As the saying goes, you get out what you put in, and nothing could be more accurate when talking about creative.

If you’re articulating your Employee Value Proposition, the creative developed is only ever going to be as good as the depth and clarity of insights that informed it. But it is possible to overdo it, especially if you’re a business with an incredibly large, diverse and disperse workforce.

The challenge becomes – how do we make sure we’re informing the EVP development with the right breadth and depth, without paying a fortune, taking too long or compromising the final output?

So here’s my advice on how to do it, without over-doing it:

Remember data and insights are different. Just because you have mountains of data points, doesn’t automatically mean you have everything you need. Conversely, you might be able to get all the insight you need from very little data. Observing your peoples’ interactions could tell you more in an hour than engagement scores on a graph ever could. It doesn’t matter how you arrive at the answers, just that you do.

A good agency partner will advise you on the best ‘bang-for-buck’ method for your context.

This should be about filling in knowledge gaps, not starting from scratch. Every business will already have a wealth of relevant data to begin with. It might not tell you everything, but it will tell you where to focus efforts (and investment).

I mentioned in an earlier article Leading the EVP Journey that an important way to set yourself up for success is to link arms with your Marketing/Brand team wherever possible, Make sure you ask them what they’re already researching, or market data they’ve already bought.

Consider grouping with other upcoming or concurrent projects. Capture the insights you need for both at the same time and share the cost.

Start with quantitative to theme and highlight local contrasts. Don’t forget this may be data you already have. Then validate, probe and embellish with smaller scale qualitative. This is going to save you a lot of time, improve objectivity, and offer everyone a chance to have contributed in some way.

The qualitative will not only give you the vernacular, it will also tell you how your themes are experienced differently by different audience segments.

Understanding both these aspects is critical to being able to articulate the proposition in a resonant way. You don’t get “It just really feels like us”from creative that’s had just quantitative data inputs.

Group discussions are insightful, but there is such a thing as too many. After a certain point, the ROI diminishes considerably. A good agency partner can advise you on how many you’ll likely need, but first thing to remember is the groups don’t need to match your org chart. Instead, form groups based on two things: where the quantitative told you to dig, and how different one group of employees’ experiences is from the next.

There are many aspects of delivering an EVP where you could shave off a few dollars and deliver it internally without compromising the outcome, but this isn’t one of them. Having an experienced third-party is far more productive.

An external facilitator minimises opportunities for bias, politics or corporate memory to creep in. Also, having these discussions across so many different businesses and countries has taught us what to listen out for; distinguishing between what someone says and what they really mean. We can cut through corporate bullsh*t and get to core truths much faster.

And because we have nothing to gain from one type of response different to another, participants feel safe to share more freely than they would with a colleague with a perceived agenda. We can challenge and probe without worrying about what that’ll mean at the water-cooler the next day. We can ask the juicy, controversial questions.

So don’t be put off by investing in insights. They don’t have to be expensive, they don’t need to take a huge amount of time, and the output will be so much better for it.

Congrats! I know that even just securing approval to kick-off an EVP project is no small feat, so I hope you’ve celebrated that win.

Now the real fun begins!

Of course, every EVP project is different, and full of surprises, but after leading the delivery of more than 20 EVPs from both the agency and client sides, I’ve learnt (sometimes the hard way) these 5 actions you can take to get it done on time, within budget, and have the tangible ROI to show for it.

A single, all-encompassing, all-brands applicable, geographically flexible Group EVP – the stuff dreams are made of. But, in reality, not always the easiest to achieve.

For our readers who find themselves working at Group level for a house of brands, creating a single EVP for very distinctly different brands can cause some headaches. Here are some things to consider during project set-up and your insights phase.

• Understand your audience: Begin by understanding the commonalities and differences in your target audience across the various brands within your group. What are their demographics, psychographics, motivations, and aspirations?
• Identify common themes: The brands may be starkly different, but there will be overarching themes or values that resonate with employees across all brands.
• Define the EVP: Based on all the above, articulate a compelling EVP that reflects shared values and ‘why people love working here’ across all your brands.
• Tailored messaging for each brand: While the EVP should be consistent across all brands, tailor the messaging and communication style to reflect the unique characteristics and culture of each brand. This ensures employees feel a sense of belonging to their specific brand while still being part of a larger group.

Some of you will have teams big enough to take this on but for those who don’t, we’re here to help with the heavy lifting.

What are the hard measures you’re going to attach to this? Before you do anything, define these, and record your baseline measures.

• The project – demonstrating efficient, effective delivery and capability built in the team
• The launch – demonstrating awareness and understanding
• Sustained success – demonstrating contribution to business strategy

It’s going to help you sense-check your decisions throughout (wait, what is it we’re really trying to move the dial on again?). It will indicate where to focus efforts, and you might even find it highlights some things that aren’t currently being measured but ought to be.

Most importantly, it’s going to help demonstrate the commercial value of the work which, in my opinion, isn’t marketed internally near as much as it should be to better position HR teams for the next investment conversation.

