Employer Value Proposition
post # 212 — October 11, 2006 — a Careers, Managing, Strategy post
In last week’s Economist, there was a special report on the competition for talent, which concluded (among other things) that employers needed to develop an “Employe Value Proposition†ie a reason why a talented person would want to join (and stay with) an organization.
Good idea! Not too many examples of such ‘EVPs’ were given, but it was observed that a major theme could be delivering to talented people the “learning organization†— the chance to learn, develop and grow. However, the Economist concluded that few organizations knew how to create that.
The topic of marketing your organization to the people you want to attract has never been more timely. What The Economist got absolutely right was that you need a specific proposition to market successfully. You can’t possibly be attractive to all possible recruits. Some will want to be team players, some will want lots of autonomy. Some will want immediate rewards, some will want o be part of building something.
Some, in the language of Bob Sutton’s blog and book, want a “No Assholes†policy. Some of them want the freedom to BE the asshole!
Here are the (strictly enforced) rules I would establish to form MY company’s employer value proposition:
- EVP rule 1: Anything that can be delegated must be
- EVP rule 2: Only true team players allowed — no lone wolves, no matter how big their book of business
- EVP: rule 3: Grow or go — no room for anyone who doesn’t want to take on new responsibilities and skills every year
- EVP rule 4: Only those who are interested in helping OTHER people succeed are allowed to hold managerial or supervisory positions.
- EVP rule 5: No (repeat offender) assholes (we all get it wrong sometimes.)
- EVP Rule 6: Ten percent of everybody’s time and everybody’s budget is to be spent investing in the future
- EVP 7: As soon as we know you aren’t going to et promoted, we will tell you. No faking it.
- EVP Rule 8. If we part, we will do all we can to ensure that we part in friendship
- EVP Rule 9: If we part, we will provide more assistance in helping you find your next job than any of our other competitors.
What do you think? Would that be an attractive EVP in your business? Would it make talented people want to work there?
What would YOU offer as a viable Employers’ Value Proposaition that would attract the best and the brightest?
Stephen Downes said:
I wouldn’t work there. Companies that express themselves via a set of rules frighten me; it’s as though they think the writing of the rule does the job. Companies that enforce the rules frighten me any more. It then becomes clear that the company is a top-down hierarchy, and worse, one in which the management will seize on fads and fashions to enforce.
What would make me take a company seriously? A company whose managers were willing to make committments on their behaviour (not the behaviour of others). Companies where the managers pledged not to micromanage. Where they pledged to make room for and provide opportunities to grow (any company that is going to make me grow goes to the bottom of the list – there are some times when I just don’t want to grow).
You get the idea. Perhaps a lot of it is in the presentation. But the presentation tells me a lot. A set of rules like this is exactly a violation of the sort of governance the rules are intended to represent.
— Stephen
posted on October 12, 2006