It is often said that defining a company’s culture or employee value proposition is like trying to nail jelly to a wall.
Yet culture is no longer a philosophical exercise — it is a defining commercial lever. Leaders are navigating hybrid work, generational shifts, rising expectations and an increasingly transparent employment market.
Coming up with a culture that will hold us all – despite where we work – is the accelerated challenge that leaders and HR professionals now face.
And the commercial case is compelling. Research drawn from more than 1,000 organisations in the Great Place to Work database found a strong positive correlation between financial performance and the extent to which employees believed their company’s stated values were genuinely practised.
The opportunity is clear. Getting it right is the hard part.
Here are three practical ways to sharpen your EVP and make it stick.
Can you reduce your EVP or culture to three words?
If you walked around your organisation today, would people be able to articulate — simply and consistently — what your culture stands for?
Clarity creates traction.
Clarity creates traction. Your EVP should be distilled into an accessible, memorable expression that people can recall and repeat.
One powerful example comes from the early days of Vodafone, where the EVP was captured in three words: Red, Rock Solid and Restless. It was distinctive, clearly defined and, crucially, remembered.
Your EVP should not sit on a poster or on the careers page of your website. It should function as the organising principle of your business.
Anchor reward and recognition, performance management, leadership behaviours and customer experience back to it. Rather than layering initiative upon initiative, use your EVP as your north star. When it becomes the reference point for decision-making, it gains weight and credibility.
An EVP is an internal promise — but it is easy to become captive to established norms and assumptions.
Inviting external scrutiny and feedback can sharpen your thinking, test your relevance and ensure your proposition resonates with the market. Fresh perspective often reveals the gap between what you believe you stand for and what people actually experience.
Copyright 2024 Robin Elliott
For further assistance on nailing your EVP contact ElliottHR today.