The last year has seen a record number of firms reporting recruitment difficulties, with skills shortages reaching critical levels, according to the British Chambers of Commerce and the Recruitment & Employment Confederation. With such strong competition for talent, employers need to be more resourceful than ever in attracting and retaining skilled employees.

What’s more, aspects of an organisation’s culture are now seen as a key part of an employee offering – a good working environment, the focus on innovation and industry leadership, and a reputation for professionalism, ethics and social responsibility, all of them attributes that may be especially attractive to a millennial workforce. In a 2018 Institute of Internal Communication (IoIC) poll, 44% of respondents said the internal culture was most likely to attract them to their next employer, compared with 27% for salary and financial benefits.

Working with the executive, internal communications and HR can lead on the coordination of these corporate offerings, to develop an employee value proposition (EVP) and employer brand that ensures you stand out from the crowd. A strong EVP is a powerful recruitment and retention tool that can inspire existing and prospective employees to want to work at the organisation, and help them understand the reason for their choice.

According to Corporate Leadership Council research, a well thought-through and executed EVP can improve the commitment of new hires by up to 29 per cent, reduce new hire premiums by up to 50% and increase the likelihood of employees acting as advocates from an average of 24% to 47%.

It’s also important to ensure your current EVP still resonates and makes sense to people, and that the experience inside their organisation matches the brand and perception outside. This is especially relevant during periods of ongoing business change and improvement when culture and internal brand can come under pressure.

Reward and benefit packages certainly continue to be an important factor in talent attraction and retention. But investing the time and effort in understanding and communicating your organisation’s broader competitive advantage in the recruitment market can pay bigger dividends. With Brexit imminent and the war for talent likely to intensify, new strategies for communicating brand and culture through your EVP will become ever more important on the HR agenda.  

To find out more about how we help organisations renew their employee value proposition, please get in touch or visit https://www.likeminds.uk.com/employee-value-proposition.

Join our mailing list