Retaining New Talent

Q. Is Employer Value Proposition (EVP) an effective tool for increasing new talent attraction and retention?

I think it is a bit cliched to say that talent attraction and retention are very important. It is also known to all that supply issues of good talent coupled with rising demand for high-quality talent create problems, including high employee turnover and other workforce management related issues, resulting to low productivity and stress in workplace.

High employee turnover and wage inflation have very high co-relation. Employee turnover would make talent dearer as poaching of talented lot is a natural corollary.

As competition for talent increases, organizations lose the ability to attract high quality talent. The other issue that crops up is to keep its own herd away from competition. I am reminded of a common situation that comes up now and then.

A company, planning to launch a new product, creates a new product department, puts in some of its smartest managers to prepare it. The team works hard to develop the new product, works out the technology transfer from the international headquarters. Thirty days before launching the new product, the project leader decides to join a rival big company.

This is a common problem, I wondered if that was an issue of employer value proposition, one stronger than the other leading to loss of critical talent.

Why couldn't the project leader trust the organization or did he break trust? The issue was definitely about a stronger Employer Value Proposition moving the employee. If that was the case was there any method available to ensure this critical talent loss did not happen.

Employer Value Proposition is definitely an effective tool for attracting the new talent as it makes it difficult for competitors to poach from an organization with stronger Employer Value Proposition.

Long ago I had done a research project on direct sales professionals and it was difficult to attract candidates. It was discovered that there were a few things that attracted the candidates and it was also discovered that the candidates belonged to a specific background. By focusing on the elements that made sense to the group made a huge difference for the walk-ins that the company organized later on.

It is also important to be mindful that the organization should also align its internal processes to the value proposition and keep it relevant for the concerned people. For example, describing career opportunities to a young trainee would have a different impact on his commitment against an employee who is looking forward to retire.

Recently I have heard a very senior leader working for a large corporation mentioning that Employer Value Proposition is given. However, the same company was struggling with a very interesting phenomenon of " significant number of candidates selected for a job not joining at the end even after being given 40% increase in salary". What we figured out was deficiency in the recruitment process and on boarding process.

Leave aside what was getting communicated, here the company was thinking that it being one of the greatest global brands people would just join it. But the company did not have an EVP strategy nor an execution plan.

The Employer Value Proposition is basically what an Employer Brand stands for, the attributes that are most powerful for attracting and retaining talent. The fact is also true that retention and attraction are two different elements and so the factors influencing would be different. However, in reality, there is a core that is common. Things like organization stability, compensation, career opportunity, and internal culture are essential factors that influence EVP and would increase organization's talent attraction and retention.

Therefore, Employer Value Proposition is an effective tool for increasing new talent attraction and retention. It must be definitely remembered that the Employer Value Proposition should be very tightly integrated with the values and mission of the organization. Before I end this answer would refer to the example of Starbucks which defines behavior expectation in the work environment and constantly reinforce and check on lack of alignments.