People Value Proposition

Design & deploy your People Value Proposition

2022 finds us all amid an ultra-competitive and globalised talent market. The great resignation and the war for talent are phrases used so frequently that they have become almost ubiquitous. Eurostat (2020) highlights a significant growing % of companies across all countries in Europe in the ICT and Technology sectors reporting hard-to-fill vacancy challenges. Many of us are choosing alternative work paths- with an average of between 20-25% expected to work in some form of freelancing capacity over the next 5 years.

Technology Organisations are not helping themselves

Organisations are not necessarily helping themselves in this hyper-competitive talent market. From our extensive employee experience, proposition, and brand research of multiple organisations in the technology sector we consistently see:

• No consensus view or connected strategy on what the people experience, or proposition is in an organisation
• No program of work focused on consistently improving the people experience or the overall people proposition
• A resulting lack of appreciation by employees of the value elements provided to them by the organisation
• A lack of alignment and a lack of clarity in what that organisation is great at
• No clear ownership of the people's experiences and proposition
• Weak employer branding and communication strategies deployed by marketing functions Bland engagement strategies and vanilla recruitment campaigns that don’t fully resonate with the right candidates

Introducing the PVP

It is essential that technology organisations get serious about defining holistically the value they are providing to current & future employees, nail what makes them unique, and communicate effectively to the talent market. This means fully designing and deploying a People Value Proposition (PVP). A PVP is a total design of the value that people receive when they join and stay in a business. It is the essence, the experiences, the culture, and the story of an organisation all rolled into one.

Without a fully designed PVP, how can organisations possibly portray their employer brand to the market in the right way? How can they truly resonate with the people that would thrive in the business? How can they keep people engaged through times of turbulence?

A fully developed PVP and supporting engagement initiatives have multiple and wide-reaching positive consequences for your business including:

• Attracting the best people & broadening the pool
• Decreasing time to hire
• Boosting employee’s morale
• Increasing retention
• Reducing the cost of hiring
• Enhancing employee and customer satisfaction
• Enabling people and HR management to have a greater strategic impact
• Consistency of communications internally and externally

Through our research, we have identified 20 key elements (shown in diagram 1) that are important to consider in assessing and designing a comprehensive PVP for technology organisations. These elements cover everything from the obvious- Remuneration, Benefits & Perks to the not-so-obvious like Social Capital, Innovation & Technology, and Leadership Behaviours.

PVP in Action

Diagram 1: The FOWI PVP Plot - 3 Teams

Diagram 1 highlights an example of a PVP assessment conducted across the 20 key elements by the FOWI in a technology organisation (generified) as a basis to create an overall PVP program and associated initiatives. This plot highlights the level of maturity & excellence across each key PVP area.

What was initially striking in this project was the lack of consensus and alignment by the leadership team on what made their organisation unique and what areas of strength they had across the 20 areas. This resulted in several internal engagement challenges and problems with the external amplification of the employer brand. And this organisation is not unique- it is a common finding in many of our PVP projects.

Process & Impact

This initial assessment formed part of the ‘Essence’ step of a comprehensive PVP program deployed with the organisation which followed a simple 5 step process (Diagram 2) where we developed an overreaching and agreed PVP, created a new story for the overall employer proposition, created a set of new employee experience initiatives, developed a unique set of themes that were utilised as a mechanism for meaningful internal employee engagement, and activated a number of unique in-market social and multi-media campaigns.

Conclusion

Any modern technology organisation wanting to find the best talent to power their scaling and growth goals should seriously consider the development of a People Value Proposition. It is key to differentiating an organisation in a competitive talent landscape and acts as the basis for a meaningful and purposefully designed employee experience that attracts, retains, and excites current & future talent in equal measure.

About the Future of Work Institute PVP services

At Cpl’s Future of Work Institute, we are helping organisations to become talent destinations through a total approach to designing and deploying People Value Propositions, key engagement initiatives, and communication strategies. Because of our unique co-creation approach not only can we help you design your PVP to the needs of the employees and organisation, but we can also create data-driven marketing campaigns and content to drive the interest and attraction of your future employees.

Our offering is unique in the market as not only are we experts in people strategy, proposition development, employer brand, and engagement, but we are part of Cpl and Outsourcing Inc who every day are living with the realities of finding the best people possible for our clients. These deep real-world experiences give substance to our style and have helped us create strategies that work.

?Our PVP services include:

• People Value Proposition Assessment- Using our PVP model we can conduct a deep-dive assessment of your existing people value proposition using our PVP model through cross-functional workshops, social footprint analysis, and online surveys
• People Value Proposition Strategy Development- Using our co-creation processes we can develop an Ideal People Value Proposition based on 1, 3, or 5-year horizons and deploy key initiatives to generate quick wins and long term impact against KPIs
• Employer Brand Development/Enhancement- Regardless of where you are on your journey, we can enhance your existing employer brand and communications strategies or fully develop them from scratch. This includes everything from brand essence, key themes, stories, visuals, and everything in between.
• Recruitment Marketing & Audience Engagement- We can fully design and deploy data-driven localised recruitment marketing and audience engagement campaigns across multiple platforms and mediums.

Barry Winkless, CSO Cpl, Head of the Future of Work Institute.

References

1. Future of Work World (2021) Future of Work Institute Whitepaper
2. Eurostat (2020)