doing less. Work smarter, not harder, remember!

Don’t forget. You don’t have to do it yourself. This is where we come in. We support you in implementing EVP.

 

Summary

  • Use your EVP results like a map, not a manual.
  • Communicate your priorities, your reasons, and your wins.
  • Don’t be afraid to do nothing — just be honest about it.
  • EVP will improve happiness, as you can take action or communicate better on things that are important. This in turn will improve engagement, and the result? Better results.

 

For more information on EVP, or how CHEER can help you maximise your EVP results it in your company, click here

For the most recent Employee Value Proposition newsletter, check out Linkedin