Difference Between Your EVP and Employer Brand

Launching any sort of employee-centric initiative – whether it’s employer branding, employee engagement, or something in-between –  can leave you feeling lost in a sea of jargon, acronyms, and buzzwords. And while we won’t break down every single confusing HR buzzword or concept right now, what we will do below is tackle one of the biggest sources of the confusion among HR, talent acquisition and recruiting: the mixing up of the words “employee value proposition,” or EVP, and “employer brand.”

A lot of people use these terms interchangeably, but they actually represent to two distinctly different things.

Read on to understand better the difference between EVP and employer branding so that you won’t make the mistake of getting them mixed up again in the future:

 EVP and employer brand have some overlap, it’s easy to get them confused. Here’s a breakdown of the critical differences between your EVP and employer brand.

1. EVP is Internal, While Employer Brand is External

Your EVP is internal, representing the face your company shows its employees. Think of all of the value your employees gain from working for you. This might be compensation packages, flexible work time, opportunities for advancement, cool office place perks, or an intellectually stimulating environment. This collection of tangible and intangible rewards represent your EVP. Your EVP is internal to your company. Outsiders may or may not know what value you provide your employees.

In contrast, your employer brand is the face your company presents to the world. This often jives with your EVP, but not always. For example, perhaps your employees love working for you and are very happy with their experiences. However, you might have gotten some bad press that caused the media to portray your workplace culture as ruthless and cutthroat. Thus, your employer brand — the external-facing part of your company’s image — is an inaccurate reflection of your EVP. Part of your branding effort should be to develop marketing materials to ensure that your external reputation matches your positive EVP.

2. EVP is Research-Driven, While Employer Brand is about Creative Expression of the EVP

What defines your EVP is an empirical question, meaning that you can find the answer through research. It’s not something defined by your executive board or HR department. Rather, it is inherently defined by your employees. If you want to get a better handle on your EVP, you have to ask! Set up surveys and focus groups to determine what aspects of your company culture are central to your EVP. Ultimately, your “EVP takes the key components, realities and subtleties of the employer brand and streamlines these into a definitive set of statements (often known as ‘pillars’ or ‘themes’). These pillars act as codification of who you are, what makes you different and special and, most importantly, answers questions like, ‘What’s in it for me to join and stay with this business, and what’s expected of me?”, shares Nicole Dorskind, Managing Director of Thirty Three, a full-service agency, specializing in areas ranging from employer branding, employee engagement, and recruitment advertising.

An employer brand, on the other hand, is an outward expression of the EVP. You can think of it as a way of crafting the hard facts and figures into a compelling narrative: this is why you may often read about storytelling in employer branding. “[Your] employer brand, often expressed through creative and messaging, transforms the pillars of the EVP into marketing and advertising materials that bring your workplace to life, creating an emotional connection with the people you’d most like to reach,” Dorskind adds.

Your EVP may define what employees get out of working for your company, but your employer brand tells other people about it. The goal of your employer branding efforts is to convince outsiders that they will receive value from working for you.

3. EVP is true “Why,” whereas Employer Brand is “What” and “How”

Your company’s EVP is the “why” of your organization. It explains what compels your employees to keep working for you, even when they might have other options. In contrast, your employer brand is the “what” and “how” of your company. Through your branding efforts, you can tell others what you’re about as an employer. Your employer brand also gives outside talent the opportunity to learn how to become part of your organization.

Reasons to involve employees in business sustainability

How employee engagement can drive your sustainability strategy? Take a moment to think about how you can leverage sustainability initiatives to engage your employees and create a values-driven culture of collaboration and creativity. In order for your company to be sustainable – start with getting employees involved and encouraging engagement. There are a few reasons why this is important:

1. Employees understand the company best

There are almost no other stakeholders that know your company better than your employees, especially within their operational functions/area. Employees are usually very aware of inefficiencies and should have insight into opportunities to be more efficient as they are the ones being influenced by them. Given a voice, employees might have many brilliant ideas on how to do things better. Where sustainability is tied to innovation, having employees committed to this is key.

2. Engaged employees are more likely to support sustainability

When employees are engaged and have input into decisions and initiatives regarding sustainability in the company, they are much more likely to support those initiatives. Also make sure your company has enough processes in place to make it easy to be sustainable – a lack of empowerment, facilities and communication are key reasons why employees are not greener at work. Additionally, if their actions at work delivers tangible results, such as saving money or getting rewards, employees will be more motivated to take part in initiatives.

