5 Important Nuances of the Employment Value Proposition (Part 1)

At first, let’s define the key term of our article - the employment value proposition (EVP). Various sources give different definitions of the term, but they all agree that it is a system of goods or advantages of work on a certain employer, the company’s uniqueness and attraction for the target audience and the reason for its employees’ pride. There can be a lot of such advantages - the functional aspect, the emotional component, social benefits, etc. Probably, every employer has such benefits that attract candidates and employees. But if this matter is neglected, the effect of such “spontaneous” EVP will be small. So, how to work with the EVP effectively? Offers of creating value propositions are all over the Internet - some consulting companies even offer to complete it together with you or for you in a couple of hours. In this article, we will try to figure out If it is worth making and what the main mistakes are while making the EVP. So, the EVP as a tool appeared as a response to the shortage of qualified specialists and, as a result, their fastidiousness in choosing the new job. More than 20 years have passed, the shortage of professionals is increasing but our employers still sincerely believe that explaining own value to the candidate or the employee correctly, fully and clearly is a waste of time and efforts. We have figured out at least 5 typical mistakes in creating the EVP.

If creating of the EVP involved consultants, especially famous and expensive, or the first version turned out to be so good (or only seemingly good), it seems that adding or correcting something will only spoil the result. For example, as for the material aspect, you offered your target audience a complex suitable for a start: a salary+bonuses+privileges. At first, the salary was rather low, there were no limits for the bonuses because the market was new and had to be captured quickly. Then the company took its niche and bonuses without limits turned out to be unprofitable for the company. So the decision was made to increase the salary and introduce a new system of bonuses - short and long-term ones, including many factors - attracting new clients or supporting the existing ones. The new system was more complicated but more transparent and clearer. It had been preliminarily discussed with the staff, it allowed to keep the key employees and attract new candidates on new rules stated in the financial section of the EVP. The same applies to the emotional component - when a startup turns into a company with much more bureaucratization and systematicity and it is stated in the changed EVP in the section “The atmosphere in the staff”. Your EVP must be up-to-date. Any company is a living organism that is changing: growing, reducing, acquiring new employees, developing products-projects and creating new characteristics and values inside itself.That is why sooner or later any perfect but stable EVP becomes out-of-date. It is no more attractive for the candidates and doesn’t maintain loyalty of the employees. What’s even worse, it doesn’t correspond the reality and deceives the expectations of those who have believed in it. The best variant is the multi-step introduction of EVP with a constant feedback - controlling the actuality of its every attribute.

Of course, it is good, if there is at least such a value proposition. As a rule, this is a common mistake of, for example, industry companies because it is easier to make up the offer on one and the same pattern for locksmiths of the 6th grade, for engineers and accountants, marketers, IT specialists - "They are all ours!" And, like the same vacancy text template, they create a value proposition according to the "best practices" of colleagues on the market. It is necessary to understand that the current labour market is cross-competitive, and the candidate for cashiers in the bank could be a waiter yesterday, will be a gadget seller tomorrow, and a certified ecologist or marketer in a couple of months. And due to a shortage of professionals, in the production candidates are generally accepted on the principle - "Do you have hands and feet, does your head work? You are hired!" If you proceed from such tight restrictions, you will miss that target audience, which will be beyond your expectations. It is better to track who of your target audience can be in related markets, what their percentage is and how they can be attracted. If the percentage is small, you may not "give your best", but leaving them unattended you may profitable opportunities.