Category: Candidate Experience

Delivering Diverse Early Careers Applicants

Posted on by akessler
Delivering Diverse Early Careers Applicants in Financial Services

Delivering Diverse Early Careers Applicants in Financial Services

A leading UK financial services group partnered with PeopleScout to improve the candidate experience in their early careers programme, resulting in improved candidate diversity.

36% % Increased in Total Applications
39% % of Candidates Identified as Female
47% % Identified as Coming from an Underrepresented Group

SITUATION

Twelve years ago, we began supporting the client with candidate management within their Emerging Talent programme to attract more graduates and interns into the their workforce. As recognised leaders of employer brand and candidate experience, our client delivery team presented some recommendations to the organisation on how they could improve their hiring journey based on ad-hoc feedback received while interacting with early careers candidates.

SOLUTION

Crafting a Better Candidate Experience

We started by creating a candidate experience audit to measure the informal comments we’d heard. Through a series of internal and external focus groups with graduates and interns who had recently been through the recruitment process, we identified gaps in the candidate communication schedule. Candidates revealed that they were often unsure of where they were in the process, what was coming next and how they should prepare.

With our client first, not process first philosophy, we created a customised plan to address these concerns. We produced a candidate journey guide to help the candidates understand each step of the process. To go along with this, we developed a content plan to provide candidates with the right information at the right time, keeping them informed about next steps.

Supporting the DE&I Directive

We also took the opportunity to boost candidate engagement by personalising email communications and adding visual content which promoted organisational programmes that would appeal to this young audience, like their well-being initiatives. In addition, to support the client’s DE&I directive, we chose to highlight stories about women and BAME employees—especially those in finance and technology focused roles—to decrease the likelihood of these candidates dropping out of the funnel. 

Implementing Candidate NPS

Since we’re always focused on delivery, we implemented a new candidate Net Promoter Score® (NPS) survey to measure the candidate experience and uncover more opportunities for improvements going forward. All candidates, whether hired or not, are asked how likely they are to recommend the bank as a potential employer based on their recent experience with the early careers recruitment programme.

RESULTS

Since taking on the management of the Emerging Talent programme for this client, we generated a 36% increase in total applications from the previous year, with 39% from female candidates and 47% from candidates from a underrepresented background.

The new candidate survey provided a candidate NPS of 57, which is considered excellent.

“The PeopleScout team are proactive in talking to us about new ideas and at the same time are brilliant at being reactive to business hiring needs. PeopleScout are a true trusted partner and have been fundamental to our hiring delivery and service over the last 20+ years.”

– Senior Resourcing Manager

AT A GLANCE

  • COMPANY
    Leading UK Financial Services Group
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    1,500
  • ABOUT THE CLIENT
    A leading UK financial services group has been partnering with PeopleScout for over 20 years, making it one of our longest-standing client relationships. What started as a Talent Advisory engagement has now expanded to include end-to-end volume Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) services, with over 1,500 hires annually across 16 sites, 50 shift patterns and multiple banking brands.
Contact Sales

The AA: Experiential Events – Ready for ANYTHING?

Posted on by rharris

Thousands more careers site visitors. Hundreds more applications. And how did we do it?
With 64 fake spiders, 15 litres of custard and 1 tube of wasabi paste – amongst other things.
This is the story of how we created a fun, conversation-sparking event that captured the essence of the AA employer brand, raised awareness of their contact centre roles, and helped them make the successful hires they needed.

SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS

  • Raising awareness of roles
  • Reflecting a fun and friendly culture
  • Boosting social media activity
  • Increasing careers site visitors
  • Record-breaking application figures

SCOPE & SCALE

The AA has two big contact centres in Oldbury (near Birmingham) and Newcastle. With ambitious hiring targets to meet they’d used a range of attraction methods, from job boards and paid social media, to taxi wraps and cinema. They weren’t getting the results they needed, so it was time for something bigger and bolder.

