Building an Employee Value Proposition (EVP): How to build an EVP and why it’s important for attracting and retaining top talent - Let’s Talk Talent Podcast Episode 17

Hi and welcome to the Let's Talk Talent podcast. We're going to be sharing over a series of episodes, tips and techniques, bringing our friends and family to share their stories, their experience of working life today, because together we can create simply irresistible organizations. Happy listening. Hi, and welcome to Let's Talk Talent's 17th episode of our podcast.

I cannot believe we're on episode 17, but I'm really excited today because I've got a wonderful friend who's going to be talking to us about employee value proposition. For those of you that have listened before, you'll know me. I'm Jo Taylor. I'm MD of Let's Talk Talent, and I've got Philomena Gray, who is Chief People Officer of Imagination.

How are you doing, Phil? I'm absolutely fine, Jo. Thank you for inviting me along. Brilliant.

So we're going to talk about employee value proposition today. And I kind of wanted to know, so what is employee value proposition? Interestingly, when you asked me to talk about this subject, I just went online and I thought, what is the actual definition of an employee value proposition that sort of people understand widely. And it's all about the unique set of benefits that an employee receives for, you know, working within your organization, giving their skills, their capabilities, their knowledge and their experience, and what they can bring to that organization.

And I think that sort of sits where my head is in terms of employee value proposition. And rather than saying that, I might just do EVP going forward. But for me, it's what makes us stand out from our competitors as well because we are all vying for the same talent and you know why should somebody join imagination what is it that sets us apart so the benefits and the culture are part and parcel and go hand in hand together to define that EVP I think overlapping that is is your company sort of value your company offering people feeling proud about working for the organization, people feeling motivated and encouraged to really be the best at what they do every single day of the week.

And I think rewarding compensation is one part of that, but it's certainly a lot more than I think the simplest definition of what an EVP stands for, to me anyway. So how does an EVP differentiate from a customer value proposition? Are they interlinked? Should we be thinking about both of them in the context of how we attract and how we get great people and keep great people?

Yeah, it's interesting. At Imagination, they did the commercial sort of CVP before they did anything in terms of EVP. And I think realistically, COVID has forced them to take it that way around. They fundamentally had to transform the business and how it operates because we're a live experience events organisation.

And during COVID, of course, live events got stopped. But the core proposition of our organization is built on four values, curiosity, rigor, brave and respectful. And everything we do as a commercial organization, we ask ourselves those questions in terms of are we being curious when we put a proposition to a customer? Are we being rigorous in terms of what we end up with?

Are we being really brave and breaking the boundaries and do we respect, you know, the people and the customers and the clients that we work with? So that has sort of been set for me. I joined the organization in October last year and those values have been set on a commercial proposition. and so for me I'm working with those four values to make sure that everything we do from an employee perspective and that EVP positioning is overlapped to the commercial positioning so for me I suppose you know that that answer's been given to me because of the way the organization transformed itself last year so I do think that we we have our customer value proposition and our EVP is flowing nicely from there.

So how do you then take that and start to build something, as you said, that people want to work for? So whether you're kind of attracting people or keeping people, how do you bring it alive across that employee experience? Otherwise, it's just another thing, isn't it, that feels sexy but doesn't really go anywhere? Yeah, I mean, we have 400 employees across 14 offices globally.

So you know taking all of sort of you know diversity cultural nuances and all of that into account whenever we do anything from a people perspective My appointment was very much about imagination growing up through years of sort of just growth because it was good at what it did to actually now being more people centric internally. and looking at what do we do as an organization to encourage people to want to join the organization, but also want to stay within the organization.

And how do we grow the organization on that basis and putting people at the heart of the decisions that we make? So for me, at Imagination, we're literally looking at absolutely everything that we do, all of those key moments that matter for employees from onboarding to reward to personal development and growth. And even to offboarding, everything we do, all those moments that matter, where are we with our EVP? Where are we when we are being curious and rigorous and brave and respectful when it comes to each of those key moments that we make sure that we've got an element of, we can tag one of our core values to that EVP.

