Are you ready to take your employer branding and recruitment marketing to the next level?
We thought so. That’s why we’ve joined forces with Havas People to put together a series of marketing events that will give you exclusive access to expert insights and knowledge. Uncover the key tips, tricks and steps you need to follow to help your business stand out from the crowd.
To kick things off, our first hybrid event focused on what it takes to create a strong employer brand that will allow your business to thrive. Our all-star panel including Fiona Warren, Business Director (APAC) for Havas People, Garth Quinn, Head of People Experience at Healius Limited and Chloe Morley, Group Employer Brand Manager for Coles Group, shared with us their top tips for success and spilled the secrets on what they wish they knew when they started their own journey.
Showcasing the importance of EVPs
So you know you need to create an EVP. How do you get everyone, including the big boss, onboard?
First things first – hit them with the cold hard facts!
- A strong EVP can lower your turnover by 69% (via Gartner)
- Well managed employer brands can source from more than 60% of the labour market (via Gartner)
- A good employer brand strategy can lead to 50% cost-per-hire reduction and 50% more qualified applications (via LinkedIn).
Money talks! As Fiona highlighted, most stakeholders you’ll need to convince, will most often be interested in knowing how all of this can affect their bottom line. Showing them tangible outcomes is key. For example, say things like, if we don’t hire this talent within this many days, this is how much it will cost your organisation.
It comes down to reframing how you talk about and explain the importance of EVPs. These key players are used to spending a lot of money on their brand, making their products stand out and ensuring customers have a positive brand experience. EVPs work in the same way, just for your employees instead of customers. We also know that employee experience directly correlates to the customer experience. You need an engaged workforce to help deliver on what you are offering to your customers and clients. An EVP will help you deliver on that!
In fact, don’t even call it an EVP. Chloe suggests focusing on using language that helps stakeholders really understand the why. Throwing out KFC’s ‘People Promise’ as an example, talk more about what you actually want to use the EVP for.
Secret Stakeholders for Success
So you’ve got the big guys on board, who else do you need on your team to help make this project a success?
Chloe feels one of the biggest ones is the brand and marketing team. By joining forces you can get access to assets, insights, market data, media rates and suppliers you may not have been able to otherwise.
Chloe’s second secret stakeholder is recruiters. Why? Well, they can help give us a bit of a reality check every now and then. While we sit here thinking of all these wonderful ideas, the recruiters in our lives can help us weed out which ideas actually have a chance of becoming a reality.
Garth also highlighted maybe one of the most important stakeholders – your people. Without listening to your people, understanding their issues and then actually resolving them with your EVP, well, everything is a bit of a waste of time. If ‘the reality of what they’re going to experience when they walk through the front door’ doesn’t match your promise, what’s the point? As Garth would say ‘it needs to be based in truth with a little bit of aspiration’.
EVP vs Values
So what then is actually the difference between an EVP and a company’s values? Is there any?
Chloe would agree that there is. The EVP is the promise and saying, here’s what you can expect when you join us. The values are about how you’re going to try and live up to that promise.
In a similar vein, Garth differentiates between the two by saying ‘values are how you act… EVP is the way you feel’. Another differing factor is the ability of an EVP to change based on factors like position and seniority, while values should be consistent throughout the company.
EVP vs Employer Brand
Another concept often confused with EVP is employer brand.
As Chloe explains, an EVP is what you’re saying, the promises and key selling points you’re trying to communicate.. Whereas the employer brand is how you’re saying it. For the sweet tooth’s out there, think of employer branding as the wrapper that encases your favourite candy, enticing you to take a closer look.
For Garth, the EVP is the promises you make, while the employer brand is the reality – what your candidates actually experience when they come on board. What’s important here is ensuring these two actually connect. For example, ‘if you are saying that you’ve got flexible work, but there’s a policy that says you’re in [the office] five days, that’s a disconnect.’
Finding Success in Failure
We’re all only human. We all make mistakes. Yep, even each of our expert guests have had their share of slip ups.
One of Garth’s first lessons was, you can have too much of a good thing. In his case, the good thing was people. After 52 people turned up to one of his meetings (yep 52!), he realised the importance of starting a project by figuring out the key people you need and at what stage they should be involved. Without this ground work you can end up wasting precious time sorting through the crowd.
For Chloe, a big lesson learnt was remembering to communicate in a way the receiver will understand, not just how it makes sense to you. As we mentioned earlier, the big guys care about one thing, their bottom line. So, instead of focusing on what an EVP can help with, stick simply to showcasing the ‘cost or the risk of not doing it or of not having this tool’.
One last lesson from Chloe – don’t go too big too soon! When going in for the pitch, don’t rattle off every which way your EVP can be used. By trying to encompass every social post and piece of website content you’ll need to cover, the large investment you’ll be asking for will scare people away. Instead, start small, ‘get some runs on the board, run a small recruitment campaign, show some return.’ Then head back to the top boss with the proof of how and ask for a bigger investment.
In summary, if you learn how to talk shop with the big boss, get the right people on your team and make sure you deliver on your promises , you’re in with a pretty good shot at hitting a homerun with your next EVP.
Want to get in on the action at our next event? Click here to check out and register for our upcoming sessions.