SITUATION

We discussed and planned the objectives carefully with the Talent Attraction team and local stakeholders. We wanted to raise general awareness of the organisation in local audiences and encourage them to spread the word, so we needed a way of reaching a large number of individuals easily, effectively and creatively. The AA also wanted us to showcase their fun and friendly culture, and so our event was a great fit with this.

A BRAND MESSAGING-ALIGNED EVENT

The Ready for ANYTHING? strapline is the central message in all of the AA’s recruitment communications activity, so it made sense to take this message and see just who was Ready for ANYTHING? amongst local audiences.

FUN TO TAKE PART IN. FUN TO WATCH.

With a big prize on offer to incentivise contestants, the event was built around getting volunteers on stage to take part in a mystery challenge. We built ‘The Random Challenge Generator’ – a big screen flashing through a series of silly, messy tasks. The contestant pushes a big yellow button to stop the screen, which brings up their challenge. We also engaged a celebrity host, to help draw the crowds, engage with the audience, and keep the fun moving. We ran two of these shopping centre-based outdoor events – one in Newcastle, the other in Birmingham.

PROMOTING THE OPPORTUNITIES

Maximising social media activity before, during and after the event, we also live-streamed the challenges. Filming on the day enabled us to create short videos for follow-up content to promote the AA’s contact centre roles. On the event days, we gave out flyers encouraging people to get involved and driving to the AA careers site, while the digital screen and on-stage announcements also highlighted the AA’s local career opportunities.

“Both events were a massive success and surpassed our expectations in terms of the level of engagement, prior, during & post the events.” Craig Morgans Head of Talent Acquisition, HR Shared Services, Learning & Development

RESULTS

UNPRECEDENTED CAREERS SITE VISIT FIGURES

Social media and event build-up activity drove c60,000 careers visits across the weeks of the events.
Typically, 1,500 – 2,000 people visit the AA careers site each day. For the Newcastle event, this increased to 5,000 in just one day, with a record high of 7,100 in one day for Birmingham.

RECORD NUMBERS OF APPLICATIONS

While the AA saw a huge increase in applications for their contact centre in Oldbury, they had record-breaking figures for Newcastle. With a month-on-month increase from 576 to 1026, this was 436 more than their previous application record of 590!

SUCCESSFUL HIRES MADE

So far, both the Newcastle and Oldbury contact centres have made 12 hires each as a result of the events.

Scottish Police: Securing the Future of Policing in Scotland

Posted on by rharris

The Scottish Police Authority needed to build a strong leadership team for Police Scotland to deliver a significant transformational agenda. They were looking for candidates who not only had the operational policing experience, but also the leadership capability to drive a challenging journey of accelerated growth, intense scrutiny and accountability. Our robust, tailored assessment process enabled them to find exactly the right people for the job.

SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS

  • ROBUST, TWO-STAGE PROCESS
  • INDIVIDUAL ASSESSMENT CENTRES
  • BESPOKE, DETAILED CANDIDATE REPORTS
  • SUCCESSFULLY APPOINTED LEADERS

SCOPE AND SCALE

The Scottish Police Authority (SPA) were faced with the challenge of hiring an elite group of leaders into the roles of Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) and Deputy Chief Constable (DCC) for Police Scotland to deliver the 2026 strategy.

SITUATION

Police Scotland had undergone a wave of change, instability and uncertainty, and they needed a strong leadership team to work collectively and deliver a significant transformational agenda. The SPA needed to identify the ‘right’ individuals. Not only did they need to have technical/operational Policing experience, but also the leadership experience and capability to lead on this challenging journey of accelerated growth, intense scrutiny and accountability. And they needed a strategic assessment partner to help them do it.

SOLUTION

A ROBUST PROCESS
The SPA engaged our Assessment expertise to design and deliver a robust process to recruit a number of DCCs and ACCs into Police Scotland. We measured each candidate’s strengths
and potential areas of development against indicators from the College of Policing Competency and Values Framework.