And, you know, we're a 50 year old startup. We are been around a very long time. But in the last sort of two years with COVID, we've had to really transition ourselves. And, you know, the world is our oyster with that EVP proposition.

But we are really honing in on and what is in it for the employee for the first time ever. And I think that will help change and draw new talent to the organization because our reputational organization should be out there loud and clear. And that's something that's relatively new to imagination. You either know imagination because you're in the industry and you know it well, or you don't know imagination and you don't know what you don't know.

So that's where our EVP will really transition our talent acquisition strategy going forward. So what are the challenges do you think that you're facing or that people listening to this podcast will be thinking, OK, that makes sense, but where do I start? yeah when when and again all of those key moments that matter are all key moments that matter for different people at different stages in their careers and different tenures with the organization but what we have tried to do is look at what is our biggest issue at the minute as an organization and we've got two one of them is talent acquisition and everybody's got that same problem right we're all struggling for that war for talent that we've been talking about for years and years and years, it really is really, really important now that we position ourselves as an organisation that really want the best talent to join us.

So talent acquisition has really focused our mind. So what are we doing to attract talent? And what are we doing to improve the onboarding experience, that first moment that matters when they come into the organisation? So that has driven the priority in terms of talent acquisition.

The other big priority for me, which we're bang in the middle of now, is that we have a global organization with a mindset of local operation. And so we're just introducing a new HRIS system, which will enable collaboration, integration across the organization. Colleagues will be able to understand what colleagues do, where, when, get involved in each other's projects. So we're driving that collaboration so that people feel part of a wider community.

So if you're sat in China, you understand who else in the organization, you know, can do your job, knows your skill sets, knows your problems. And where can you go to go and get some internal collaboration? So those are the two things that are clearly my focus at the minute in terms of that EVP proposition. So you talk about attraction.

How about the piece around internal mobility? So we think about EVP very much about how you get new and how you sort of make yourself marketable. But how do you stay relevant and use that sort of employee experience piece in your organization? Yeah, I mean, again, you know, back to we've got the 14 offices in big key markets that are super sexy for people that want to have a career within the organization.

But we didn't leverage it up until recently. We now just launched that global mobility policy that everybody is aware of that everybody can see every opportunity that in the organization so that if somebody did want to move across the organization to another market those opportunities are becoming available and we're opening up opportunities for people to move and widen their career we also then the next stage of that is not everybody wants to move overseas not everybody has the you know the opportunities to be able to move globally so what are we doing internally to grow opportunities for people to widen their careers and their opportunities in the organization and having now got a talent acquisition strategy that's super clear that we want to give people opportunities to grow their careers within the organization that you can move around the organization having a policy of all or a practice of all open roles being super open for everybody to see anybody can apply People can recommend friends, recommend family members, so that people are actually becoming our voice pieces externally and internally around the opportunities that being at Imagination is giving people to widen their careers.

There's much more about, in effect, join up between what you're saying externally and the employee experience, isn't it? It absolutely is. The two go together because you can go out to the open market and espouse all these wonderful things that you can do and are doing. But if you're not actually living and breathing it internally, the reality for an individual coming through the door will not be the reality that they were expecting.

And also be disrespectful to our current employees to not give them the same opportunities of growth that we are in the external market telling people that we are doing. So the two go hand in hand and one can't work without the other. So should we actually drop the term EVP and just call it about employee experience? I think you have to have a position, Jo.

I think for me, I think having a statement that says this is our EVP, this is what we stand for. This is what we want to be known for internally and externally. I do think it's important to have that proposition what you do with it how you live and breathe it how you bring it to life and the reality of that statement is probably more important but I do think having the the peg in the ground that says this is what we stand for I think it's super important so in effect it's the why isn't it why are we different why is imagination different from other companies and then the employee experience is the what and the how it's like Simon Sinek's golden circle isn't it if the employee experience is what you can do for us and the work that you're going to be doing how we want you to operate is your values and that kind of global piece but the why is how you're different and how you can be seen as an employer of choice yeah I think I think it's all of that Jo I don't I don't think anything in isolation I think you know we have to make sure that we set ourselves out from our competitors which was my opening line we have to be different The war for talent has never been hotter.

