EVP Evolution: How to Continuously Adapt and Thrive in the Modern Workplace

Today, I’m sharing my approach to designing an Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Each client and business is unique, and while there’s a lot of nuance involved, following a similar approach to the one outlined below can significantly enhance your EVP.

Strategic Alignment

The goal here is straightforward: get close to the people and data that matter. Sync internal and external narratives, conduct a deep assessment of current brand perceptions, and determine the strategic importance of revisiting the EVP. You’ll be surprised by how many people can’t explain why they’re pursuing a new EVP.

Creating a Movement from the Start

This initial stage is all about creating excitement, finding energy, and agreeing on the future. It’s crucial to take clients on the journey, showing them that the EVP is more than a PDF—it’s a living, breathing entity rather than a one-time project.

Engage a cross-functional team to ensure they are resourced to keep the product alive. Examine and challenge the current organizational POX (Product, Operational, Experience) data sets. From here, build hypotheses and introduce the concept of “EVP as a Product,” which encourages adopting product management best practices for continuous evolution and relevance. This usually includes:

Product Reviews: Establish a regular cadence of reviewing the future EVP, similar to the tech industry, to test effectiveness and relevance in both internal and external markets. Ensure overall alignment with business strategy and employee needs.

Feedback Loops and Iterations: Building a system for continuous feedback from employees and the business is the backbone of any EVP. Schedule future dates for gathering this feedback. Remember, organizations have two types of customers: external and internal (employees).

A continuous feedback mechanism allows us to leverage the EVP proactively through two levers:

• Reactive: Respond swiftly to emerging issues before they become damaging.

• Proactive: Seize moments of opportunity for real-time experimentation and iteration, enhancing the EVP.

Life Cycle Management

Once the EVP as a product is established, incorporate typical product management phases: birth, growth, maturity, and sunset. This framework allows for natural evolution and future planning for changes or pivots.

Stakeholder Buy-In

Central to our approach is comprehensive and interactive stakeholder engagement, ensuring alignment and buy-in from all organizational corners. This phase reflects a deep commitment to collaboration, effective facilitation, and genuine consensus-building.

I lead these stakeholder sessions, using the DARE canvas as a cornerstone tool to guide discussions, achieve consensus on the EVP blueprint, and address potential conflicts between the EVP and Employee Brand (EB) teams upfront.

It’s also an excellent time to check who has OKRs mapped to the EVP (we’ll tackle OKRs in later discussions). The DARE Canvas framework improves stakeholder relationships by encouraging open, honest, and trusting environments, and identifying biases, preferences, and ways of working before diving into project specifics.

Sensemaking and Insights

Sensemaking is crucial, as organizations are cultures of cultures. Cast a wide net and then narrow in using segmentation and target audience value proposition testing.

There are numerous ways to capture insights, each with its strengths and weaknesses. Typically, this involves 1:1 interviews and focus groups, supplemented with approaches like journals, tag-a-longs, safaris, and pop-up card sorting. Don’t forget external data like social listening on Reddit, X, Glassdoor, FB, and LinkedIn.

To enrich our understanding and ensure our EVP resonates deeply, we extend our gaze beyond the organization. Interview external experts to challenge internal assumptions and introduce innovative ideas. These insights help us think differently about our EVP, making it aspirational and forward-looking.

After gathering data, I perform extensive analysis, using methods from human clustering to AI for trend and sentiment analysis. This hard work helps identify and distil employee needs, aspirations, and perceptions, pinpointing moments of opportunity and areas for enhancement.

I then conducted a Culture Playback, immersing stakeholders in the findings without relying heavily on PowerPoint. Using AI for live A/B testing helps narrow down what resonates most. This process, whether for 50 or 5000 people, builds client confidence in making informed decisions.

Once we have the green light, we move on to concept design, MVP, and experimentation.