3. Sustainability influences morale, employee retention and a positive culture

Engaging employees in sustainability excites and motivates them. It gives them a sense of belonging and drives passion and purpose. For a business to truly thrive and have real sustainability, it’s critical to achieve a positive company culture where its employees “buy in” and everyone’s on board. Taking measures to create a positive company culture will increase employee morale and build trust with your staff – putting your company in a favourable position and ensuring better involvement with sustainability.

4. Everyone has a responsibility towards our planet

Businesses have enormous potential to improve the health of our planet and citizens, and every company has a moral obligation to improve the conditions of a system that helps them to achieve success. Sustainability in the workplace is about creating a shift that brings out humanity in your business. Instead of making it all about the company having a positive image, employees should be encouraged to focus on what they can do to help on an individual level – because they want to and not just because the company says so.

5. Employees are the face of your business

Your employees are the ones working closely with customers and they are responsible for much of the image that people will have about your company. Moreover, companies that distribute their sustainability reports broadly among employees find that they often share this information with their families, friends and neighbours, as well as with customers and suppliers – therefore, you need to make sure that the message going out to other people about your business is a positive one.

Employee Value Proposition

Employee Value Proposition (EVP) refers to the rewards and benefits received by employees in return for their performance at the workplace. It is one of the most important factors to consider for any company looking to attract and retain top talent.

A strategic employee value proposition is proven to help organisations more successfully recruit and compete for top talent. In fact, according to Corporate Leadership Council, organisations with managed EVPs are able to effectively source from more than 60 percent of the labour market.

So if you want to considerably raise your recruiting results and gain a human resource (HR) edge over your competitors, start by determining your organisation’s unique employee value proposition.

The way we recruit has changed. Over the past decade, candidates have been steadily becoming more and more powerful in the job search. Ever since attracting best talent became harder than ever, consistent and efficient communication of employee value proposition has become extremely important.

Many recruiters and other HR professionals now have planned strategies for communicating their EVP with potential candidates.

How to Build an Employer Brand

May not be able to hire dedicated experts to handle this function, but there’s no reason you can’t build a compelling employer brand. Breaking things down to the most important tasks will make the process much more manageable, so let’s cover the basics.

Conduct an Employer Brand Audit

You can’t hope to influence or manage your employer brand if you don’t know what it is people think about you, so an employer brand audit is the first step.

This is a two-pronged fact finding mission designed to uncover how the company is currently presenting itself to candidates and employees and what those people actually think about the company.

First, examine everything, and we do mean everything, you’re saying to candidates and employees that could impact their perception of the company. Your job descriptions, career page, social media profiles, acceptance/rejection letters, onboarding materials, internal communications, performance reviews — if it exists, analyze it.

Next, it’s time to get some feedback from candidates and employees. Remember, the idea here is to understand how they really think and feel about the company, so be sure to ask questions that will provide meaningful information.

How would they describe the company to a friend? Why did they choose to apply? Why did they choose to accept/reject their offer? Why do they stay with the company year after year? Why are they leaving the company? Do they feel the company “walks the walk?”

You want to speak with enough people to feel confident you’ve gathered meaningful data, but don’t overdo it. Collecting too much information will make data analysis nearly impossible.

Once complete, the employer brand audit will help you identify and correct the gaps that exist between how the company is presenting itself and how it is perceived by candidates and employees.

Craft Your Employee Value Proposition

Armed with the information collected during the employer brand audit, you’re ready to craft your employee value proposition (EVP).

The EVP is the “people deal” that exists between an organization, its employees and the talent it’s looking to recruit. It answers two important questions:

·         What the individual employee or candidate can expect of the company.

·         What the company expects of the individual employee or candidate.

Think of your EVP as the guiding light of your employer branding efforts. While you may never share it publicly, your EVP will shape your communications moving forward.

Developing your EVP is no small feat, but fortunately we’ve covered the topic in depth and can help get you started.

Implement Your Employer Branding Strategy

At this point, you should be ready to take your message to the masses. But what channels are most important? There are countless avenues you can utilize to promote your employer brand, but when getting started we recommend starting with the lowest hanging fruit.

  Job Descriptions - Job descriptions may not sound like the place to let your personality shine, but they’re often the first interaction job seekers will have with your company so make sure they reflect your desired employer brand.

