Most Employer Value Proposition (EVP) projects start in the wrong place.
They begin with beautiful words. Key messages. Workshops. Slogans.
And then we wonder why employees call it just another campaign.
If you want an EVP that actually changes something, you need to treat it less as a poster and more as an agreement. A clear deal between your organization and your people.
Here is my way to approach creating EVP’s.
1. Start with the reality, not the aspiration
Before you write anything, get very honest about how it feels to work in your organization today. Talk to people across levels and roles. Listen for:
- The moments when they feel proud to work here.
- The frustrations they silently accept as “just how it is”.
- The reasons people stay, even when they could leave.
You are looking for patterns, not anecdotes.
This is your raw material.
If your EVP does not recognize this reality, it will not be believed.
2. Decide on the deal you can actually keep
A good EVP is a choice. You cannot be everything to everyone. You do not need to be.
You need to be very clear on what people can count on from you, and what you will ask of them in return.
A useful way to frame it:
- What do we offer that really matters to the people we want to attract and keep?
- What do we expect in exchange, if people want to thrive here?
Keep it human and specific. For example,
‘Impact over status.’
‘High autonomy, high responsibility.’
‘Growth through stretch, not formal training alone.’
The power of an EVP lives in these trade-offs, not in generic promises. Use pillars to break your EVP down to the smallest piece so you can offer proof at that smallest experience too.
3. Translate the EVP into your people systems
This is where most EVP work falls apart.
You cannot say ‘we value ownership’ and then run performance reviews that reward risk-avoidance. You cannot promise ‘flexibility’ and then design processes that assume everyone is always available.
Pick the three systems that touch most people:
- Hiring
- Onboarding
- Performance and progression
For each, ask a simple question:
‘If we really believed this EVP, what would be different here?’
Then make at least one visible change in each area. This is how you show that the EVP is not just language.
It is how you do things.
4. Tell the story where it matters most
Once your EVP is grounded in reality and connected to your systems, only then you earn the right to talk about it.
Not with a big bang campaign.
With small, consistent stories.
- Hiring managers explaining the EVP during interviews.
- Leaders linking decisions back to “this is the deal we have with our people”.
- Employees seeing their own experiences reflected in internal and external messages.
The goal is not to impress people.
The goal is for them to read or hear the EVP and think, “yes, that is recognizably us”.
Because in the end, an EVP is only as strong as the number of people who quietly nod when they hear it.
A question to end with:
If a new hire spent 90 days in your organization and then read your EVP for the first time, would they recognize their experience in it?
