Jo Taylor, MD of Let’s Talk Talent talks all things EVP with Philomena Gray Global Chief People Officer of Imagination. Join them to find out how to build an EVP that attracts and retains top talent.
Listen to this episode on Spotify
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts
Transcript of Building an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) that attracts and retains top talent
Jo Taylor
Hi, and welcome to the Let’s Talk Talent podcast. We’re going to be sharing, over a series of episodes, tips and techniques, bringing our friends and family to share their stories, their experience of working life today. Because together we can create simply irresistible organisations. Happy listening!
Jo Taylor
Hi, and welcome to Let’s Talk Talent’s 17th episode of our podcast. I cannot believe we’re on episode 17. But I’m really excited today, because I’ve got a wonderful friend who’s going to be talking to us about employee value proposition. For those of you that have listened before, you’ll know me, I’m Jo Taylor, I’m MD of Let’s Talk Talent. And I’ve got Philomena Gray, who is Chief People Officer of Imagination. How’re you doing, Phil?
Philomena Gray
I’m absolutely fine, Jo. Thank you for inviting me along.
Jo Taylor
Brilliant. So we’re going to talk about employee value proposition today. And I wanted to know, so what is employee value proposition?
Philomena Gray
Interestingly, when you asked me to talk about this subject, I went online and I thought: what is the actual definition of an employee value proposition that people understand widely? And it’s all about the unique set of benefits that an employee receives for working within your organisation given their skills, their capabilities, their knowledge and their experience, and what they can bring to that organisation. And I think that sits where my head is in terms of employee value proposition, and rather than saying that, I might just do “EVP” going forward. But for me, it’s what makes us stand out from our competitors as well. Because we are all vying for the same talent. Why should somebody join Imagination? What is it that sets us apart? So the benefits and the culture are part and parcel and go hand-in-hand together to define that EVP. I think overlapping that is your company value, your company offering – people feeling proud about working for the organisation, people feeling motivated and encouraged to really be the best at what they do every single day of the week. And I think reward and compensation is one part of that. But it’s certainly a lot more than I think the simplest definition of what an EVP stands for, to me anyway.
Jo Taylor
So how does an EVP differentiate from a customer value proposition? Are they interlinked? Should we be thinking about both of them in the context of how we attract and how we get great people and keep great people?
Philomena Gray
Yeah, it’s interesting. At Imagination, they did the commercial CVP before they did anything in terms of EVP, and I think realistically, COVID has forced them to take it that way. They fundamentally had to transform the business and how it operates because we’re a live experience events organisation, and during COVID, of course, live events got stopped. But the core proposition of our organisation is built on four values: curiosity, rigour, brave, and respectful. And everything we do as a commercial organisation, we ask ourselves those questions in terms of: are we being curious when we put a proposition to a customer? Are we being rigorous in terms of what we end up with? Are we being really brave and breaking the boundaries? And do we respect the people and the customers and the clients that we work with? So that has been set for me. I joined the organisation in October last year, and those values have been set on a commercial proposition. So for me, I’m working with those four values to make sure that everything we do from an employee perspective, and that EVP positioning, is overlapped to the commercial position. So for me, that answer’s been given to me because of the way the organisation transformed itself last year. So I do think that we have our customer value proposition, and our EVP is flowing nicely from there.
Jo Taylor
So how do you then take that and start to build something, as you said, that people want to work for? So whether you’re attracting people or keeping people how do you bring it alive across that employee experience? Otherwise, it’s just another ‘thing’, isn’t it? That feels sexy, but doesn’t really go anywhere.
Philomena Gray
Yeah, I mean, we have 400 employees across 14 offices globally. So you know, taking all of diversity, cultural nuances and all of that into account whenever we do anything from a people perspective, my appointment was very much about Imagination growing up through years of just growth because it was good at what it did, to actually now being more people-centric internally, and looking at what do we do as an organisation to encourage people to want to join the organisation but also want to stay within the organisation, and how do we grow the organisation on that basis and putting people at the heart of the decisions that we make? So for me at Imagination, we are literally looking at absolutely everything that we do – all of those key moments that matter for employees from onboarding, to reward, to personal development and growth, and even to offboarding. Everything we do, all those moments that matter. Where are we, with our EVP? Where are we when we are being curious and rigorous and brave and respectful? When it comes to each of those key moments that we make sure that we’ve got an element of we can tag one of our core values to that EVP. You know, we’re a 50 year old startup, we’ve been around a very long time, but in the last two years with COVID, we’ve had to really transition ourselves. And the world is our oyster with that EVP proposition, but we are really honing in on “what is in it for the employee?” for the first time ever. And I think that will help change and draw new talent to the organisation because our reputational organisation should be out there loud and clear. And that’s something that’s relatively new to Imagination. You either know Imagination because you’re in the industry, and you know it well, or you don’t know Imagination, and you don’t know what you don’t know. So that’s where our EVP will really transition our talent acquisition strategy going forward.
