Employee Value Proposition: Creating a Human-Centred and Experience-Driven Organisation

What is Employee Experience?

To win in today's competitive talent landscape, a strong Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is non-negotiable – and a powerful Employee Experience (EX) is the key to unlocking it. But what truly shapes the Employee Experience? It boils down to six core relational attributes that influence an employee's journey:

• Work: Tasks, projects, and responsibilities.
• Places: Physical and virtual work environments.
• People: Colleagues, leaders, and clients, fostering inclusion.
• Technology: Tools and resources for productivity.
• Organisation: Culture, values, mission, and reputation.
• Well-being & Inclusion: Support for employee health and belonging.

Why Does EX Matter?

Each of these elements contributes to the overall employee experience, impacting engagement, performance, and retention. Deloitte's Employee Experience team uses human-centred design to prioritize employee needs during organisational transformations. In today's competitive job market, this is crucial, as 82% of employees want to be valued as a person, not just an employee^1,2. This requires a fundamental shift from generic employee promises to human-centric offerings, where EX takes centre stage. Currently, only 31 per cent of employees say their organisation offers a unique experience². This creates a huge opportunity for businesses to craft a compelling and authentic EVP to stand out with their unique brand offering. This blog explores how organisations can define, implement, and measure a people-focused EVP that resonates with today's experience-driven workforce.

Integrate a human-centred approach into your EVP to unlock the power of attracting and retaining top talent

Success in business often hinges on a unified team and an integrated operating model, all aligned towards the same strategic goals. While each organisation has unique challenges and ambitions, HR leaders should prioritise a human-centred and experience-driven approach within their people strategies. This means embracing a holistic view of talent attraction, retention, and development through an integrated operating model.

Aligning people strategies requires connecting organisational goals and the EVP to specific areas like talent, learning, and reward. Consistent measurement and action will then weave these strategies into employees' everyday experiences.

How to build an authentic EVP

The EVP serves as the foundation for an organisation's people and talent strategy, addressing key questions of "why join?" and "why stay?".

By effectively answering these, organisations can drive a number of business outcomes. For example, enhance new hire commitment by 30 per cent² and lower turnover by 69 per cent³.

However, people strategy teams cannot achieve this alone - stakeholders across the organisation have a joint responsibility to activate the EVP through external and internal channels, prioritising and investing in initiatives to attract and then retain top talent.

Externally, organisations can...

Launch employer branding initiatives via their careers website to showcase compelling content through:

• diverse and authentic first-hand employee stories
• transparent, inclusive and informative job adverts
• a narrative that brings to life the company culture.

Internally, organisations can...

Boost employee engagement, job satisfaction, and loyalty through:

• delivering on the promises made during recruitment
• gathering research and crowdsourcing data to understand employee needs and wants
• acting upon what employees truly want- whether that is to improve learning, wellbeing, performance or any other people-related initiatives.

Each organisation's EVP must be distinct and authentically reflect its brand and workplace reality. It needs dedicated champions to drive its definition and implementation, ensuring it delivers its intended value. While an EVP might not be perfect from the outset, a commitment to continuous refinement will hone its effectiveness over time.

Listening to workforce needs and adapting your employee offer is key to attracting and retaining top talent

In an everchanging workplace environment, an EVP needs to be treated as a live strategy that must be regularly updated and reflected upon. It is crucial for organisations to establish a culture of active listening and EX measurement to truly embed an effective EVP. Indeed, companies actively tracking and measuring employees’ experience note a direct impact on employee engagement (23% higher engagement⁴), productivity (21% more productive⁴) and retention (24% lower turnover rates⁵).

Listening involves collecting feedback and insights via active and passive listening mechanisms.

Yet, simply gathering insights isn't enough, these insights should also be effectively analysed. Leveraging the right technology solutions allowing easy access to intuitive dashboard capabilities, enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI). This is to be followed by translating these insights into actionable outcomes that can be communicated and acted upon.

Without proper presentation and action, valuable feedback can easily be lost or ignored, undermining the organisation's efforts to deliver on their employee promises and offerings.

To meet the needs of a diverse workforce, organisations must shift from fragmented initiatives to a harmonious strategy that integrates talent, reward, and employee experience. The EVP should act as the conductor, orchestrating these elements based on employee insights. This creates a workplace where employees choose to thrive, embodying a human-centred organisation.

If you would like to talk further about how to build a human-centric EVP that resonates with today's workforce, then please reach out.

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References 

1. Motivation through personalization | 2025 Deloitte Human Capital Trends Insights
   
2. Employee Value Proposition (EVP) HR Strategic Guide (gartner.com)
3. Employee Value Proposition (EVP): All you need to know in 2024, AIHR (2024)
4. The State of Employee Experience 2023-2024, Fount Research,
5. 2024Employee Engagement Trends Report, Qualtrics, 2023

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Authors: Amara Amadi ǀ Doris Jose ǀ Francesca Dale ǀ Olga Yaremenko ǀ Naina Sabherwal ǀ Natasha Rizk ǀ Richard Evans