Not everyone knows what an EVP is. Referring to ‘the EVP project’ will make your life harder engaging stakeholders along the way, and more broadly when you launch it.

Instead, try and give it a name which speaks to what it will be for your people. @KFC have a People Promise, @Cover-More have The Deal.

Remember candidates and employees are customers or potential customers too. The employee experience you’re offering, needs to align (not match) with the customer experience Marketing are promising.

The best EVPs are delivered as a HR and Marketing joint-lead project. As much as you can, link arms.

Don’t spend so much of your money developing your EVP that you don’t have enough left to launch it. Whether you choose to go big-bang, or badge something which is already in the calendar, you’re going to need some budget.

Bear in mind, you might not need to pay an agency to do absolutely everything. Especially if Marketing is co-leading the project with you, they might have the capability you need for a fraction of the cost (be prepared to wait in the queue though).

A good agency partner will be able to help you navigate which parts of the project you could flex scope or deliver internally, versus where you really need to engage an external specialist to deliver for you.

It’s an exciting time for you. An EVP project doesn’t come around very often in one business so make sure you make the most of it, learn and enjoy the ride.

As if the war on talent wasn’t hard enough, along came old mate ‘rona, and along went access to international talent.

With ever-shrinking talent pools, and intensifying demand on local headcount growth, now more than ever before, I’m seeing my clients reach out to their own people to help spot and convert. And it’s not surprising really. We all know the huge ROI that effective referral behaviour can bring; a personal connection from the inside means less competition from the outside – a huge amount of the heavy-lifting done already.

But at an organisational level, success with referral is precarious, and therefore tends to be a sleeping bear many are reluctant to poke. The mechanics are usually so inextricably entwined with systems and compliance, any minor chink in the chain throws the cost: benefit ratio completely out of whack.

But whilst what you’ve got may not be perfect, you need bums on seats now. and surely any referral is better than none right? Well it’s likely that the wider employee population just doesn’t share the same level of urgency, and long-term, it sends the wrong message to be continually asking them for a favour instead of referral behaviour being inherent so it’s important to balance the right-now with the long game.

Here are my top 3 ways you can make the most of your referral practices to get immediate results, without a complete overhaul, without compromising future success, and no business case required!

All we’re asking employees to do is refer not recruit. The real measure of referral success is your talent pool getting bigger, not your vacancy list getting shorter.

I get that we want quality referrals, but there’s a plethora of reasons even great referees may not be the right fit right now – that’s no fault or control of a referring employee. Rewarding on the condition the referee is hired is not an effective incentive because it is not actually rewarding referral behaviour. Once they’ve connected us with their contact, our talent pool is one person bigger, that’s their job done, and it should be recognised (even rewarded) then.

We should be minimising the ask of our employees to one quick little step. We should be promoting how simple and positive an experience it is for the referrer. Being clear that just putting us in contact fulfils the request, and then we should be bloody-well thanking them!

And it doesn’t need to cost the world. One of our clients for example included a playful audible animation of balloons and confetti popping on screen when the ‘submit’ button of their referral form was clicked. Simple and cost-effective positive reinforcement. A good agency partner can help you find opportune moments in your current referral process and creative ways to say thanks that won’t need a business case.

If someone was suggesting you for a blind date, you’d want some influence on what they say about you right? So why, oh why do we not help our people with some suggested things to say? As Talent Acquisition, you know what’s going to make your organisation sound most attractive to candidates. Not only that, one of the biggest barriers to referral behaviour is employees just not having the confidence to talk about areas of the business they don’t themselves work in or with.

We need to be arming them with stories to tell, and points to make that ensure we have our best foot forward and all our employees can speak about our career offering regardless of where in the business they sit.

This can be as simple as adding some proof-point stories into your regular internal communications, or providing a link to a video that does all the selling for them, or putting together a ‘Talking about us cheat-sheet’ on your intranet. Even if they don’t use them, simply knowing they’re available may be just the confidence booster your people need.

After being connected with a candidate, I often see the focus naturally sway towards wooing them and away from the referrer. But it’s of upmost importance you pay close attention to the experience you’re giving your referring employee, because that’s what’s going to determine repeat referral behaviour or not.

It’s their reputation on the line. For them to risk that again, they need to have felt informed and secure, that their contact is in capable hands and the risk was well worth the pay-off.  Don’t forget it’s highly likely they’ll be in contact on the sidelines with the candidate throughout. We need to support our referrer to have that conversation as much as we can.

Manage expectations of response timeframes, give interview preparation hints and tips (this is usually information already available anyway so it’s no biggy tweaking to suit a referrer audience), schedule a face-to-face check-in meeting with the referrer. A good agency partner can help you map the ideal referrer experience and suggest small interventions that can have a huge impact on repeat referral behaviour.

So, lean into the referral at your organisation. Map out what the current process is and spot small opportunities to improve the experience for the referrer as much as you can. This is the key to leveraging your peoples’ networks quickly, without the need for a big can of worms to be opened.