Jo Taylor
So what are the challenges do you think that you’re facing? Or that people listening to this podcast will be thinking, okay, that makes sense, but where do I start?
Philomena Gray
Yeah, again, all of those key moments that matter are all key moments that matter for different people at different stages in their careers, and different tenures with the organisation. But what we have tried to do is look at what is our biggest issue at the minute as an organisation, and we’ve got two: one of them is talent acquisition. And everybody’s got that same problem, right? We’re all struggling for that war for talent that we’ve been talking about for years and years and years, it really is really, really important now that we position ourselves as an organisation that really want the best talent to join us. So talent acquisition has really focused our mind. So what are we doing to attract talent? And what are we doing to improve the onboarding experience – that first moment that matters when they come into the organisation. So that has driven the priority in terms of talent acquisition. The other big priority for me, which we’re bang in the middle of now, is that we have a global organisation with a mindset of local operation. And so we’re just introducing a new HRA system, which will enable collaboration, integration across the organisation. Colleagues will be able to understand what colleagues do, where, when, get involved in each other’s projects. So we’re driving that collaboration so that people feel part of a wider community. So if you’re sat in China, you will understand who else in the organisation can do your job, knows your skill sets, knows your problems, and where can you go to get some internal collaboration. So those are the two things that are clearly my focus at the minute in terms of that EVP proposition.
Jo Taylor
So you talk about attraction, how about the piece around internal mobility? So we think about EVP very much about how you get new, and how you make yourself marketable, but how do you stay relevant, and use that employee experience piece in your organisation?
Philomena Gray
Yeah, I mean, again, you know, we’ve got the 14 offices in big key markets that are super sexy for people that want to have a career within the organisation. But we didn’t leverage it, up until recently. We’ve now just launched that global mobility policy that everybody is aware of, that everybody can see every opportunity that’s in the organisation so that if somebody did want to move across the organisation to another market, those opportunities are becoming available, and we’re opening up opportunities for people to move and widen their career. The next stage of that is not everybody wants to move overseas, not everybody has the opportunities to be able to move globally. So what are we doing internally to grow opportunities for people to widen their careers and their opportunities within the organisation? And having now got a talent acquisition strategy that’s super clear, that we want to give people opportunities to grow their careers within the organisation that you can move around the organisation. Having a policy, or a practice, of all open roles being super open for everybody to see, anybody can apply, people can recommend friends, recommend family members, so that people are actually becoming our voice pieces externally and internally around the opportunities that being at Imagination is giving people to widen their careers.
Jo Taylor
So it’s much more about, in effect, join-up between what you’re saying externally, and the employee experience, isn’t it?
Philomena Gray
Absolutely. The two go together because you can go out to the open market, and espouse all these wonderful things that you can do, and are doing. But if you’re not actually living and breathing it internally, the reality for an individual coming through the door will not be the reality that they were expecting, and also be disrespectful to our current employees to not give them the same opportunities of growth, that we are in the external market telling people that we are doing. So the two go hand-in-hand, and one can’t work without the other.
Jo Taylor
So should we actually drop the term EVP and just call it about employee experience?
Philomena Gray
I think you have to have a position, Jo. I think for me, I think having a statement that says: this is our EVP – this is what we stand for – this is what we want to be known for, internally and externally. I do think it’s important to have that proposition, what you do with it, how you live and breathe it, how you bring it to life, and the reality of that statement is probably more important. But I do think having the peg in the ground that says this is what we stand for, I think it’s super important.
Jo Taylor
So in effect, it’s the why, isn’t it? Why are we different? Why is Imagination different from other companies? And then the employee experience is the what and the how. It’s like Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle, isn’t it? If the employee experience is what you can do for us, and the work that you’re going to be doing, how we want you to operate is your values and that kind of global piece, but the why is how you’re different and how you can be seen as an employer of choice.
Philomena Gray
Yeah, I think it’s all of that Jo. I don’t think anything in isolation, I think we have to make sure that we set ourselves out from our competitors, which was my opening line, we have to be different. The war for talent has never been hotter. We have to live what we say. People’s experience of saying one thing and doing another will not be good for anybody. So we do have to have practices internally that live and breathe what we’re saying, but also giving people the opportunity to be the best at what they do. To challenge, to be brave, to be rigorous, to be curious – is what sets us apart from our competitors. I think it’s the whole bag. It’s the whole mix of everything. It’s the whole experience.