  

·         Career Page - Your career page is the anchor of your employer branding materials, making it one of the most important touchpoints with potential candidates. Compelling photography or video, employee testimonials, your core values and more can all help convince candidates that you’re the place to be, so spend some time dialing it in.   

·         Online Reviews - These days, almost every job seeker reads employer reviews before applying to a job, and coming across a negative review can stop them in their tracks. While you can’t control anonymous reviews, you can respond to them, and that can have a serious impact on perceptions. 62% of job seekers say their opinion of a company improved after seeing it respond to a negative review, so pay attention to what people are saying about you and don’t be afraid to respond.

·         Candidate Experience - If you’re lucky enough to convince a great candidate to apply, at some point you’ll interact with them offline. Whether it’s an initial phone screen or in office interview, the experience that candidate has must align with your employer brand or you’re almost guaranteed to lose them.

Understanding Employer Branding

Employer branding is the process of managing and influencing your reputation as an employer among job seekers, employees and key stakeholders.  It encompasses everything you do to position your organization as an employer of choice.

Your employer brand is your organization’s reputation as an employer. In simpler terms, it’s what job seekers and employees really think of you. It’s what they tell their friends and family when you aren’t around. Though it may not be tangible, your employer brand is an asset that requires constant cultivation.

That’s where employer brand-ing comes into play.

Why ‘manage’ and ‘influence’ instead of ‘own’ or ‘dictate?’ Because your employer brand is not something you actually own. Your reputation as an employer exists in the minds of candidates and employees, and it is shaped by their thoughts and impressions. You have an employer brand, whether or not you actively manage it. Candidates and employees have an opinion about you, and if you aren’t working to influence it, you’re at their mercy.     

Think about the totality of your firm’s recruiting and retention efforts as a series of individual interactions. Every touchpoint leaves an impression with candidates and employees that shapes your employer brand and your ability to hire and retain great people. Without proper management, each one of those touchpoints can become a deal breaker, costing you candidates and employees.  

BENEFITS

The Importance of Employer Branding

It’s almost impossible to overstate the importance of employer branding.

While the concept has been around for decades, it didn’t gain widespread attention until the mid 90’s when the first online job boards were launched. Almost overnight, employees had access to millions of opportunities across the country. The workforce became more fluid than ever before, and the days of sticking with one company for the long haul were over.

Smart employers adapted to this shift (some faster than others) and began to take proactive steps toward attracting and retaining top talent, but thousands of organizations still fail to capitalize on the benefits of employer branding.   

And those benefits are significant.

Let’s look at some stats — good, bad and ugly — that shine some light on why employer branding is so important.

95% of candidates identify a company’s reputation as a key consideration when exploring new career opportunities (source). Virtually every candidate out there — whether they’re active, passive or somewhere in the middle — will consider your company’s reputation before applying.  

66% of job seekers want to learn about your culture and values (source). Candidates are literally telling us what they want to see during the job search. Your employer branding efforts can be a great way to communicate these features.

69% of candidates would reject an offer from a company with a bad employer brand, even if they were unemployed (source). Even the fear of unemployment isn’t enough to overcome a negative employer brand.

Companies with a poor employer brand must offer a minimum of a 10% pay increase to lure top talent (source). Imagine paying a 10% premium on every single hire you make. Now take a minute to consider the state of your employer brand and ask yourself if you’re already paying that premium without realizing it?  

40% of passive candidates would accept a new position without an increase in pay if the company had a good employer brand (source). A positive employer brand is all it takes to overcome the stigma associated with a lateral move for nearly half of the workforce.

As much as 23% of the 18-34 year old workforce would accept a pay cut for an opportunity to join a company with a good employer brand (source). While we would never recommend intentionally underbidding your competitors, this goes to show the power of reputation.  

Only 49% of employees would recommend their employer to a friend (source). This one is especially scary, as employee referrals are often the best source of quality applicants. You can kiss those hires goodbye if less than half of your employees would recommend you to their network.

More than anything else, these statistics prove that employer branding impacts every facet of the employer-employee relationship. While it is most often associated with recruitment, employer branding also affects employee engagement, retention and even profitability.

HRM VS SHRM

Human Resource Management implies the implementation of management principles for managing the workforce of an organization. It is concerned with the process of

·         hiring,

·         developing

·         retaining

the manpower, with a view to making them more efficient.

Strategic HRM is the process of aligning the business strategy with the company’s human resource practices, so as to attain strategic goals of an organization.

