What are the best ways to communicate and showcase your EVP to potential and current employees?

Defining a clear and authentic EVP is foundational to any employer branding strategy. It's essential to remember that an EVP isn't just a marketing tool: it's a promise to current and potential employees. Regularly refine your EVP. As the company evolves, so do its values and offerings. Engage in annual EVP review sessions with cross-functional teams to ensure it remains relevant and resonant. If you are an international organization with values and EVPs provided by the parent company, you may not have the freedom to change it at will. In that case make sure to interpret them and find a viable way to adapt it to your culture. It will have real impact if it adresses your employees and potential candidates in your region or country

An EVP is an important tool to help you show your attributes and why should someone choose to work with you. Even though it also displays some marketing parts, such as transforming the key ideas into compealing messages, an EVP is a guideline of what you can deliver and a north to keep helping you to develop that strategy. Even though we build an EVP with tons of opinion from employees, we also should think about what the company whats to become and how has been crossing that path.

Firstly, I’d recommend considering what EVP should mean to your organization, job seekers, and employees. Don’t worry about the industry terms, solve the right problem. Communicating value is more complex than many organizations realize. Understanding how internal and external audiences (stakeholder relationships) decide what is valuable is important. There are a lot of variables in those judgments, as well as a lot of emotion and hard-to-differentiate elements. People judge value according to their career goals above all else, and if your EVP is a vague slogan about the enterprise, it’ll have near zero impact.

Best way to start is to conduct surveys, interviews, and analysis to gather insights from employees and candidates and refine your EVP to authentically reflect the unique benefits and opportunities your company offers

Your employees are your best ambassadors. Encourage them to share their experiences and perspectives about working for your company on social media and in their personal networks. Sharing employee testimonials are a great way to show potential candidates what it's really like to work for your company.

Before launching, ensure your EVP is deeply ingrained within your organization. It becomes an asset when employees live by the EVP and its values. Initially, focus on internal communication channels When transitioning externally, selecting the right channels for your EVP is as vital as the content itself. It's essential to reach potential candidates in their preferred format Think about organizing interactive webinars or Q&A sessions. This allows potential candidates to engage with current employees, showcasing the EVP in real-time and promoting community and transparency The style and platform should adapt to the target audience. A quick way to determine this is by inquiring about the work-related media habits of your current employees.

Segment your target audiences and develop persona toolkits as a guide. You will need those for your content and channel strategy. Do consider how you can improve the delivery of experience across all your touchpoints.

We should also choose the channel by the target audience adapting the tone and the communication campaign accordingly. And of course, we cannot forget the company reputation platforms that nowadays play a key information source for those who are thinking about joining our company or are already candidates in a selection process with us.

You don't need to be everywhere!! You just need to be where your target talents are; and this is for both your current and future employees. Companies get tempted to hop on the latest online platform because they hear so much buzz about it, but the best channels are the channels that your audience is using; be strategic -- if it's just 1 or 2 platforms, then focus on them. Also, study the best content formats for each of those platforms to optimize and maximize your message, engagement, and resources.

?? Catch the right channels to showcase your EVP effectively: 1?? Internal platforms - use intranets/internal social networks to reinforce EVP among current employees. Regular updates, success stories, benefits reminders - keep the team aligned. 2?? Social Media - platforms like LinkedIn & Instagram are perfect for showcasing your EVP to potential employees. Share authentic stories and insights into company culture. 3?? Career site - career website should highlight EVP elements like growth opportunities, culture, and benefits. 4?? Email campaigns - personalized emails can effectively communicate EVP updates to current/potential employees. Consistency & authenticity! Align your messages across channels to reinforce your EVP effectively! ?

Showcasing your company culture and stories is like hosting a vibrant dinner where everyone shares their unique dish—each one a reflection of your EVP Highlighting employee experiences that embody your EVP—real authentic stories showcasing how your values translate into daily life. Encourage your advocates, ambassadors to share their journeys, successes, and even challenges. Visual storytelling is definitely the need of the hour. Powerful videos and photos on LinkedIn to bring your culture to life.

Stories have the power to humanize a brand and make the EVP tangible. By sharing real-life experiences and testimonials, organizations can paint a vivid picture of what it's truly like to work there. Launch a regularly 'Day in the Life' series, where employees from various departments share their typical workday, challenges, and achievements. This provides a genuine glimpse into the company culture and the lived experience of the EVP.