Jo Taylor
So if you were giving advice to somebody starting and they had a meeting with their CEO when they’ve sat down and they’ve gone: actually this is your six month objectives, I want you to work on your EVP, or on other elements. Where would you start in creating an EVP?
Philomena Gray
Well, it’s a big question. I think it might be slightly different depending on what organisation you’re going into, but also in terms of where are they in the journey around that EVP proposition. So I think it’s very dependent on where you are. However, in Imagination, as I said previously, the EVP is sort of positioned itself around what the commercial proposition and offer was going to be. So for me, it was sort of set. So we’ve aligned Imagination, our EVP from an employer, employee, sorry, perspective around the commercial goals. Actually, that’s made it super simple. Because the business commercially have aligned to those propositions and those offers, and that’s what they speak to when they speak to clients, they’re lining all of the people propositions around that: rigorous, being brave, being curious. It has been easier – I say easier, but not easy – easier. And I think be brave, try things. Just because you start out on the journey, if something hasn’t worked, don’t give up. If it doesn’t work, reconfigure it and go again. But I think for me, aligning to the commercial piece has been useful, making sure we speak the same languages, the organisation commercially, bringing people along with that journey that you’re going on, and be brave and if it doesn’t work, or it does work, celebrate the success but if it doesn’t work, just take a step back and refine it, retune it. Don’t stop, keep going because success will breed success and one day people will start to talk about the things that you have been trying to introduce and it will become normal and you probably won’t need a title of EVP because it will be just normal practice of how organisations work with their employees to make that whole lifecycle a better place and a better experience for them as individuals.
Jo Taylor
The final question from me: who owns EVP?
Philomena Gray
Everyone. I think absolutely everyone owns it. I think it needs somebody to lead it, it needs somebody to just be maybe the project sponsor. But I do think everybody’s voice needs to be heard. And I don’t think we should be frightened to make sure that we encourage people to be curious and rigorous and brave, and challenge when things don’t work. Because if we fine tune it, based on the feedback that we get, we’ll have a wonderful proposition to give to new joiners, existing employees. And actually, you know, celebrating sometimes people have to leave the organisation because they’ve reached the point where for them, they have to leave for their own career development. But that doesn’t mean to say that they don’t come back because the experience that they have with the organisation has been so good. They’re going out to grow their careers, but they might come back because they’ve had such a good experience whilst they’ve been here at Imagination. And that’s my view.
Jo Taylor
I love that because it’s all about advocacy, isn’t it? It’s really thinking about it in that consumer mentality, that if you’ve had a really good experience, you’re likely to recommend that place. If you feel cared for, if you feel that you’re listened to, all of those things that we know are important to talent now, then it doesn’t really matter what you call it. It’s just kind of the ethos, it’s the ecosystem of what it means to work at Imagination, and you become part of that; you become part of the solution. And the next generation, it sort of evolves over time, right?
Philomena Gray
I totally agree with that, Jo. I think you have to have a title because you have to hang it somewhere, you have to have somebody that owns it, but it’s everybody’s responsibility to really make it part and parcel of the journey that you have, when you join Imagination, or any organisation. I talk about Imagination but it’s any organisation, it’s that whole cycle through life.
Jo Taylor
I love it. And that’s a great place to conclude. Because, what I’ve learned throughout this is that EVP is still really relevant, but it’s as relevant as you make it within your organisation. It’s not owned by one person. So it’s not you as chief people officer – it’s everybody. It’s like culture. But ultimately, it takes time, and it’s about in effect always being in beta, which is really great, rather than giving it a label and expecting it to be everlasting. Because we know that brands come and go, right?
Philomena Gray
Yeah, totally. I totally agree with that Jo. That’s my modus operandi. We’re on the start of that journey at Imagination. It’s not complete in any stretch of the imagination, but that’s the ethos that I’m running, that’s what we’re trying to do at Imagination and long may it continue.
Jo Taylor
Well, I wish you huge success. I look forward to talking to you when you’re a year and a half into your journey at Imagination and hearing how it goes. Thank you so much, it’s been a pleasure talking to you.
Philomena Gray
Thank you Jo.
Jo Taylor
If you liked this episode of the podcast, please subscribe, rate and review it on Apple Podcasts. Go to letstalktalent.co.uk/podcasts for a transcript of this episode, along with all the links we discussed today.
