The Employee Value Proposition: Definition, Key Elements and Examples (including videos)

The Employee Value Proposition (EVP) has come on the radar of an increasing number of organizations. In this article, we’ll give a definition of the Employee Value Proposition, share key elements, and give examples of how today’s companies are leveraging EVP.

Contents
What is an Employee Value Proposition
EVP vs. Employer Brand
5 Key elements of an Employee Value Proposition
Employee Value Proposition Examples
On a final note
FAQ

What is an EVP? A definition

An Employee Value Proposition is the promise you make as an employer to your employees in return for their commitment. This promise entails the sum of all the benefits and rewards employees receive from the organization they work for.

Pawar and Charak (2015) define the employee value proposition as the one of a kind arrangement of benefits an employee gets consequently for the skills, capabilities, and experience they convey to an organization.

Your EVP is the core of your Employer Brand and should characterize the substance of your organization and why it is unique.

What’s the difference between your EVP and your Employer Brand?

Put simply, your Employee Value Proposition is internal while your Employer Brand is external. Your Employer Brand is the face your company shows the outside world as a potential employer. It’s the sum of all the different things people think when someone asks them what it would be like to work for Company X or Y. Your EVP, on the other hand, is the face your company shows its employees.

Related (free) resource ahead! Continue reading below ↓

HR Business Partner Resource Library

Download our free PDF and get access to essential reports, articles & videos that'll help you become a successful & future-proof HR Business Partner.

Get the PDF

Where your Employee Value Proposition should be the result of thorough preparation that actively involves your employees via focus groups, surveys, interviews and more, your Employer Brand is the outward, creative expression of your EVP. The former defines what employees get out of working for you while the latter tells other people about it. As such, the EVP is sometimes referred to as the ‘Why’ of an organization and your Employer Brand as the ‘How’ and ‘What’.

Check out our Learning Bite to learn everything you need to know about the Employee Value Proposition!

5 Key elements of an Employee Value Proposition

A strong Employee Value Proposition consists of various elements. Together, these attributes determine how both your employees and candidates will perceive your organization as an employer. Gartner distinguishes the following five key elements of an Employee Value Proposition:

1. Compensation
2. Work-life balance
3. Stability
4. Location
5. Respect

Let’s take a closer look at each of these elements.

Compensation

This attribute, also referred to as compensation and benefits, includes your employees’ satisfaction with their salary, but also additional rewards such as bonuses and aspects such as your evaluation system. Fair and performance-based compensation is one of the 7 HR best practices.

Interestingly, compensation may not be equally important to everyone. There are generational differences in the workforce, with the younger generations valuing for instance development more than the older generations. 

Work-life balance

This is about benefits. Think about everything from paid time off and holidays to flextime options and retirement plans.

Become an HR Reporting Specialist HR Metrics & Reporting
Certificate Program Learn to turn HR data into visually intuitive dashboards
that impact key decision-making at your organization.

Download Syllabus

When it comes to the kind of benefits employees value most, flexible hours, the opportunity to work from home, vacation time and paid parental leave all rank highly. There’s no magic, one-size-fits-all kind of benefits recipe, however. New parents probably value different benefits than graduates, so try to customize where possible.

Stability 

Stability as in career stability, opportunities for your employees to further their career, develop themselves and employee training. Naturally, this is where your learning and development efforts come into play as well as possible mentoring/coaching initiatives you’ve developed within the organization.

Location

This component is about much more than the simple location of your office. You could think of it as location in the broadest sense of the word: a positive work environment, a certain level of autonomy, work-life balance, etc.

In fact, the location element has a lot to do with the employee experience which relates to three environments: technology, physical space and culture (more about culture just below).

Respect

Respect is about positive relationships, support, and team spirit, among other things. More than just respect, it’s about your company culture, what are your organization’s core values and beliefs. 

Employee Value Proposition Examples

Enough about the theory, let’s take a look at what an EVP looks like in the real world, shall we? Below we’ve listed 5 great Employee Value Proposition examples.

1. Shell

Anglo-Dutch oil and gas company Royal Dutch Shell was the third-largest company in the world in 2018 in terms of revenue. The company has more than 80,000 employees worldwide and receives thousands of applications a year. 

When it comes to its Employee Value Proposition, the company has done a great job in defining four dimensions that, according to their current workforce, make them proud to work for Shell. These dimensions are: Discover, Together, Connected, Impact.   

HR 2025
Competency Assessment

Do you have the competencies needed to remain relevant? Take the 5 minute assessment to find out!

Start Free Assessment

To help candidates better understand what it actually feels like to work for Shell, the company has summarized 20 key reasons within those four dimensions that make Shell a special place to build their career. 

Check out the video below to discover Shell’s employee value proposition.

2. The EVP of Unilever

Unilever is another global, Anglo-Dutch company. Unilever sells consumer goods and is on a mission to make sustainable living commonplace. Looking at the company’s mission, it’s no surprise that Unilever is a business that attaches great importance to making a difference; this is also at the core of its employer brand and EVP. 

When you join Unilever as an employee, you join a movement to create not only a better business, but also a better world, and a better you. 

Unilever’s EVP is based on four pillars: 

• Purpose Power
• Be the Catalyst
• Brilliantly Different Together
• Go Beyond

Check out the video below to discover Unilever’s Employee Value Proposition.

3. Sky

Sky is a British media and telecommunications conglomerate headquartered in London. It has operations in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Spain. 

The company’s EVP can be summarized as ‘A job you love to talk about.’ There are two elements to this. On the one hand, there are the so-called Only at Sky Experiences. This can by anything from having a cinema in the office to working on products that are used by millions of customers. 

On the other hand, there is a strong feeling of pride among those who work for Sky. Research showed that, when asked what do you do, people consistently said ‘I work for Sky’ before they said what exactly they do there. 

For an in-depth read of how they went about building a strong EVP at Sky, check out our article Employer Branding and EVP: 3 Ways Sky Does it Right. If you don’t want to read, there’s a podcast included in the article you can listen to instead!

On a final note

In a time where candidates increasingly attach value to an organization’s reputation as an employer, your EVP and Employer Brand are essential. But the importance of an Employee Value Proposition goes beyond attracting new talent.

Your EVP is a promise to your employees and one that, if you keep it, will boost people’s engagement and their trust in you as an employer. Living up to your EVP can even turn your current employees into the best possible ambassadors for your Employer Brand. All the more reason to carefully think about your Why before you start communicating about the What and the How!

FAQ