A TWO-STAGED APPROACH
In Stage One, candidates completed an online critical reasoning test and a series of personality assessments, followed by an in-depth validation interview with a highly experienced Business Psychologist. At Stage Two, all candidates were invited to attend an individual assessment centre. They were tested by a team of independent, highly experienced assessors across four exercises.

BESPOKE REPORTS
Our assessors collated all the candidate performance information and developed detailed reports on each individual. These also included a series of specific questions that the panel
could use in the final stage interview to dig deeper and give candidates a final opportunity to demonstrate their experience or capability in a specific competency.

RESULTS

SUCCESSFULLY APPOINTED LEADERS
This robust approach enabled the SPA to successfully appoint three individuals into the ACC roles and two individuals into the DCC roles, as key players in the Police Scotland leadership team.

CONFIDENCE IN THE FUTURE
Our tailored, best practice-based assessment process gave the SPA confidence that the selected individuals would make a significant contribution to the development of policing in Scotland in the years ahead.

Safran Nacelles: Reducing Time-to-Hire by a Third for Critical Engineering Talent

Posted on by rharris

CHALLENGE

With increased litigation and fear around aeroplane safety, stress engineers have become an essential part of the design and test processes. Consequently, Nacelle’s were keen to attract experienced stress engineers to join in permanent roles. This had proved difficult to say the least, as experienced stress engineers are in very short supply. The aerospace market is highly competitive and the best candidates opt for contracts rather than permanent positions. All of which demands substantial time and focus for resourcers. So after 18 unsatisfying months trying to fill roles with their previous supplier, Nacelles approached PeopleScout for help.

APPROACH

Four things defined our approach: rigour, innovation, relationships and brand unity.

To assess in detail, the skills, experience and behaviors that typified an excellent candidate for Nacelles, we held a detailed briefing with the hiring manager and other stakeholders. Next, we devised an innovative sourcing strategy, including deep web searching, competitor mapping and tapping into online forums, reaching out to candidates from Romania, India and the UK.

A unified employer brand simplifies life. But more than that, it’s a reason for candidates to gravitate to us over traditional agencies. So we worked in the Nacelles headquarters to build great relationships with the hiring managers. And the unity behind the scenes extended to candidate communications. Every contact by the PeopleScout team was made under the Nacelles name, whether sourcing candidates, conducting interviews or leading tours of the factory. Nacelles and PeopleScout were as one.

‘The agreed time per hire is 45 days, while our average is just 30 days. That’s a reduction of 33%.’

RESULTS

Because we manage every part of the process we’ve substantially streamlined Nacelle’s resourcing, yielding fantastic results. Within a month, we filled the first 3 roles. Then we placed nine more stress engineers in permanent roles at Nacelle: an unheard-of achievement in the aerospace industry. And the good results continue to build as we help with the client’s ongoing recruitment needs. The agreed time per hire is 45 days, while our average is just 30 days. That’s a reduction of 33%. And we’ve managed to halve the cost per hire.

The AA: Bot-Powered, Brand Boosting Innovation

Posted on by rharris

CHALLENGE

Mention “working for the AA” and many people can’t see beyond roadside roles– a roadblock when it comes to recruitment. Candidates assumed they knew what The AA had to offer, and weren’t engaged with the wider culture and benefits. As a result, the AA was failing to engage and convert website visitors. It was clear that the careers site needed a new brand voice and experience – to shake visitors out of old assumptions, and to attract – and ultimately hire – more candidates.

APPROACH

Last year we launched a reimagined digital solution that could do justice to the new brand proposition, ‘Ready for ANYTHING?’. It’s a totally new way to access the world of AA, replacing the need for conventional website navigation – The AA chatbot. To achieve it, we sought out bleeding-edge software, Microsoft’s Bot Framework, which was still in beta, and constructed new bot pathways even as the core code changed under our feet.

