How I built an EVP in 100 days

Last year, I had the amazing opportunity to build an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) from scratch, so I thought I’d share how I did it. I’m not going to elaborate on why having an EVP is important or how it relates to your Employer Brand. In this article, I want to zoom in on the practical steps I took in order to end with a finished EVP linked to, and aligned with, the company culture and values.

Please note: This article describes my approach in a company of about 150 employees working either full remote, or in-office but with a lot of flexibility to work from home. This isn’t an exact science, but I’d say the framework can largely be up- or downscaled, depending on the company size and setup.

Now that’s cleared up, let’s dive in!

DAY 1 - 20 : INTRODUCING EMPLOYER BRANDING

Many Employer Brand professionals who are asked to build the EVP, are also the first ones who introduce the concept to the organisation.

Since there are so many expectations - and interpretations - regarding Employer Branding, I’ve found it very useful to proactively explain what it is all about.

Whether you’re allowed 10 minutes of presentation time during a company wide all-hands meeting, or you need to set up an info session per department. I’d advise you to take enough time to explain what you are about to do. This will help others understand the context and importance of what you bring. You can and should not do this on your own, so it's key for employees to know what role they are playing in the bigger picture. What you should include in your presentation:

• What employer branding is - and what it isn’t

Let people know - and at the same time remind the leadership - what you were hired for. Address and counter preconceptions about employer branding. Bonus points if you talk about strategy and how you will measure success. Keep it simple and focus on the added value.

• Why the organisation needs employer branding

This is the moment to show people that employer branding is not a fluffy nice-to-have, but essential for sustainable company growth. Hiring people who leave after a month doesn’t make (business) sense. Bring research data to prove the relevance of what you are doing.

• How you plan to define the employer brand

Give a high-level overview of the research steps and how they will lead you to the EVP. Linking this first step to concrete activation initiatives will emphasise the importance of the research. I created the visual below to explain this process in a straightforward way.

• What is expected of the employees

In the first phase you will conduct interviews and set up focus groups, so you need people’s engagement. By explaining why and how they are an essential part of this journey, you are more likely to get their buy-in. This is your first opportunity to create brand advocates.

Depending on the organisational context, you will also need to specifically talk about Employer Branding to the leadership. If the hierarchy doesn’t allow you to have direct access to this group, ask your leader to be an advocate and share with the leadership what they can expect to happen.

The most important thing is that you create the right expectations and start building relationships inside the organisation. Anyone with questions about employer branding should know they can reach out to you.

DAY 20 - 60 : RESEARCH TIME

Before being able to craft an EVP proposal, you need to get a clear view of the current state of things. I used four tools to gather the necessary input.

• Employee interviews

In total, I conducted 28 one-on-one interviews, representing around 20% of all employees. Each interview was structured around a list of around 15 predefined questions. They allowed people to elaborate on three main themes:

1. Their personal sense of purpose
2. How they experienced the work environment
3. What values they associated with the people and the organisation

During these sessions, I tried to create a space where people felt safe to speak openly. It is important to get to a place where people have enough trust to also open up about what could be improved, or personal struggles. Every exchange adds something to the information you will process at the end of the research.

The scale of your organisation will obviously impact the amount of interviews you conduct. I’d try to go for a number that allows for significant representation in terms of tenure, company department, diversity intersectionality etc.

• Employee focus groups

Next to these individual deep dives I also set up 4 focus groups of around 5 people each time, in total representing around 15% of the organisation. It was definitely interesting to see interpersonal conversations happening around the topics I was interviewing people about. Having this interaction added new insights to how people experience the company culture differently.

Keep in mind that not everyone feels comfortable sharing personal views in this type of setting. Consider setting this up like a brainstorm session where you collect both written an spoken input. For the same reason, I recommend not having groups bigger than six people. As with the interviews, try not to get involved in the conversations yourself, but rather guide them based on the questions you want to have answered.

• Leadership interviews

It’s important to get an understanding of the different views and expectations of the leadership when it comes to the aspired culture and work environment.

Comparing leadership input with the extensive employee research, enables you to pinpoint discrepancies or alternative interpretations of concepts.

For example: the value openness could mean being transparent about all company related information and decisions, but it could also mean being open to give and receive honest feedback, related to facing harsh truths.

Again, company size and hierarchies will impact how you can approach this. What’s key here, is to involve the leadership in this research phase and getting an idea of their preconceptions, views and expectations. Taking this step will also contextualise their role in the process. It’s important for the leadership to know that their input will impact the conclusion, but that it won’t fully determine it. Describing a company culture can’t be done by solely interviewing leaders. Stating the obvious, there is no one better than the people who are living the employee experience to actually describe it.

• Available resources

Don't ignore what's already there. Documentation about culture, values and the overall company mission will help you get an overview of what you are working with. This could be different things, for example:

1. The company mission and vision
2. Current values and linked behaviors
3. Employee engagement surveys
4. Company initiatives and status related to DEI

This list is of course non-exhaustive. The maturity of the organisation will determine what you can use. Also, beware of what these resources mean for your research. They are there to help you better understand what the employees and the leadership told you in person, but not for you to use as a lens when you’re talking to people in the organisation.

