During the last six to eight years, the topic of Employer value proposition has turned from a point in a presentation to a milestone of how a company achieves results. Still, I meet leaders who think Employer value proposition is their Human capital department responsibility. And these same leaders have responsibility for others in their teams and organizations. For example, it was back in 2020 when I met with the Global HR Director and the Head of operation development of one of the largest companies operating with Cryptocurrencies worldwide. During the conversation, I was surprised about the company’s strategy to find people for their teams, invest in attracting them and then just let them go when they feel dissatisfied with the environment, job responsibilities, etc.
The first question I asked was why they do that. Both people answered that the company profile is a start-up and only invests in fast decisions, even if that means losing fifty percent of their workforce and having to replace it. My second question was about the age of the company and the years of experience in the market. The answer shocked me – a nine-year-old company with more than 20 countries represented. This company has overgrown its team age and needs help. After declining the offer to become part of their team, I offered advice on how the company needs to change if they plan to remain a serious player in the industry. To that, I received an arrogant answer that they know it all. Two years later, after the crypto market crash, this same company fired their global HR director and turned to a group of colleagues for help to restructure and change their image as an employer and me.
Well, this you can call a tuff project – people in leadership roles who are not ready to change and sabotage the process. These employees quit daily, no matter the salaries (60% higher than the average in the industry).
What I have had to build with the team of consultants was an understanding of the employer’s role in delivering excellent results while retaining the best people and letting go of those who want to avoid fitting in the changed environment.
Working with the company management in Europe for four months helped them to build understanding and change their mindset. Then we expanded the project to other offices outside of Europe. That helped the company develop its unique employer value proposition and turn from start-up thinking to corporate, carrying people thinking.
Don’t get me wrong. I do not say that start-ups are destructive forms of organizations. But often, the environment is so fast-paced that owners and even the board of directors focus on what they can control – and that is often the product, and leave other things, even people, on a second plan.
And to build an employer’s value for your people is a challenging task. It may sound simple, but if it was, why do so many consultants and trainers help leaders do it?
No matter how it looks and how many times you have tried as a leader and failed, building value for your employees is an essential responsibility of modern leadership. In my experience, I have had to use different approaches in consulting or working directly in various companies across multiple industries. I’ve learned that there are many approaches to various organizations. However, some universal principles may help leaders shape their thinking in the right direction for building an employer value proposition for the current organization they are working for.
Understand environment
According to SHRM society in the US, some forty-seven percent of leaders do not understand the environment or do not do what is needed to understand it. The same study shows that leaders start by analyzing the background but then stick to this step and decide that they know it all. Understanding the environment means exploring and learning about different elements or factors you find during your analysis, no matter how they look. Getting the whole picture or part of it may win or break the building of an employer’s value proposition.
Accept what you have found
“It looks like we are selfish, but it is not. I cannot accept that.” – These were the words of a CEO I have worked with on a cultural re-shaping model we built for a company operating in more than one hundred countries. The second principle of building an authentic value proposition for your people is to lower the level of denial and accept what you have found and understood. Things are what they are, and rejecting the obvious does not help the leader or the organization. Taking what is already seen is a prerequisite for building a sustainable strategy in time to create value for others.
Align with main stakeholders and peers
No matter the leader’s role level in the organization, starting to build something without having others on your side leads to failure. Research from Yale University in 2020 has found that eighty-seven percent of leaders who began change without having support from others have failed. Alignment on change and creating an initial plan, accepted by a broad group of people in the organization, not only support the change but also makes it easier to happen.
Build your plan with milestones
Inexperienced leaders want to change the world today. They do not have the patience to wait but act in the moment. As Dave Ulrich says in one of his speeches, “Not having the patience can doom the change.” A wise leader creates an intelligent approach toward building employer value propositions. Good things must happen in steps, and people must understand and accept them. At the end of every cycle, leaders and people around them should invest time in recapping what happened and recognize and celebrate the change. With a clear end goal for every revolution of the change, the leader can create patience and tolerance toward the process while simultaneously building excitement in the long run. After all, creating an employer value proposition is more a change of the mindset and how we accept the environment.
Build your agenda flexibly
People are not the same. What is valuable for one may be indifferent to others. For example – if you offer a sports card to all your employees, but only thirty percent of them actively train and exercise, ask yourself, “Are you adding value to everyone, or maybe you are discriminating seventy percent of the people in favor of thirty percent of them.” What makes your proposition valuable is not the number of things you create but how you create them and how others see them. There should be a basic package for everyone, but above that, flexible perks and add-ons are the minima you must do to create real value for your people. The employer value proposition strategy should include different elements and give flexible solutions to people to meet their expectations, demands, and needs.
Set the limit of flexibility for everyone
According to Inc. com published research from 2021, some fifty-four percent of companies struggle with the flexibility of perks and additional benefits they have added for their employees. And the struggle often comes from one thing – no rules set for an advantage’s flexibility. People expect tailor-made decisions only for them, but is it possible, and if YES, what will be the price for it? Take the pastry shop or the electronics store, for example – and ask yourself how flexible they are. Do you get the pastry you deserve, or do you have to choose from those available? It is the same with electronics. Most people enter the store to buy something they 100% want and exit it with what is available. So it is essential, not only for the employees but also for the leaders, to ensure some flexibility for employees, but not limitless. The excellent balance between what is less and possible as flexibility for a large group of employees is what leaders must set as a standard for flexibility in the teams and what they offer.
Risk flexibility with reasonable facts in mind
What many leaders (according to the University of Vienna, some forty-one percent) are afraid of is setting boundaries about flexibility. They think that if taking authority in this process, the actions will cause a wave of unhappy and quitting employees. In reality, facts from four different surveys, one from Korn Ferry, show that employees are satisfied by limitations rather than how they are communicated and executed. Explaining what limits your ability as a leader and a company to give 100% flexibility is more valuable and builds more trust than just sharing that things are as you say them. Presenting all the facts in a structured and logical way may be different from what everyone will accept, but they will certainly understand what you say and why you say it.
Authenticity in everything
People quickly spot leaders who need to be more authentic. No matter how the leader tries to hide it, it always appears on the surface. If something is unnatural for us, we often search for ways to mask it as something else. Leaders establish an environment of mistrust by being unnatural and creating this buzz around them. To overcome that bias and situation, showing authenticity in everything and showing who they are as a person and professional works positively not only for the current moment but also creates a more relaxed environment.
Allow the environment and people to be vulnerable
People also start expressing their emotions more naturally by being increasingly social and natural. Leaders are familiar with the large group of people in the workplace. But to show everyone you are weak and “just human” does not resonate well with most leaders’ Egos. Living in their world, these self-made leaders often need to add value or present the organization as a natural place to work and develop. People today do not want to see leaders who are strong and do not show emotions. They want to see people just like them – people who cry, feel weak, suffer like others, need help like others, and do not hesitate to ask for the support they need in different layers of the organization. After all, the employee may work in the finance department, but at the same time, they may also be a behavioral consultant and even a good coach who helps others. Turning to others and showing that they are only people create value for the leader and position the organization as a natural workplace where people are in the first place. At the same time, work and results come from the understanding that anyone can help anyone and, in that way, contribute meaningfully to the organization’s current and future success.
IN CONCLUSION:
Can you build an employer value proposition for your team and organization? Well, think again. It is not a magical thing, but a logical action that redefines values, structure, and environment by showing that organization is a living place and not a cold mechanism established to deliver results while keeping the expenses low. With the right mindset and consistency in actions in a balanced way, a leader’s job to create that “dream place to work” can be a task with a solution waiting just around the corner. “Want to look around the corner?”
The Human place 