The result, AAbot, is your guide to the world of The AA. By asking him questions, candidates can access all website information from within the chatbot – utterly tailored to their interests, and, if desired, full job listings.

With expressive animations for any occasion, and banter full of cheek and surprise, AAbot is packed with personality. He takes the employer tone of voice in a playful, irreverent, funny and bold new direction. And he’s virtual proof that functional UX copy can entertain and build a brand, as well as inform.

  • See AAbot in action here

“This brilliant innovation has transformed how we engage candidates.” Craig Morgans, Head of Talent Acquisition, The AA

“I highly recommend AAbot. He’s the best robot in town. And the most modest.” AAbot

RESULTS

With no other significant changes to recruitment activity, total job applications – via the website – have increased by 146% since last year (full year 2017 – 2018 YTD).

Direct hires are also at a record high: having increased by 38%, to 2,800 in total (full year 2016 – YTD 2018), amounting to 96% of all hires (full year 2016 – YTD 2018).

This is against a backdrop of steadily increasing site traffic since launch: with 10% YOY growth (full year 2016 vs full year 2017), and consistent progress in 2018 (visitors YTD 2018 = 75% of the 2017 total).

Since launching Bot-led social media pages and enhanced chatbot functions in 2018, we’ve also accelerated the impact. Notable increases include average page views (+15%), and returning visitors (+14%). Applications in 2018 have already totalled 85% of the total for 2017 (36,000 full year 2017 vs. 30,500 YTD 2018).

In a nutshell, this is a story of consistent, significant business impact. Let’s just hope it doesn’t go to AAbot’s head.

HM Treasury: Building Inclusion into the Candidate Experience

Posted on by rharris

CHALLENGE

Every year Her Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) recruits up to 150 graduates for their Graduate Policy Adviser programme, offering the chance to shape policies that affect a nation. A popular proposition, they sought our help to identify the very best candidates from almost 2,500 applications. While well-subscribed, delivering a satisfactory candidate journey had historically proved to be a challenge, and they were keen for our help to improve the application experience. A key objective was to attract a more diverse range of candidates, reflecting the diverse make-up of the UK population they would be supporting. Specifically, they wanted to engage a wider socio-economic, gender, ethnic and disability community. Understanding – and addressing – any adverse impacts on these groups was essential.

APPROACH

Our attraction strategy was to shift the perception that HMT roles are primarily ‘financial’ when, in fact, communication and analytical skills are the most important abilities. This allowed us to broaden the sweep of our attraction strategy in general and also, to target specific talent groups.

We reviewed all of HMT’s assessment materials to establish their fairness, and to ensure they represented best practice. We also monitored every recruitment stage for any adverse impact. Implementing a batched recruitment process, we established a structured schedule of keep warm emails, regularly updating candidates on their applications. And we also applied our standard reasonable adjustment process, making sure that every candidate with a disability-related request was personally contacted to assess requirements.

A recruitment team was also made available to support candidates throughout their entire recruitment journey.

‘The attraction campaign generated 49% of all applications and increased applications from key target audiences – particularly women, BME and state schools.’

RESULTS

Our analysis of the recruitment process also demonstrated that it was free of adverse impacts. For example, a disabled candidate was unable to complete the online test, so we worked with the online provider to replicate testing in Microsoft Excel, and completed the test with the candidate at our offices in London. The candidate was successful and progressed to the next stage.

All hiring targets were achieved. The attraction campaign generated 49% of all applications and increased applications from key target audiences – particularly women, BME and state schools. And HMT was thrilled with the results – so much so that they have asked us to take on further campaigns.

IMI: End-to-End Graduate Recruitment Balancing Technology and the Human Touch

Posted on by rharris

CHALLENGE

IMI is a specialist engineering company. They design, manufacture and service highly engineered products that control the movement of fluids. They employ some 11,000 people, have manufacturing facilities in more than 20 countries and operate a global service network. When they needed a comprehensive global graduate recruitment campaign, IMI approached PeopleScout.

