The importance of a strong Employee Value Proposition

The importance of a strong Employee Value Proposition?- Emily Ablett

This month, I attended a webinar on The Compensation & Benefits Trends to watch out for in 2023. It explored the wider EVP offering (Employee Value Proposition: essentially, an employer’s effort to attract and retain employees) and the most recent trends which are being seen so far this year.?

One of the biggest trends was based on external factors and their effect on decisions employees are making in the workplace. With the current cost-of-living crisis, compensation has become more important than ever. Employees are making decisions based on financials over what they might want/desire. With some organisations expecting employees back in the office at least 3-4 days a week, we have already seen an increase in job changes based on how flexibility an organisation is with working from the office due to travel and childcare expenses. It’s not sustainable for all organisations to be increasing their salaries as this might not be sustainable for them however, it’s important that we are encouraging salary equity that matches expectations and salary transparency to open up communication with their employees to build trust.

Saying this, pay seems to be one of the biggest attractors to a role currently but once individuals are in an organisation it’s not the biggest component to employee satisfaction and retention.

At the moment, there is a huge struggle for attraction and retention – looking at your overall EVP could be the solution to both but to have an effective EVP it’s important to truly understand the team and what is driving their behaviour. We are seeing a big shift in the employer/employee dynamic – political and economic issues are becoming more pressuring and what happens in the wider world is having a big impact on how employees feel and behave at work. It’s important for businesses to take a step back and understand their team, to see where they are and how to best support them. This may be through open-forums or feedback surveys to find out what would be most beneficial to implement which is specific to their needs.

Attracting Candidates

In terms of attraction, candidates have much more bargaining power now than ever before. Whilst matching competitors may help attract candidates, it’s not a sustainable option in the long-run and is more of a short-term staffing fix. Organisations need to create long-term solutions that they can afford.

The benefits of having a strong EVP is that is allows organisations to target specific individuals. It’s a more tailored solution that responds to the employee voice, allows businesses to offer a robust offering and support engagement.

The benefits that used to attract candidates are no longer as relevant. Research has found that the biggest trends of 2023 so far are:

• Allowing for flexibility: employees like to know they have flexibility in their working week e.g. being able to choose what days they are in the office, core/flexible working hours, 4 days weeks, work from anywhere, unlimited holiday
• Benefits that link to wellbeing rewards: such as Yulife which is an app that incentivises being active and walking or practicing meditation helps you collect coins for your steps which can be converted into vouchers for various retail companies
• Purposeful benefits: benefits that support making a positive change in the world e.g. charity days

Purposeful benefits have also been seen to be prominent for attracting Gen Z candidates, this generation is particularly interested in understanding what an organisation stands for, whether it’s social mobility or environmental impact, they look for organisations that have a wider purpose and impact on the world.

Therefore, it’s important that an organisations EVP isn’t just about financials although important it should also be about the culture, internal relationships and world impact –ultimately it needs to be meaningful.

At JourneyHR we do a lot of work with our clients to help them define and regularly refine their Employee Value Proposition.?Our solutions range from engagement surveys that have industry benchmarks, benchmarking benefits and salaries, designing inclusive people practices etc.?If you’d like to find out more please contact: [email protected]