Employee value proposition versus employer brand

Many companies find an interesting gap between what they advertise in their “culture posters” and what people experience, Blanya Correal explains.

The human capital areas have been evolving rapidly in regard to the approach for attracting and connecting with talent. These days we have identified practices within companies, aimed at their collaborators, that have been inspired on marketing processes relating to customer management, which is truly positive because, even though the collaborator is part of the organization, he is, in essence, an internal client.

One of the most comprehensive tools in this sense is the EVP (Employee value proposition) or value proposition for the employee or collaborator. It consists of the integration of the human management processes associated to the attraction, connection with and retention of talent.

Its development involves the identification of the unique attributes offered by the company to its employees, ensuring that these attributes generate value for the collaborator, in such a way that they become the reasons for the employee to want to remain in the company.

In this sense, the development of an EVP consists of three key steps:

1. What do I look for in a company?

The first step of the Value Proposition consists of the identification of the characteristics “sought” by collaborators in an employer; these characteristics are usually segmented by the collaborators’ demographics in terms of age and marital status, for example.

Today, we are increasingly seeing the way in which people look for purpose, a reasoning that they can connect with and makes them feel that their daily work has a greater impact on other people, beyond making products or identifying with a well-known brand.

We usually find that these days, the majority of persons from various generations seek a positive environment, with well-developed leaderships, the possibility of growth and flexible working conditions.

2. Do I find what I look for in a company here?

The second step has to do with the characteristics that collaborators find in the reality of their workplace. Many companies find an interesting gap between what they advertise in their “culture posters” and what people experience.

This gap becomes narrower with each passing day; however, we still find that the experience of that employee is totally linked to his work team’s leadership, as if many mini-worlds were connected; the crux here is the extent to which that “mini-world” resembles that which the company wants. Additionally, the most important element for defining these attractive attributes that are characteristic of the company is that they must also be consistent with the business strategy.

That is, if we are speaking of growth and expansion, the EVP must promote attributes that attract and connect with the profiles of professionals that seek this type of company.

3. Is what I wantand find here unique?

Once we have the intersection between what the collaborator seeks in general and what he finds in his company we come to the third step.  To the extent that an attribute within an organization is seen by its employees as something that is hard to find in the market, it becomes a competitive advantage.

This will become a differentiator that truly plays a strategic role in the connection with employees to the extent in which the human process of the business promotes consistency with that competitive advantage,  The challenge in this sense is that the initiatives that are defined are executed and communicated with absolute consistency. And when this is achieved, your own collaborators will be the best ambassadors of the employing brand.

What is the relationship between the EVP and the employer brand?

Lastly, there are two elements that provide the connection between people and the organization; however, even though they are completely different, they play complementary roles. The employer brand has the promise that the organization makes to is collaborators as its central axis, expressed in an inspiring manner, in order to generate maximum recallability. Nevertheless. If this promise is not fulfilled in real life, it will probably be a source of frustration  inside the company, which would ultimately have an impact on the organization’s reputation as an employer.

These are only some of the elements that currently have an influence on business strategies from the human point of view; so, in the next series of articles we will explore these topics in depth.