APPROACH

We’ve supported IMI’s Graduate Programme for two years, with a global end-to-end talent solution designed to deliver an excellent candidate experience. It includes everything from website design, attraction and sourcing, through to candidate management.

In practice, we manage a recruitment process that comprises an online application, a detailed qualification screen, a sift of written motivational responses, online verbal and numerical reasoning testing and a telephone interview. Assessment centres are regionally administered and conducted by IMI hiring managers.

We know just how valuable human contact is in the recruitment process. So we give applicants real-time phone access to the resourcers and recruiters in the Delivery Centre – maintaining high candidate satisfaction. Candidates can expect responses to email enquiries within 24 hours. And telephone interviews and assessments are scheduled during UK evening hours, allowing IMI to concentrate on interviews and assessments.

“Moving to PeopleScout was the best decision I ever made.” Mari Docker – Global Graduate Development Manager, IMI

RESULTS

We’ve supported IMI’s Graduate Programme for two years, with a global end-to-end talent solution designed to deliver an excellent candidate experience. It includes everything from website design, attraction and sourcing, through to candidate management.

In practice, we manage a recruitment process that comprises an online application, a detailed qualification screen, a sift of written motivational responses, online verbal and numerical reasoning testing and a telephone interview. Assessment centres are regionally administered and conducted by IMI hiring managers.

We know just how valuable human contact is in the recruitment process. So we give applicants real-time phone access to the resourcers and recruiters in the Delivery Centre – maintaining high candidate satisfaction. Candidates can expect responses to email enquiries within 24 hours. And telephone interviews and assessments are scheduled during UK evening hours, allowing IMI to concentrate on interviews and assessments.

Virgin Money: Creating a Candidate Assessment Like No Other

Posted on by rharris

CHALLENGE

Virgin Money’s brief to us: find me Harry Potter, a creative genius who can come along and change banking. Someone from outside banking that we couldn’t attract through the normal processes.

APPROACH

How do you recruit an executive from a completely different sector? And how do you reach them in the first place? Above all, by making the front pages, not the banking job section. So we set out to create a headline-grabbing experience and generate PR and noise in the right places – starting with a pilot of the assessment experience. And that experience was ‘The world’s most creative job interview’, a hybrid of immersive theatre and robust assessment. Building on psychological principles, it set candidates tasks that engaged as thoroughly as they tested.

“The thing I love about PeopleScout is they have that really interesting blend of a robust approach to assessment and the creative ability to think differently.” – Head of Resourcing, Virgin Money

RESULTS

Alongside coverage in the usual HR publications, we earned high-profile media coverage in titles like The Evening Standard, City A.M., Campaign, Marketing Magazine and Brand Republic, with a combined circulation of around 30 million. Ten outstanding candidates were chosen for the ‘interview’. Which all led to the discovery of the successful applicant, Dhiraj Mukherjee, a founder of the music application Shazam, and a truly creative entrepreneur. And the new assessment approach has ushered in a legacy beyond a new Head of Innovation. From one niche role, we’ve now scaled up the approach to be used nationally across all volume hiring.

High-Volume Global RPO Solution for International Hospitality Brand

Posted on by Kate
High-Volume Global RPO Solution for International Hospitality Brand

Global RPO

High-Volume Global RPO Solution for International Hospitality Brand

An international hospitality brand—and longstanding PeopleScout client—was experiencing growing pains after an acquisition. The client needed to source, screen and hire an additional 20,000 staff for both corporate and on-site positions at hotel properties across multiple continents—bringing the annual headcount to 65,000 new hires. PeopleScout’s global RPO solution proved agile enough to seamlessly scale up to absorb the increased hiring volume, while hitting target service levels across regions.

