EVP: Are we all showing up looking the same?

I conduct, and review, a lot of EVP research and strategic work. It probably wouldn’t surprise you to know, I see a lot of the same insights and content. If you ask a basic question like ‘what’s the best thing about working here’ you get a predictable answer like – ‘our people’. And in the current benefits race, sharing latest policies and perks has come front and centre for many organisations. This presents some interesting challenges when it flows through to communications and content production – hide the logo on a LinkedIn post and in many cases it would be nigh on impossible to know who is who.

So it begs the question, how can you stop your EVP showing up the same?

Some thought starters, and would love to hear other ideas:

1. Know your competition – check your messaging against key talent competitors. Aim for a space you can make your own.
2. Lean into your purpose and master brand – often the principles, language and brand elements that already exist (and have had substantial investment to make them ‘different’) will be a rich reservoir of potential differentiating goodness. I have seen companies miss an open goal here.
3. Move from statements (we develop our people) to specific proof points – how many hours of training does a person receive, what learning platform do you use and how to managers support that?
4. Show, don’t tell – why just list your values? They all sound the same anyway if they’re just written down. Get into the behaviours, how do people experience these and how is that different at this organisation in how they go about doing things?
5. Let your people do the talking – people buy people, and trust employee content exponentially more than stuff that’s obviously corporate, so let your people’s experience and genuine selves come through in your storytelling. Employee advocacy wins the day here too for adding credibility, increasing reach and helping personalize / differentiate the content.
6. Find ways to create experiences (moments that matter) that bring your EVP to life – Maya Angelou’s quote about people not forgetting how you make them feel is often quoted in blogs like this! Sending a simple response to an application should be table stakes (sadly, not yet) but sending some great content that only your organization could share, or a nice way to say thank you, helps build your Employer Reputation in line with the EVP you’re trying to influence people with. Again, rather than just listing values, what about a simple game that helps people match their values to yours?
7. Tone of voice – there’s a dearth of well written EVP content in the market and hence a genuine creative opportunity to inject humour, personality and overall energy into comms. If you’re looking to stand out, make your words count, avoid the obvious buzzwords, everyone’s BS radars are well attuned!!
8. Listen to what your audience wants – it may be tempting to just ‘tell’ your audience about your EVP but what are the current perceptions towards your Employer Brand or what do people want to know about your organisation to inform their decisions? Listen through surveys, review sites like Glassdoor, speak to recent joiners, use website analytics to see where users spend time on your site – then target your messages accordingly. You need a data informed strategy basically.
9. Content and channel planning. If photos of your office dog get better engagement than regular content, you’re probably not alone. But it may also indicate that your content and channel plans are out of kilter – again, plan for the information / experience your audience needs at specific times or on specific channels. There is a place for dogs. And for more informative content. Knowing when to use what - relevance – is key.
10. Make me laugh or teach me something new - I asked a group of engineers recently what sort of EVP content they’d be prepared to share and it was met with a pretty firm response that unless material ticks some key boxes, it ain’t getting shared in their networks.  If that’s not a call that we need to collectively up the ante, I don’t know what is.

If anyone can share any great examples or add to the list, please comment and share!

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About Will Innes: I run the Employer Brand and Experience Practice at TQSolutions. Our focus is on EVP Strategy and Employer Brand Advisory, working with Global and Local organisations using our proprietary tools and methodologies. These include our Employer Brand & Experience Maturity Model, human-first EVP research programmes, 5-Dimensional EVP Frameworks, EVP activation roadmaps and Employer Reputation Management.