In my experience, people's stories have the power to connect with the TG (Target Group) very effectively. While we identify our TG, we should parallelly identify individuals that closely match the TG within the organization. Publishing these stories would enable the organisation to reach out to the TG in a way that is impactful and engaging. This also helps the peer group support the story for better reach on social. We can plan both employee stories and leadership stories in various narrative formats (A Day in the Life of / Ask-me-anything / Formal interview and more). Such content is also well suited for a robust employee advocacy and referral program, further helping the organisation's efforts for better hiring and retention.

Having spent countless hours looking through hundreds of career pages, I think there is a real opportunity for companies to lean into using more authentic and engaging employee stories. Whilst written testimonials provide insights from employees, they can fall short showcasing the true culture and impact a company has on its employees, whilst high-end production videos can be just that - too produced and miss the mark on speaking directly to the applicant/candidate in an authentic tone. The middle point, employee-generated video content, is a sweet spot that can genuinely showcase culture and personality whilst also elevating the voice of their employees.

How can you better show your company's organizational culture if not through employee stories? Here are some concrete examples of what we do at Kaufland Romania: - Our CEO and Kaufland volunteers are involved in many sustainability and CSR projects. We make videos for social media, as well as interviews and press releases. - We support and implement many activities and projects for people with disabilities, as a result of our ACCES program, where we offer jobs to people with disabilities in the company and encourage them to apply. - We are also close to young people through our participation in festivals, but also through special internal projects for them and solid partnerships with several universities in the country.

Involving your leaders and employees into communicating the EVP can result better reach, a stronger image, and more applications from candidates wishing to fill empty positions. The costs of spreading employee messages usually aren’t high for organizations, but it's a win-win both for the company and its employees.

89% of people trust recommendations from friends more than messages from advertisements. People need evidence of what kind of workplace we are, not just promises. Our employees and leaders are the proof they seek, and without their engagement, we won't be able to build an authentic employer brand that genuinely attracts the target audience that matters to us.

Recognize employees and leaders who are championing your employer brand and bringing it to life internally and externally. This will reinforce the behavior and help educate other employees on what good looks like. Did someone share an excellent social media post? Engage with it via your corporate channels! Did a candidate commend a recruiter for delivering an exceptional candidate experience? Celebrate the win internally and share the example with your internal team to educate and up skill others.

Encourage Sharing on Social Media in 3 ways: Employee Advocacy Programs: Create a structured program where employees and leaders are encouraged and rewarded for sharing positive aspects of their work experiences on social media. Content Creation: Provide guidelines and resources to help them create engaging posts, such as stories about their daily work, team accomplishments, or participation in company events. Hashtags and Campaigns: Develop company-specific hashtags and social media campaigns that employees can use to increase visibility and consistency.

Get people to share: What's the best experience you have had here? Why was it great? How did it make you feel? What skills or knowledge has it given you for the future? Why couldn't you have had that same experience anywhere else?

Marketing attribution has always been a discussion within the employer brand and HR teams. There are a few tools which can connect your platforms to provide a better picture across the funnel. How success looks like can be defined both at a brand level and at a campaign level. Overall, your key objectives for EVP are to attract qualified candidates efficiently and to improve employee retention. You should have access to data at every stage of the lifecycle/funnel to provide a complete holistic picture. And access to insights and data at various stages allows you to address gaps, adjust and improve your strategy and tactics.

An EVP is like a living organism. It needs regular attention, feeding and nurturing as it evolves and develops over time. No EVP is ever "done". You will need to continually evaluate it. Top Tips: Track and analyse: EVP perception, recruitment, retention, and engagement metrics regularly to gauge effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. Diverse Tools: Employ surveys, analytics, feedback mechanisms, and industry benchmarks to gather comprehensive insights into EVP performance and employee sentiment. Iterative Enhancement: Use data-driven insights to refine EVP, addressing gaps and seizing opportunities to align with evolving employee expectations and market trends, ensuring long-term competitiveness and employee satisfaction.

To truly understand and enhance your EVP, think of it as an ongoing dialogue rather than a static message. Start by creating an 'EVP Listening Post'—a digital forum or feedback loop where current and potential employees can share their experiences and perceptions of your EVP in real-time. Utilize sentiment analysis tools to gauge emotions and reactions across various platforms, turning qualitative feedback into quantifiable data. Host periodic 'EVP Hackathons', inviting employees to brainstorm innovative solutions to improve and evolve your EVP. This proactive and inclusive approach ensures your EVP remains dynamic, relevant, and aligned with the aspirations of your workforce, driving continuous improvement and engagement.

Regularly communicate and reinforce your EVP through internal communication channels such as newsletters, intranets, company-wide emails, or digital signage. Use these channels to share success stories, recognize employees who exemplify your EVP, and highlight upcoming events or initiatives that align with your EVP values.