65,000 Annual Hires
+90% % Customer Satisfaction Scores Amongst Hiring Managers
84% % Time-to-Fill Targets Achieved for In-Market Roles
~100% % Time-to-Fill Targets Achieved for Corporate Roles

Situation

PeopleScout facilitates more than 65,000 hires annually for the hospitality brand, delivering RPO through a 350-member team across continents. Roles include management and hourly hiring needs in both corporate and in-market environments, including sales, accounting, technology, e-commerce, infrastructure, risk management, engineering, architecture, property management, customer service, housekeeping, culinary and more.

In addition to corporate hiring in the U.S. and Canada, we’ve recruited for their operations centres in the UK and India and hospitality properties spanning North America, Latin America, EMEA and APAC.

Solution

Starting with a small pilot in 2007, our relationship has developed into a strategic partnership over 15 years. At the start, the client had disjointed hiring processes across regions. PeopleScout’s RPO team streamlined their recruitment processes and developed robust, standardised compliance practices across the entire recruiting program.

Following an acquisition in 2017, the client gained nearly 1,300 properties across over 100 countries. PeopleScout scaled our global talent acquisition program to ensure the established standardised processes and compliance practices were applied to the newly acquired properties, while keeping costs down.

PeopleScout seamlessly absorbed a 20,000-position increase and easily increased resources to meet a 50% increase in the scope of services. This included scaling our RPO solution to cover the end-to-end recruitment process for management positions for all hotel locations and the U.S. and Canadian headquarters. This allowed the in-house HR team to focus on training, workforce planning and employer branding.

PeopleScout also supported the client through three talent technology transitions over the course of the partnership, creating new levels of efficiency through automation. Plus, our in-house creative agency TMP assisted the client with their recruitment marketing efforts, creating attraction content in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish.

Results

In just two months, PeopleScout was able to achieve the same level of performance at the newly acquired locations as they had at the legacy locations.

  • Created standardised recruitment processes and robust compliance practices across all in-market locations resulting in significant cost savings through efficiency
  • 84% time-to-fill targets achieved for in-market hires
  • Nearly 100% time-to-fill targets achieved for corporate hires
  • 90%+ customer satisfaction scores hit for both in-market and management hires
  • Achieved nearly 100% consistency in SLAs thanks to standardised operations across PeopleScout’s global delivery centres.

AT A GLANCE

  • COMPANY
    International hospitality brand
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    65,000
  • LOCATIONS
    Hospitality properties, corporate offices and operational centres across North America, Latin America, Europe and APAC
Contact Sales

The Importance of an Employer Value Proposition and Employer Brand Strategy

Posted on by skatz

As employers face increasing competition for the best talent, a well-defined employer value proposition (EVP) and employer brand strategy have become more important than ever. In a candidate-driven market, employers need to stand out to their target talent audiences through a unified EVP and employer brand. High-quality candidates know what they want out of a future employer, and organisations that don’t effectively show their value to candidates risk losing them to the competition.

If you google EVP and employer brand, you’re likely to find thousands of definitions. At PeopleScout we define EVP and employer brand as the following:

  • Employer Brand: The perception and lived experiences of what it’s like to work for your organisation.
  • Employer Value Proposition: Captures the essence of your uniqueness as an employer and the give and the get between you and your employees.

Both concepts revolve around the qualities that make a company a great place to work, as well as the benefits, career growth opportunities, work-life balance and company culture that attract top talent.

EVPs are particularly important in today’s job market, as a majority of candidates heavily evaluate companies before they even consider applying for open positions, and it can be a critical differentiator in a company’s ability to attract talent.

Key Elements of a Successful EVP

As HR Technologist explains, “An employee value proposition must be thoughtfully designed since it has a direct impact on behavior. It must look into the tangible and intangible elements of the psychological contracts between the employer and the employee. It must start way before the employee joins, even before the person is a job candidate; it must appeal to the person irrespective of whether the person intends to work with the organisation or not.”

