COVID-19 has changed many aspects of our world of work, but one aspect that remains important is the creation of a strong Employee Value Proposition (EVP). How you treat your employees during times of crisis is remembered and ingrained in the business for years to come, which impacts both your internal culture as well as the view the external market has of your organisation.
Unfortunately, some organisations have had to reduce their headcount in recent weeks – and if this has happened to you, here is our advice on motivating staff after headcount reductions – while others have reduced hours. For managers in such organisations, maintaining a strong employment brand during these times is crucial.
Before COVID-19, we held an event in partnership with Lightbox Communications, a consulting agency specialising in HR communications, at which we discussed how to build a sustainable talent pipeline. The takeaways from this event provide valuable insights for managers at this point in time.
Mike Beeley, CEO of Lightbox, opened the event by posing an interesting question: “Do you want the best talent on the market or in the market?” If we rely solely on talent on the market, we limit our access to only those who happen to be looking for a new job at this particular point in time.
Mike mentioned a sobering statistic – on average, each of us are exposed to 5,000 advertisements per day. Yes, 5,000! No wonder it is now critical for talent acquisition professionals to truly understand your target candidate and craft the right message to cut through all this noise and engage them.
1. Start with a strong EVP
Naturally, this starts with a strong EVP. Understanding and communicating the purpose of your organisation is crucial if you want to engage your target audience. After all, your EVP communicates what you can confidently claim as your consistent employee experience. Understandably then, your EVP must be a genuine representation of what it’s like to work at your organisation – not the position you wish it was. If your EVP doesn’t truly reflect the lived experience of successful employees in your workplace, you’ll attract the wrong type of person and employee turnover will rise.
It was at this point that our expert panellists then shared their own experiences of building sustainable talent pipelines using solid employer branding strategies. Our panellists were:
- Kirsten Low, EVP Project Manager at CBA;
- Wayne Beel, former Global Head of HR at Holcim, an organisation that employs 80,000 people globally.
2. Promote early wins
Kirsten said that CBA has a team of four who focus on the company’s EVP, which everyone present was very envious of! However, CBA must also develop an EVP that is applicable to a workforce of 50,000, which is an incredibly challenging task. Three of Kirsten’s many insights were to achieve buy-in from all stakeholders, agree desired outcomes and show early wins. These early wins, she explained, keep stakeholders engaged, meaning they are more likely to support the project long-term.
3. Involve your marketing department
Laurence highlighted the importance of involving marketing from the outset and going on the EVP journey together. He explained that bringing your marketing team in at the end of an EVP project only creates a lack of buy in. Ultimately, he explained, marketing can make or break your EVP programme.
4. Create a story for your CEO
Wayne’s top piece of advice was to create a story for your CEO and take them along with you on the journey. This includes keeping your CEO continuously updated throughout. This, he explained, is a great tactic to ensure that your EVP project receives the desired investment and outcome.
He also said you must keep the message simple. Don’t overcomplicate it, otherwise people will not understand it.
Does the impact of COVID-19 change anything?
We spoke again recently to Mike, who shared the following insights with us:
“The nature of media has changed since the last recession in Australia in 1992, and even since the GFC, in that the digital footprint may last forever, whereas mainstream media has a shorter shelf-life.
“How organisations behave now becomes like a credit rating for them for a very long time. This rating does not only appear on employer review sites like Glassdoor and online forums like Whirlpool – there’s now a social and professional media footprint that will take a long time to disappear.
“In the UK there is a growing following on Twitter of the ‘COVID-19 UK List of Shame’, which is a forum for comments around how employers have behaved poorly during this crisis. We must remember that such content is not only read by your prospective talent, but by those who have stayed loyal to you during this period. When this crisis ends, or maybe even before, your top employees may find it untenable being seen to work for such an employer.
“What happens now could stay in the memory of workers for a generation and could certainly complicate an organisation’s ability to recover. A fresh war for the top talent is highly likely as organisations begin to climb out of the crisis, with the first task being to retain our key employees and then compete for the best of the available talent.
“The strength of your EVP and willingness to communicate it to internal and external talent audiences is therefore more vital now than ever.”
