Historically, we’ve put a lot of pressure on the EVP. It’s placed upon a golden throne as the almighty end goal, the shining beacon for organisations struggling to attract talent.
‘Create an EVP and you’ll attract all the peoples!’
But not all EVPs are created equal.
And when you end up keyword stuffing every single benefit AND the kitchen sink into your “selling” proposition, you end up creating this eye-wateringly dry and generic anything goes wafflemania that does anything BUT communicate to job seekers why you are more awesome than your competitors.
But maybe there’s another, more effective way of celebrating your unique offer? One that is punchy, compelling and sells the very best of you.
Let’s explore what an EVP is meant to be, and how you can turn yours into an attention-grabbing talent catcher.
What’s an EVP?
EVPs are funny things. Is it a statement of offer? Is it a summary of your brand essence? Is it… e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g we offer and expect?
Google ‘What is an EVP?’ and most results describe it as a proposition / statement that establishes –
‘the unique value you offer as an employer to employees in return for their skills and experiences.’
But instead of being compelling, this proposition has become all encompassing. It’s being designed to cover off all the ‘key components’ from your financial offerings (compensation, benefits and perks), growth and development, community / culture, and purpose. And these days, as more orgs clamper to stand out, they find even more things to include.
For sure. These components all go into establishing your offer, and some will become the core pillars underpinning your EVP. But they don’t ALL need to be included in the EVP pitch.
Because when you stuff EVERYTHING into a single statement, what you end up with is something verbose and waffly and indistinguishable from the next because there’s only so much you can say when you have to say everything else.
Waffly isn’t compelling, it’s distracting.
How to turn cookie-cutter into attention-grabber
An EVP is to employers what a Unique Selling Proposition is to consumer brands. The difference, however, is that a USP doesn’t try to include everything. A USP is a more concise selling proposition focused on the one or two BIG things that make that brand incomparable to its competitors.
Here’s how to figure out these one or two big things.
1. Employee interviews & surveys
Face to face interviews, phone interviews, AND surveys. You can gleam more information and zero in on trends and common themes during a conversation, so it’s important to include interviews for more qualitative data and to connect with your employees’ language.
Ask things like why they applied, why they stay, what surprised them most about working for you, what frustrates them, why people leave, and how your workplace values and policies have improved their life (e.g. ‘What’s your experience been like with flexible working here?’). Include financial and intangible incentives.
When collating your data, highlight the recurring themes, phrases and sentiment that’s been repeated throughout most conversations as these may very well be your ‘big things’.
2. Your competitive advantage
Note the core values and common themes your employees frequently mention – the experiences that you heard mentioned so often your skin prickled towards the end because you knew – wow, this is important here.
These will be the concepts/pillars that underpin your EVP. Weight (rank) them according to their impact/frequency amongst employees.
Now consider, how do these things compare to your competitors? Which of these ‘big things’ is something you do remarkably different to your competitors?
For example – Firm lawyers who were ‘burned out' chasing new clients and clocking overtime hours’, creating a sense that they had ‘no personal life’ and would have to fight for time off, now enjoy ‘clocking off at 4pm every day’ / working from home providing in-house legal support and monthly personal days off.
Or – discipline specialists who’ve worked as a one-in-one thousand ‘cog-in-a-machine’ employee for a larger consulting enterprise, feeling ‘pigeon-holed’ into one area of their field and like their ‘career has flatlined’, who now enjoy the broad experiences and skills development working across disciplines, teams and projects within a smaller business.
What makes YOU remarkably different? What are the painpoints and frustrations that you have solved / you can solve? These are your power poses. This is what you might lead with in your main EVP pitch.
3. Focus on your one or two BIG things (and leave the rest to your underpinning pillars/concepts)
The more information you try to include in any message, the less information is comprehended. So, instead of trying to jam absolutely everything on offer into your EVP pitch, trim the fat and focus on the few remarkably different things that set you apart from others.
All anyone really wants to know is how your offer will improve their career and/or life based on their current pressing need. Show them this sexy selling point/s and you’ll grab attention and spark curiosity. Used this way, the EVP pitch entices your audience to seek more information (which is where your underpinning pillars/core concepts can beef up your offer as standalone “bonus” selling points that clinch the deal).
4. Concise and compelling language
Finally, add some zest to your copy!
Ditch the cliches and rhetoric you’re used to reading – ‘flexible work-life balance’ and ‘career progression’ that everyone uses but no one explains what it looks like in your organisation, so it just comes across uninspiringly ‘meh’.
Instead:
Use your employees’ words
Draw from the emotive language and sentiment your employees used during interviews and inject it in your EVP copy to drive your unique offer home. Using the above examples, it could look something like this –
“We’ve banished burnout and reigned in calm, connection and community...”
“You aren’t pigeon-holed here, so your career never flatlines. You’ll have a hand in every project from start to finish as we…”
Using your employees’ actual language helps you be more specific so you can ditch the corp talk and write real words that will better connect with your target audience (because employees ARE your target audience!).
Keep your sentences short
…and under twenty-five words to avoid heading into What-The? Waffle Territory. You want an engaging human-sounding tone and not a stupefying keyword-stuffed corporate tone.
Write in an active, conversational voice
Keep your selling proposition punchy and compelling and able to, you know… sell your organisation. This also means avoid starting sentences with -ING words because they really take the sting out of any message, too.
Et voila! New attention-grabbing EVP [just make sure you promote it, too]
Now you have this punchy, compelling EVP pitch that really sets your strongest employer offer apart – make sure you communicate it everywhere! Because merely having an EVP is not enough.
Explore employer branding and recruitment marketing activities to help get your EVP in front of your internal and external audiences and it truly will be the golden-throne-seated talent-catcher you hoped it would be.
*This article was written with smaller businesses in mind who maybe don’t have the budget and inclination for an agency-led EVP process.
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