A successful EVP articulates the value that you offer to your employees. At PeopleScout, we establish three elements to support a successful EVP:

  • Pillars: Pillars are the core components of your EVP and are informed by insights into your cultural DNA and your audience’s motivations. Pillars are used to define the relevance of your EVP and are based on research.
  • Narrative: The narrative is usually a single, manifesto-style paragraph – it’s the emotive “sell” of what you offer. The narrative defines consistency throughout your EVP and employer brand strategies.
  • Strapline: Finally, the strapline is a concise phrase that summarises your overall offering – it focuses on being memorable rather than detailed. The strapline defines a point of focus throughout your EVP materials.

By creating pillars, a narrative and a strapline to support your EVP and employer brand strategy, employers will be set up for a successful deployment both internally to current employees and externally to candidates and the broader marketplace.

For example, we recently completed an EVP and employer brand project for a global law firm based in the UK called Linklaters. Here are the pillars, narrative and strapline that we created to bring the project to life.

Linklaters employment brand pillars
Linklaters employer brand narrative
Linklaters employer brand strapline

Benefits of a Well-Managed Employer Value Proposition and Employer Brand Platform

Organisations that effectively deliver on their EVP can enjoy a host of benefits, including decreased annual employee turnover and increased new hire commitment, according to Gartner research. Other benefits include improved brand sentiment, increased reach to target audiences, a greater sense of commitment from current employees and cost savings related to compensation.

Improved Brand Sentiment

Organisations with effective EVPs are more attractive to candidates and are considered employers of choice – organisations where candidates want to work. In order to make yourself an employer of choice, you have to be able to appeal to your ideal candidates by differentiating your company from your competitors.

A compelling EVP and employer brand can move your brand sentiment in a positive direction. A clearly defined EVP creates the foundation on which to build your internal and external employer brand messaging, which allows you to have greater influence over what you are known for and how you are perceived.

Increased Reach

A thoroughly researched and tested EVP is designed to speak more effectively to your target talent audiences. When you are able to tailor the core of your message to individual audiences, while keeping your narrative and strapline consistent throughout, more diverse groups of candidates will respond favorably. This has real business impact. According to a Morgan Stanley study in The Atlantic, there is a positive relationship between equity returns and the gender composition of an organisation’s employee base, as an example.

We work with an organisation in the UK that was once an online automobile magazine but is now a digital publication. The organisation struggled with brand perception. Many candidates thought the company was old-fashioned, and they struggled to attract women to their open positions. We developed an “adventures in awesomeness” EVP that spoke to the digital transformation that had already happened at the employer. This EVP not only increased brand attractiveness and shifted sentiment, but also increased the number of women visiting the careers site by 300 percent.

Greater Employee Commitment

Organisations with strong EVPs enjoy significantly higher levels of engagement from employees. In one example studied by Cornell University, a beverage bottling and distribution company launched an initiative to develop an integrated employer brand. Around the same time, the company decreased headcount by more than 6 percent and maintained tight control over salary raises. Despite these difficulties, employee engagement grew at the company from 36 percent to 55 percent over a five-year period.

This study suggests that when you clearly articulate your EVP and the behaviors you’re looking for from employees, it can be a factor in successfully attracting and retaining employees with the right cultural fit for your organisation. This yields more engaged employees.

Compensation Savings

Organisations with effective EVPs are able to reduce the compensation premium required to attract new candidates. Another example highlighted in the Cornell paper found that organisations with a well-managed employer brand had a 26 percent economic advantage in terms of labor cost.

Key Considerations When Creating an EVP and Employer Brand Programme

There is ample data that shows that effective EVPs generate real business benefits. To realise those benefits, there is a lot of work that goes into creating a successful EVP and employer brand. Before launching an EVP internally or externally, it’s critical that companies spend time researching, defining, developing, optimising and deploying an EVP that accurately represents the company’s value to employees.