When employees feel like protagonists, recognized and part of a project coherent with the corporate culture, engagement grows. Valuing individual and collective paths is the key to building a solid and motivating work experience. Here’s how to get there
The Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is a topic linked as much to Employee Experience as to Customer Experience, and one in which every person is valued 360 degrees throughout their journey.
The goal is to build a positive, valuable experience for every person in the company at every touchpoint: the significant moments of contact between company and employee, from recruiting to onboarding, from day-to-day work to the moment someone leaves the organization or retires — every significant moment must be looked after and cared for down to the smallest detail.
The Employee Value Proposition represents the set of activities, initiatives and opportunities made available to people, over the course of their working life, in exchange for their contribution and professionalism.
Employee Value Proposition, moments that matter
But how do you build the best experience for employees?
Starting by listening. Asking, running recurring surveys, giving and receiving feedback provides the right elements for our goal. An interesting example in this regard is an analysis carried out by Deloitte on the factors that can make the Employee Experience positive and that can therefore become part of the EVP.
Gartner, in turn, points out that the EVP is essentially an agreement (a human deal) addressed to employees as people, not just as workers, and one from which every employee can draw a positive emotional response.
The analyst also highlights the advantages (in percentage terms) of such a human deal:
There is a lot to do: supporting people in their relationships with colleagues and families; adopting Diversity, Equity & Inclusion policies; ensuring flexibility and autonomy (smart working, a shorter week); fostering personal growth; supporting people’s wellbeing (a gym, but also fair pay and choices that ensure the company’s own financial stability).
Naturally, all touchpoints need to be checked, with constant measurement to draw an overall picture of how each individual initiative is going, in order to change course if needed.
Codifying the Employee Value Proposition: Medtronic and its city
“Recognizing the value of each employee, offering a work environment that allows for the satisfaction of a job well done, security, opportunities for advancement, and the means to share in the company’s success.”
This is tenet 5 of Medtronic’s Mission, the world’s largest medical device company, which manufactures medical devices for monitoring, preventing and treating conditions across numerous therapeutic areas.
Alessandra Sama, HR Director at Medtronic, explains: “The project began in May 2021, in the middle of the pandemic. We wanted to understand how to best promote the distinctive, valuable elements of the professional experience within our company. The ultimate goal was to map out what makes people’s experience positive and to understand how to improve it, with positive effects on the working climate and on performance. The project was tailored to the Italian context but is connected to an international initiative that mapped EVP globally.”
Medtronic’s journey
The process included a survey and workshops that gathered quantitative and qualitative feedback, leading to the production of an EVP digital booklet (created with Methodos in November ’21), which brings together all the opportunities offered to people and explains why every individual is unique and valuable: “We proposed the metaphor of a metropolitan city — explains Sama — with 3 districts that meet people’s different needs”:
- BUILD — Achieving one’s own physical, emotional and financial wellbeing;
- GROW — Growing professionally through unique learning and development opportunities;
- CONNECT — Feeling part of a community devoted to realizing the Mission and to mutual support.
Medtronic’s people responded very well to this initiative: “It was important to listen and understand what people’s experience was actually like and where there was room for improvement. The project was very well received by everyone. An EVP Leadership Toolkit was then created for people managers, who became champions of the EVP among their teams.”
Medtronic was quick to act on the areas of lower satisfaction, and Sama recounts: “We created a Performance notebook to make performance evaluation more objective; we launched an internal Growth stories campaign (later published on social media) to tell the story of how people grow within the company; we launched Ment4All, a Mentorship program for new hires, and the My Rewards portal, to develop a fuller and more well-rounded awareness of the value of the entire compensation package in all its complexity; a deep-dive and development path for all new hires called”The Value of We” was also developed, aimed at strengthening the company’s culture and identity by reinforcing a sense of collective belonging and community, moving beyond individualism and developing the concept of WE.”
All of this delivered important results: “We have achieved greater employee engagement — Sama concludes — and a deeper awareness of the value Medtronic offers. We are already thinking about a further survey soon; this is not a stand-alone project.”
- Gartner for HR — Actions to humanize your employee value proposition (2021)