Employee Value Proposition

What is an Employee Value Proposition?

An Employee Value Proposition (also called Employment Value Proposition and Employer Value Proposition) articulates the value an employer provides to their employees in exchange for their contributions. Employees contribute their skills, experience, time, and energy. The Employment Value Proposition (EVP) is a succinct explanation of what the employer gives them in return.

An Employee Value Proposition includes both quantifiable and intangible elements. Quantifiable components include salary, health insurance, pension plans, and tuition reimbursement. Intangible elements include things like flexible schedules, telecommuting, on-site gym, meals, etc. Corporate values like charitable initiatives and eco-responsibility are part of the company’s EVP as well.

Why is an Employee Value Proposition important?

Employee Value Proposition stemmed from the concept of Unique Value Proposition. Marketers use the Unique Value Proposition to define the value a company provides to its customers. It guides policies, marketing campaigns, and company messaging. In a similar fashion, an EVP helps a company market to their employees as if they are internal customers. It can help inspire employees to buy into the company values and mission. Gartner posits that companies that effectively deliver on their EVP can decrease yearly turnover by 69%.

“If an organization doesn’t have clarity regarding their EVP, it’s difficult to convey it to prospective and current employees.
“Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and Employer Branding (EB) are to the human resources department what marketing is to the organization. Through our EB efforts, we manage to position ourselves against our competitors in the marketplace by communicating the salient features of our employer value proposition offering to prospective candidates.” Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)

How does a company use an EVP?

An EVP is used as a marketing tool for the people connected to an organization:

• To market the company to prospective applicants
• To inspire existing employees to refer applicants
• To articulate the benefits of working at the organization
• To create job descriptions, interview scripts, employee handbooks, and training materials.

An EVP also plays a starring role in employee referral programs. If it’s well-communicated, employees will internalize and share it with referrals.

Here is an example of an EVP from Chevron:

“We approach challenges with integrity, ingenuity, and respect. By valuing our employees, our partners, and our world, we’ve created a company that’s responsibly moving the world forward. Learn more about the important and challenging work out employees are engaged in around the globe. At Chevron, every day is an opportunity for all of us to continue working towards our collective vision: to be the global energy company most admired for its people, partnership and performance. To achieve our vision, we’ve built our company’s foundation on a set of values that guides our employees in the way we interact with each other and the communities and environments we work in.” Future of Working

See also

• Employer branding

Additional resources

• Employee Value Proposition, Gartner
• Employee Value Proposition and Employer Branding Go Hand-in-Hand, SHRM
• Small Business Hiring Teams: Have You Created an Employment Value Proposition?