In SHRM, the workforce of the company is managed proactively. Take a glance at the article presented here that explains the difference between HRM and SHRM.

Comparison Chart

BASIS FOR COMPARISON	HRM	SHRM
Meaning	Human resource management (HRM) implies the governance of manpower of the organization in a thorough and structured manner.	SHRM is a managerial function which implies framing of HR strategies in such a way to direct employee’s efforts towards the goals of the organization.
Nature	Reactive	Proactive
Responsibility lies with	Staff specialist	Line manager
Approach	Fragmented	Integrated
Scope	Concerned with employee relations	Concerned with internal and external relations
Time horizon	Short term	Long term
Basic factor	Capital and products	People and knowledge
Change	Follows change	Initiates change
Accountability	Cost center	Investment center
Control	Stringent control over employees	It exhibits leniency.

Definition of SHRM

Strategic human resource management can be defined as the linking of human resources with strategic goals and objectives in order to improve business performance and develop organizational culture that foster innovation, flexibility and competitive advantage. In an organization SHRM means accepting and involving the HR function as a strategic partner in the formulation and implementation of the company's strategies through HR activities such as recruiting, selecting, training and rewarding personnel.

The key features of SHRM are

1. ·         There is an explicit linkage between HR policy and practices and overall organizational strategic aims and the organizational environment
2. ·         There is some organizing schema linking individual HR interventions so that they are mutually supportive
3. ·         Much of the responsibility for the management of human resources is devolved down the line

Benefits of SHRM

Identifying and analyzing external opportunities and threats that may be crucial to the company's success.

v  Provides a clear business strategy and vision for the future.

v  To supply competitive intelligence that may be useful in the strategic planning process.

v  To recruit, retain and motivate people.

v  To develop and retain of highly competent people.

v  To ensure that people development issues are addressed systematically.

v  To supply information regarding the company's internal strengths and weaknesses.

v  To meet the expectations of the customers effectively.

v  To ensure high productivity.

v  To ensure business surplus thorough competency.

Barriers of SHRM

Barriers to successful SHRM implementation are complex. The main reason is a lack of growth strategy or failure to implement one. Other major barriers are summarized as follows:

Ø  Inducing the vision and mission of the change effort.

Ø  High resistance due to lack of cooperation from the bottom line.

Ø  Interdepartmental conflict.

Ø  The commitment of the entire senior management team.

Ø  Plans that integrate internal resource with external requirements.

Ø  Limited time, money and the resources.

Ø  The statusquo approach of employees.

Ø  Fear of incompetency of senior level managers to take up strategic steps.

Ø  Diverse work-force with competitive skill sets.

Ø  Fear towards victimisation in the wake of failures.

Ø  Improper strategic assignments and leadership conflict over authority.

Ø  Ramifications for power relations.

Ø  Vulnerability to legislative changes.

Ø  Resistance that comes through the legitimate labour institutions.

Ø  Presence of an active labour union.

Ø  Rapid structural changes.

Ø  Economic and market pressures influenced the adoption of strategic HRM.

Ø  More diverse, outward looking approach.

Differences Between HRM and SHRM

The differences between HRM and SHRM can be drawn clearly on the following grounds:

Ø  The governance of manpower of the organization in a thorough and structured manner is called Human Resource Management or HRM. A managerial function which implies framing of HR strategies in such a way to direct employees efforts towards the goals of an organisation is known as SHRM.

Ø  The process of HRM is reactive in nature. On the other hand, SHRM is a proactive management function.

Ø  In human resource management, the responsibility of manpower lies with the staff specialists, whereas in strategic human resource management, the task of managing the workforce, is vested in the line managers.

Ø  HRM follows fragmented approach, which stresses on applying management principles while managing people in an organisation. As against this, SHRM follows an integrated approach, which involves lining up of business strategy with the company’s HR practices.

Ø  Human resource management emphasises on employee relations, ensuring employees motivation, and also the firm conforms to the necessary employment laws. Conversely, SHRM focuses on a partnership with internal and external constituent groups.

Ø  HRM supports short-term business goals and outcomes, but SHRM supports long-term goals and results of business.

Ø  In human resource management, the human resource manager plays the role of change follower, i.e. he/she responses to change, hence pursues transactional leadership style. As opposed to SHRM, the human resource manager is a change leader, i.e. an imitator, thus seeks transformational leadership.

Ø  The primary element in HRM is the capital and products, but people and their knowledge are the building blocks of SHRM.