• Your eyes and ears

This sounds like a no-brainer, but when you’re caught up in the research phase, it’s important to consciously process what is happening around you. Whether you just joined the organisation or you’ve been there for a while, I believe keeping an open mind is extremely important, especially in the research phase.

Actively listening without any prejudice and observing how people behave, will give you a lot of insights. Every company has a culture, also the ones that haven’t defined it yet.

Just remember, you are not trying to find proof for a hypothesis, you’re merely gathering information.

This sounds very easy, but it's not always the case. For example, when you are talking to so many employees about the work environment and how they experience it, it can become harder to describe what you experience yourself. That's normal. In this phase you are observing what is happening around you whilst at the same time building enough trust for people to open up.

DAY 60 - 80 : ANALYSIS

Now that you have gathered all this input, you can finally start analysing the input. Whatever the framework you use, it’s essential to structure your insights in a way that helps you crystallise the information you received into a coherent text. The structure you use will be directly linked to the questions you asked during the interviews and focus groups.

I based my framework on the building blocks I found in the book “Give &? Get - Employer Branding” from Bryan Adams and Charlotte Marshall , which I recently recommended in a Linked post as well.

Practically, that meant going through my research and summarising what I learned regarding each of these topics:

• Vulnerabilities

What points of improvement do people see when it comes to the company culture, or what do they think needs more attention - especially if the company is going to grow. This will give you insight into what is still missing and where you can make an impact.

For example: Change is constant on all levels, which creates uncertainty. Everybody says they like change but you also need to be able to adapt quickly.

• Harsh realities

Put frankly, here you want to understand what people are willing to put up with. A great way of getting the answers you want is asking what you would potentially warn your friends about if they’d consider joining the company.

For example: You have to be ready to learn by doing. Of course you can follow courses, but here you learn to swim but jumping in the pool.

• True behaviours

Talking about concepts like company culture is important, but true behaviours are often the best indicators of what is really going on in an organisation. Adding this to the mix will also expose eventual differences between the aspired and the lived reality.

For example: People here are very supportive. Despite the fact that everyone is busy, you will get help when you need it. Everyone wants everyone to succeed.

• Strengths and benefits

If the harsh realities measure what you are willing to put up with, the strengths and benefits will show why it is all worth it in the end. Having a clear answer to this will help you convince the right candidates that will appreciate exactly what you have to offer.

For example: I totally love this hybrid way of working, it gives a lot of flexibility. You can decide what works best for you. It really maximises productivity.

• Opportunities

Every person is driven by different ambitions. The way people talk about their aspirations will help you understand the key motivators of the people in the company. Ideally, these ambitions align with - or at least don’t contradict - the values and overall company mission.

For example: There are a lot of very ambitious people here, this will greatly improve your career. The learning curve is crazy.

Please note that the above mentioned examples are fictional and I just added them to give an idea of the type of replies to look out for. Also keep in mind that this is an exercise in summarising and finding recurring themes.

Try not to get lost in details, but take a step back and look at all the input as a whole. If you put all the answers to a specific question next to each other, what patterns come to the surface?

After concisely summarising your research, it’s time to write the EVP. I started by writing a text that quite literally contained each of the five building blocks. It sounded quite uninspired, but it gave me a starting point to work from. There’s no rules about how long the final text should or can be, but the less words you need to get your message across, the better. Every word you add should bring clarity. If it doesn’t, let it go.

At this point, you might call in the help of experienced copywriters to help you bring the EVP to the next level. This is going to be at the center of how you’ll communicate the Employer Brand, so it has to make people feel something. I was so deep in the research that I could not get myself to bring it to that level. Make sure your briefing for the copywriters is spot-on. You want to inspire, but you also don't want your well thought-through message to get lost .

Last but not least: keep it real. I recently wrote an article about the importance of authenticity in Employer Branding, and that definitely applies to your EVP.

Day 80 - 100 : ALIGN ALIGN ALIGN

So, you’ve got your EVP, or at least, your proposal. Great. But you’re not done yet. It doesn’t mean much to have a finished description of what people can expect when they join your organisation, if you don’t have the buy-in of the people that will help you introduce it.

So take your proposal and present it to your manager and the leadership team. Again, depending on your organisation’s structure this will take more or less time and effort.

Prepare to receive feedback, but also to defend your proposal. You did not just pick this EVP out of thin air, so you shouldn’t just change it based on the feedback of one or two people.

Try to explain how you got to what you have, and to understand why certain things could or should be changed. Since you based your proposal on actual research, the outcome will probably not come as a total surprise.

What I found particularly powerful to share, are additional insights derived from the research. So show some literal quotes, zoom into what you noticed across the company and share your thoughts. This will prove that you now have a clear view on the current state of the culture and the employees' lived truth in the company. It will underline the structural approach you took to write this EVP.

Agreed on the EVP? Congratulations, your adventure is just starting! Next step: activating your Employer Brand.

DAY 100 - …

Once your work is done, leverage the moment and share it with the company! I can dedicate a separate article about how you can communicate and integrate your EVP, your company values and your employer brand into the organisation - and maybe I will ??. Just let it be clear that you should not merely upload your EVP to the knowledge base to forget about it.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article, and that it helped you in some way. Don't hesitate to share, like or leave a comment! Reach out or follow me if you are looking to establish, strengthen or refine your Employer Brand - or if you'd like to see more of my Employer Brand related content on LinkedIn.