By Elin Thomasian, Senior Vice President of Strategic Consulting, TalentNeuron
Key Takeaways:
- The workforce is evolving, and employees are seeking more than just a paycheck. They want to work for companies that align with their values and offer a fulfilling work experience.
- An employee value proposition (EVP) is crucial for attracting and retaining top talent. It should encompass various aspects of the employee experience, including workplace environment, culture, growth opportunities, and company mission.
- Data analysis plays a vital role in understanding the needs of the talent pool and competitors’ strategies. By leveraging labor market insights and feedback from employees and applicants, organizations can develop a compelling EVP that resonates with today’s workforce.
It’s become somewhat of a cliché to say that building and planning for the best workforce in today’s labor market is more difficult than ever before, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Even amid headlines claiming that “the job market is normalizing” or hitting important recovery milestones, recruiters know that the reality is more complicated. Sure, available labor is growing, and open roles are shrinking. However, lingering pandemic-related effects mean that organizations must be informed and strategic about recruiting and retaining the best teams to suit organizational needs, using the rich talent data available as a competitive differentiator.
Perhaps the most significant among these effects is the public’s changing view of what it means to work. There are two prevalent beliefs across the workforce that are making recruiters reassess the traditional wisdom about what compels them to work for an organization:
- You are not your job/salary. More and more, employees are separating their work from their identity. In the days of gig work, rapid technological change, and ongoing economic volatility, the tight connections between workers and their titles, employers, or even areas of expertise are now not as highly prioritized by the talent pool.
- Your workplace should reflect your values. Members of the workforce are increasingly seeking out employers with whom they share values and ideals. This is especially true of the Gen Z and Millennial workforce, who are increasingly interested in working for companies that speak to them on a more personal level, whether through their work, policies, or public personas.
Staffing professionals are having such a difficult time navigating this moment because these evolving workforce perspectives have redefined the candidate decision-making processes. It’s no longer just about what the job pays, how good the health insurance plan is, or the PTO processes; it’s about the holistic experience a company can offer. It’s about your employee value proposition (EVP) to the workforce.
What makes a compelling EVP?
Businesses need to strategize to stand out in a sea of highly competitive opportunities in order to attract and maintain the most effective workforce. This is true whether a potential applicant is discovering a posting on LinkedIn or a company website, a successful candidate is receiving an offer, or an employee is assessing whether their current position is right for them. When pay and benefits can be matched by competing organizations, the decision often boils down to the other elements of worker experience, like culture, growth opportunities, and the mission, vision, and values of the company.
Data enables an organization’s EVP to be strategically engaged with the workforce to cover all elements of the workplace experience, as the foundation of the “employer brand” — a company’s public-facing identity with which it connects to the talent pool. EVP is intended to show how you put your values into action to support workers, outlining various aspects of working life, like:
- Physical and digital workplace environments
- Workforce and colleague relationships
- Growth opportunities
- Culture and values, including company mission, ethics, diversity, inclusion practices
The above list includes just a few examples of potential EVP elements that data analysis of existing job postings can address, but it is by no means comprehensive. At the end of the day, an EVP should highlight anything about the company’s employee experience that differentiates it from the status quo, and intelligence about the rest of the job field is vital to achieving this. With an optimized, data-first EVP, the employer can showcase the programs, policies, and people-management initiatives that shape daily life, thus becoming an extremely effective recruitment and retention tool.
Making EVP the MVP
What businesses don’t have is a data-backed solution to convert talent pool needs into a compelling offer for potential candidates and their existing workforce. This is due, in part, to the fact that these unique elements tend to arise organically and ad hoc as a response to a changing norm here or a suggestion made there. They’re rarely positioned as part of the cohesive set of practices they are. Using data analysis to bring coherence to these approaches can elevate organizations’ approach to recruitment.
Figuring out the EVP to attract and retain top talent in an industry demands an analytical approach using available data, alongside a deep dive into the business. It should happen on three levels:
Your people
There’s no better source for insight on what’s working and what’s not than current employees. Connecting with workers at all levels of the enterprise can help identify the elements of the workplace that keep current employees around — and the things that could be better. Getting insight into the latter can be difficult, as people may feel uncomfortable criticizing the businesses. However, it’s integral insight that will help you ensure what you offer embodies the EVP you wish to provide.
By the same token, applicants can provide some visibility into the elements workers in your labor pool consider when weighing their options. It can also shed light on what your current messaging is portraying to applicants, as they may be inclined to highlight elements they believe align with your business’ ethos.
Competitors
An EVP is all about setting yourself apart, so knowing your EVP’s strengths and weaknesses compared to other major employers in an industry, geography, or space is key. You may think your educational programs are industry-leading, but there’s no way to know for sure if you’re not looking at the listing next to yours. By the same token, if everyone else is making their workers return to the office, but you’re all-in on workplace flexibility, putting that front and center might boost your competitiveness. Sentiment analysis also enables you to compare your overall sentiment rating and can utilize employee ratings by category to pinpoint areas for improvement.
Moreover, even if you’re not in direct competition for talent, you may find that other industries have discovered strategies that employees love and would translate well into your business.
Leadership
Key stakeholders across departments are the people who guide the company’s future, and they’re the people from whom the corporate ethos stems. Talking to these individuals can help you put together a rough outline that represents what the company brings to the table and notes how and why it aligns with the overall mission and existing employer brand.
It’s also a good forum for brainstorming and weighing the benefits of introducing new elements into the EVP. After all, these are the decision-makers.
Perfect personas
Organizationally, a business understands what it needs to meet strategic goals and has a clear idea of the skills and attributes it needs from the workforce. To marry the needs of the talent pool with those of the organization, it must create a fictional “persona” of the ideal employee.
The process involves identifying key characteristics through consensus-building and setting clear goals using internal and external labor market data and validating them with internal focus groups and surveys to ensure they are meeting the needs of the organization. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can help to analyze employee feedback to guide adjustments, so organizations can brainstorm applications for these personas, aligning them with best practices to enhance their EVP.
Specialized market intelligence and analytics platforms can automate real-time market data evaluation, so recruitment teams have access to insight into the needs of the workforce and competitors’ strategies.
Not a differentiator. The differentiator.
The days of defining one’s worth by their job or salary are fading, replaced by a desire for meaningful work that aligns with personal values and affords them the lifestyle they want. To plan a workforce to draw and maintain the top talent in an industry, employers need to be able to identify and articulate what sets their workplaces apart beyond just competitive pay and benefits. They must have a data-backed, nuanced understanding of evolving worker expectations and the ideal employee persona — and put learnings into practice with a compelling, specific, and competitive EVP.
By leveraging labor market insights and data derived from both employees and applicants, organizations can craft and maintain an EVP that resonates with today’s talent pool.
Elin Thomasian leads the strategic consulting services at TalentNeuron, a leader in global labor market intelligence. She has over a decade of experience driving talent strategies for leading Fortune 500 companies including Goldman Sachs, Moody’s, and Prudential along with HCM software companies like Workday and UKG.
