Employee Value Proposition – sometimes shorted to EVP – is basically the value that an employee feels they get from working for a particular company. We’re not talking salary here. Instead, we’re talking job satisfaction.
How an employee feels about the company they work for is important because an unhappy worker is unlikely to hang around for long. If this becomes more than a one-off occurrence, you’ll end up with something of a brain drain, as well as a reputation that will make it hard to recruit those skilled employees you need to see your company grow.
So how do you go about generating a strong employee value proposition? Check out these five key areas:
1. Rewarding employees
Again, we’re not just talking about take home pay here. While a good salary is sure to attract the right sort of people, study after study has shown that employees are willing to consider new jobs with lower salaries, but better rewards. Job seekers are increasing searching out employment that makes them feel like they’ve achieved something beneficial at the end of a working week.
Rewards can be big, and include an extra day’s paid vacation time, but they don’t have to be. In fact, to feel appreciated – a key motivation – smaller but more regular rewards are generally better. This can start by simply saying ‘thank you’ or ‘good job’, before going on to perhaps supplying cakes or other goodies when a team achieves a goal. As well as fostering a sense of belonging within a company, such rewards are also shown to rub off on the front end of your business – clients that are more likely to stick with a company with high EVPs.
2. Engage with your employees
Top-down management is thankfully largely a business model confined to the past. Today, the manager should be part of the team, and is as much a friend as a colleague. This model generates trust within a team, but it also creates an atmosphere of openness, where employees feel that their worries and suggestions will be taken seriously. As it’s your employees who are the ones doing much of the ‘hard labor’, it’s them who are going to spot potential pitfalls first. Never forget that engaged employees are going to be happy employees, and it’s happy employees that drive companies forward.
3. Finding employees the right work
Someone feeling undervalued is sure to result in them having a low employee value proposition. It’s therefore important to ensure that your employees are well-suited to the everyday jobs that are being assigned to them. While everyone has certain aspects of a job they don’t enjoy as much as others, this is different to an employee being badly aligned with work. From a business perspective, it means you’re not going to get the most out of that employee. At the same time, the task in hand isn’t going to be completed as well as it could be.
4. Opportunities for growth
At Jack and Ferdi we think the best way to counter an employee feeling undervalued is through regular career development meetings with managers. If an employee doesn’t believe they have the skills to succeed, why not provide them the means to develop these skills through training courses or other relevant opportunities.
Reversing the negative opinions of an employee could be as easy as suggesting alternative roles within your organization, alternative locations (including home working) or different hours. Perhaps what the employee is really looking for is to reduce their working week to four days so they can pursue other projects one day a week. Giving your employees the opportunities to grow will make them happier, and better motivated, which can only help your bottom line.
5. Organizational Culture
To a large degree an individual’s employee value proposition will be tied with a company’s culture, and therefore it’s external brand. When a company’s culture aligns well with an individual’s personal beliefs, there’s going to be low turnover and high employee value proposition, making it a win-win situation. To achieve this is no easy task, and requires companies to development the right balance between employee independence (and therefore how much you trust them to get on with the job), interdependence with other employees, stability in their role within the company, and flexibility within their role.
As employees become more and more willing to shift between companies, a strong employee value proposition becomes all the more important. Our five rules will help improve your company’s proposition, and therefore retain the right employees.
