For those new to the world of talent acquisition, whether your business is just beginning to scale or you’re new to a recruitment role yourself, the industry can be a minefield. There are so many terms to get to grips with and buzzwords that talent professionals will use so often we forget that people may not have a clear understanding of what they mean.
EVP (Employee Value Proposition) and Employer Brand are two terms that we throw around a lot. In fact, we wouldn’t be able to count how many times we say them in one day. However, we’re an RPO company, so we know what they mean and the difference between them.
These are two terms that are often mixed up and confused for one another in the world of recruitment. The fact is EVPs and Employer Brands do have a lot of similarities; they work together to make you an employer of choice in your industry, so, understandably, many people get them confused. However, they’re not the same thing. Firstly, you can control your EVP but not your Employer Brand.
In this blog, we’re going to explain the difference between your EVP and your Employer Brand to help assist your future recruitment.
What is an EVP?
An EVP (Employee Value Proposition) is, in the simplest terms, what an employer offers an employee. It encompasses tangible benefits like perks and salary and involves emotional factors like the company culture and values that drive employees to work for you. Basically, your EVP encapsulates everything that an employee can expect when signing a contract with you. It can also be used to outline what you expect from them, setting best practices and standards for new employees.
The EVP is the emotional connection between employer and employee, it’s what motivates them, gets them out of bed in the morning and makes them feel part of the organisation. It defines who you are as an employer to your new hires and existing team.
An RPO provider like us can put your EVP into a framework that can influence the future of your talent acquisition and employee experience. Through in-depth research, including interviews with your existing team, candidate surveys and research into your industry and competitors, our teams can gain a picture of what your brand is, what it needs to be and how to improve. This is then put into a framework that outlines your offering, including your values and pillars, which bring your employee experience to life.
Your EVP should be considered before running any recruitment marketing campaigns or even advertising a job to reinforce your tone of voice and keep activity consistent.
What is an Employer Brand?
Your EVP only goes so far as the framework and the proposition that you layout. After that, your Employer Brand comes into play. Your Employer Brand, like your consumer brand, is mainly based on opinions and perceptions. It is how you are seen as an employer to your employees and people outside of your organisation; therefore, it is primarily out of your control.
It’s important to note that your Employer Brand is also different from your consumer brand, although that can influence perceptions. For example, you could be a scaling tech company that looks sleek, shiny and state of the art, but working there could be another story. Like if you’re a hotel that offers luxury escapism to your guests, your employees probably aren’t having the same experience and work hard to deliver. Sometimes your corporate brand can inform opinions, but when candidates learn about employee experiences, get an insight into your office or hear from your leaders that they’ll form an accurate view of your employer brand.
Similarly, suppose a company gets bad press for letting go of employees unfairly or similar HR issues. In that case, that will also impact it’s employer brand as the workplace will be tarnished in the eyes of others.
You can use social media and careers websites to create materials that promote how you would like to be seen as an employer. Still, their impact on your employer brand depends entirely on whether they are believed to be authentic. Contradictory messages to employee reviews will only damage your employer brand further. You can tailor your employer brand messaging to resonate with a particular candidate type, such as tech talent, but you cannot control how this messaging is perceived.
How do EVPs and Employer Brands link?
Your EVP forms the basis of your employer brand. It is the behaviours and principles you set out in your EVP that create your company culture and define who you are as an employer. It shows candidates what they can expect from you and outlines what your place of work will be like, setting the tone for the working environment.
With the rise in remote working, the EVP is even more critical as it lays down expectations for employees. When we’re all working from remote locations, it is the values and mission laid out in the EVP framework that will unite your workforce.
With a team, all dedicated to the same mission and passionate about what you’re trying to achieve, your employer brand will improve. The EVP will help you build a dynamic team who are all on the same page, and this will reflect positively on you as an employer through advocacy, online reviews and in the general atmosphere of your workplace.
Your EVP will inform all employer brand communications working as a guide for messaging. So while you promote your workplace to a broader audience, your EVP ensures consistency, accuracy and authenticity. This also means that new hires will know what to expect before they begin working with you and so will not get a shock when things don’t add up, again helping your employer brand and retention efforts.
At Talent Works, we take an insight-led approach to building EVPs, using varying market research methods to get an authentic and accurate picture of what it’s like to work at your organisation. We use this research to create EVP frameworks that are usable and relatable and frameworks that can be translated into employer brand communications and messaging, helping you portray a real and positive image of the workplace.
If you’d like to know more about our elemen.tal service in which we build out your EVP and find creative ways to leverage your Employer Brand, contact our team today. With years of experience helping tech companies position themselves as employers of choice, we have the expertise to help you resonate with candidates and simultaneously engage existing teams.
