What is your Employee/Employer Value Promise?

PwC’s 17th Annual Global CEO Survey is a valuable read. For their survey PwC conducted 1,344 interviews with CEOs in 68 countries between September and December 2013. I took particular interest in the transforming talent strategy aspects of the survey. Check out the survey for yourself here. 

Staggering numbers from the survey

“Only 34% of CEOs feel that HR is well prepared for the challenges ahead.”

93% say they recognise the need to change their strategies for Talent. 61% haven’t yet taken the first step.”

What also got my attention

“... CEOs have rightly identified rebuilding trust as a priority. But in a world where everything is shared, this is far more difficult than it sounds. HR and CEOs need to refocus the ‘deal’ with employees and make sure that everything, from culture to reward, reinforces intent.”

PwC 17th Annual Global CEO Survey: Transforming talent strategy page 19

Earlier in the report (Page 12) ‘deal’ is expressed as “the employer value 

proposition (EVP) – the ‘deal’ between employer and employee which lays out what each can offer and expect in return.”

I prefer EEVP as in Employee/Employer Value Promise to EVP.

Employer Value Proposition suggests to me that the employer is more important and for me propositions are useless. Who cares what we propose. What we deliver is what really matters. What we want is promises to each other that we can actually keep. Keeping promises is a key trust builder. Broken promises are a trust breaker.

What is your Employee/Employer Value Promise i.e. the ‘deal’ you have with each other?

Fundamentally I believe EEVP is about value exchange, the satisfaction of relationships of high value and mutual reward, and the successful linking of feeling valued, delivering value, and living our values.

It all starts with the latter.

Key questions:

Do the majority of your employees feel valued?

How do you know?

Are your employees doing work that is meaningful to them?

The Ancient Greeks had four words for love. You no doubt know two - eros (romantic love) and agape (love in a spiritual sense). The third is storge, meaning natural affection like parents feel for their children.

The fourth, philia, is the one I find the most insightful. Philia is often translated as affectionate regard or friendship. We need more philia in our organisations.

Do the majority of your employees have affectionate regard for one another and your customers/clients?

Do all of your employees have clearly defined roles?

Is value delivery and who to integral to role clarity?

How is value delivery measured?

Are your values single words or sentences or are behaviours for each of your values defined, agreed to, and lived?

Were your employees involved in meaningful ways for them in the creation of your behaviours?

What are the consequences in your business when people fail to live your values?

How do you celebrate people feeling valued, delivering value, and the living of your values?

Truthful answers to the above questions mean you have a solid foundation on which to create your Employee/Employer Value Promise.

Vision, mission and values statements are relics of the past. The new world of work is about Employee/Employer Values Promises and keeping them.

For more about employees feeling valued, fulfilled and loved please send me an email ian@ianberry.biz requesting my white paper on the subject. Inside my paper is a diagnostic that will help you to determine what you need to do to increase the number of your employees who feel valued, fulfilled, and loved.

I work with business leaders in person to discover and deploy the difference in people that leads to gaining and maintaining the momentum essential to achieving remarkable results.

A key component of my work since 1991 is helping leaders to inextricably link employees feeling valued, fulfilled, and loved, with delivering value, and living values.

The outcomes of doing so will take your breath away.

Be the difference you want to see in the world.

Ian