What Is the Difference Between EVP and Employer Brand?

• #Employer branding

EVP (Employer Value Proposition) is a set of benefits that you as an employer offer your employees in exchange for their time, expertise, and engagement. The benefits can be both tangible (discounts on fitness center or free lunches) and intangible (climate of respect in the team). At the same time, EVP is not a vacancy announcement that lists all the possible perks of a position. The EVP includes the main benefits that are relevant for all company’s employees and set out as precisely and attractively as possible.

At the beginning of our work on EVP we ask ourselves three questions: 

• How does our company as an employer differ from competitors? What are our unique advantages? Why do employees value us? 

• Who are our employees? What is important to them, what do they expect from the employer? 

• What do competitors offer candidates?

We conduct a workshop with representatives of the Customer as well as a series of studies to find answers. A set of studies is determined individually depending on the tasks and budget. It can be: 

• Research of internal audience, employees 

• Research of external audience, candidates 

• Analysis of communications of the company and competitors

Based on the results, we form an Employer Value Proposition which: 

• Corresponds to reality (the company really offers it or plans to offer it in the near future) 

• Attractive to the audience 

• Favorably differ from competitors 

As the EVP is formed, we move on to working with the employer brand.

The employer brand is the image of the company as an employer that your target audience, candidates and employees have. There is a good saying that the employer brand always exists, but in some companies it is consciously built while in others it was formed spontaneously.

If EVP is something concrete then the employer brand, by analogy with a commercial brand, impacts the perception, sensations, associations. 

It is important to note that the employer brand is closely related to the commercial brand, but they are not the same. Commercial brand is aimed at customers or clients, an employer brand is aimed at employees and candidates. These audiences may overlap or be completely different. The employer brand is closely linked with the company's values and mission as well as corporate culture. All this we carefully study and take into account in the work on the project. 

Typically the project to create or update the employer brand is complex and includes the creating of an EVP. However, if the company has a good understanding of its audience and already has a clear attractive offer, you can start building a brand right away.

In the work on the brand we develop its components such as: 

• Character of the brand 

• Style and tone of communication 

• The main strategic message (the essence of the brand) 

• Visual identity 

• Creative platform

The final stage of complex work on the employer brand is the creation of a communication strategy. We prescribe in detail how the employer brand will communicate with the candidate and employee at various points of contact. 

It is important to understand that the employer brand is not only about communication. It is all the experience that a candidate and an employee gets when interacting with a company from a mention in the media until a conversation with a recruiter or the quality of coffee in the office kitchen.

Therefore, the employer brand should not only be attractive to the audience, but also reflect the real strengths of the employer. So that the impressions that arise before joining the company and after starting work in it do not contradict each other.