We have to live what we say. You know, people's experience of saying one thing and doing another will not be, you know, will not be good for anybody. So we do have to have practices internally that live and breathe what we're saying. But also as well, giving people the opportunity to be the best at what they do, to challenge, to be brave, to be rigorous, to be curious is what sets us apart from our competitors.

I think that's it's the whole bag. It's the whole mix of everything. It's the whole experience. So if you were giving advice to somebody starting and they had a meeting with their CEO and they've sat down and they've gone, actually, this is your six month objectives.

I want you to work on your EVP and other elements. Where would you start in creating an EVP? Well, that's a big question. I think it might be slightly different depending on what organisation you're going into, but also in terms of where are they in the journey around that EVP proposition.

So I think it's very dependent on where you are. However, in imagination, as I said previously, the EVP has sort of positioned itself around the, you know, what the commercial sort of proposition and offer was going to be. So for me, it was sort of set. So we've aligned imagination, our EVP from an employer, employee sorry perspective around the commercial goals Actually that made it super simple because the business commercially have aligned to those propositions and those offers and that what they speak to when they speak to clients they're aligning all of the people propositions around that rigorous being brave being curious it has been easier i say easier but not easy easier and i think be brave try things don't you know just because you start out on the journey and something hasn't worked don't give up if it doesn't work reconfigure it and go again but I think for me aligning to the commercial piece has been useful making sure we speak the same language as the organization commercially bringing people along with that you know that journey that you're going on and be brave and if it doesn't work or it does work celebrate the success but if it doesn't work just take a step back and refine it, retune it.

Don't stop, keep going, because success will breed success. And one day, people will start to talk about the things that you have been trying to introduce, and it will become normal. And you probably won't need a title of EVP, because it will be just normal practice of our organizations, work with their employees to make that whole life cycle a better place and a better experience for them as individuals. The final question from me, who owns EVP?

Everyone. I think absolutely everyone owns it. I think it needs somebody to lead it. It needs somebody to just maybe be the project sponsor.

But I do think everybody's voice needs to be heard. And I don't think we should be frightened to make sure that we encourage people to be curious and rigorous and brave and challenge when things don't work because if we fine-tune it based on the feedback that we get we'll have a wonderful proposition to give to new joiners existing employees and actually you know celebrating sometimes people have to leave the organization because they've reached the point where for them they have to leave for their own career development but that doesn't mean to say that they don't come back because the experience that they have with the organization has been so good they're going out to grow their careers but they might come back because they've had such a good experience whilst they've been here at imagination and that's my that's my view I love that because it's all about advocacy isn't it yeah it is it's really thinking about it in that consumer mentality that if you've had a really good experience you're likely to recommend that place yeah if you feel cared for if you feel that you'll listen to all of those things that we know are important to talent now then it doesn't really matter what you call it it's just kind of the ethos it's the ecosystem of what it means to work at imagination and you and you become part of that you become part of the solution and the next generation it sort of evolves over time right I totally agree with that Jo I think you have to have a title because you have to give it you have to hang it somewhere you have to have somebody that owns it but it's everybody's responsibility to really make it part and parcel of the journey that you have when you join imagination or any organization you know I talk about imagination it's any organization it's that whole cycle through through life I love it and that's a great place to conclude because you know what I've learned throughout this is that EVP is still really relevant but it's as relevant as you make it within your organization it's not owned by one person so it's not you as chief people officer it's everybody it's like culture but ultimately it takes time and it's about in effect always being in beta which is really great rather than giving it a label and expecting it to be everlasting because we know that brands come and go right yeah i totally i totally agree with that joe that's that's my modus operandi we're on the start of that journey at imagination it's not it's not complete in any stretch of the imagination but that's the ethos that I'm running that's what we're trying to do at imagination and long may it continue.

Well I wish you huge success I look forward to kind of talking to you when you're you know a year and a half into your journey at imagination and kind of hearing how it goes thank you so much it's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you Jo. if you like this episode of the podcast please subscribe rate and review it on apple podcasts go to letstalktalent.co.