Getting leadership support for EVP and employer branding

In 2019 it is increasingly common that leadership understands, or at least suspects, the value to your organisation of a strong EVP and employer brand.

You may already have inherited someone else’s work on this, or have recently embarked on the project yourself without C-suite support. You may also have decided your Recruitment/TA team’s ability to attract and retain enough talent through posting and praying requires a new approach.

How do you encourage leadership to endorse and sponsor an ongoing HR Communications strategy to improve staff engagement and retention, increase referrals and establish your talent pipeline process to enable your growth-the growth strategy they themselves have set.

You can of course quote academic papers, show them external employer brand ranking surveys, benchmark against your competitors and generally try to hustle them into supporting your program.

But this tends to leave a slight taste of manipulation in their mouths and is unlikely to engage them personally, which is what you really need.

A much more effective approach is to reflect the C-suite’s challenge back to them in a way everyone can understand-outlining a reasonable challenge with appropriate resources allocated and the authority to gather and align all internal departments needed to ensure the successful and organisation-wide project delivery. Build and communicate the EVP.

Here’s a quick, but effective, approach

Start at the top of the mountain-the CEO should do nicely. Get an appointment, sit them down with no distractions, assure them the conversation is private, and show them the chart below.

Hand them a pen and ask them to put a cross where they think your organisation sits on the chart-leave them time to ponder and don’t say anything unless they ask a question.

Chances are they’ll think about all the conversations they’ve had with employees over the last few weeks and months, combined with the results of the last Engagement Survey, and steadily make their way down to the top of the Average Employee Experience section and make their mark.

They’d like to put the mark at the top, but they suspect the overwhelming evidence would make them look slightly naive.

In one simple disarming discussion you have got straight to the point of your challenge, and now you can offer them all the EVP/EB proposals and ideas that you’ve been dying to submit…

About the author

Mike Beeley is CEO of Lightbox Communications, an Australian Country Partner for World Employer Banding Day 15-17 May 2019 | Lisbon.

Leading a communications agency focused on the HR sector, Mike and the team at Lightbox Communications assist employers and recruitment firms reach and engage their talent audiences through targeted media and sourcing campaigns, and improving retention through better internal communications.