Rethinking the employee value proposition

Today’s highly dynamic and competitive labor market, coupled with changing employee preferences post covid, have made aligning employees’ needs with what employers offer more challenging than ever. To address this challenge, many employers are following a simple strategy: Ask people what they want (ex. perks, flexwork, bonuses) and try to give it to them. Temptingly simple as this response is, it presents a trap by focusing employer and employee on whatever single elements first come to mind and promoting a transactional approach to the employer-employee relationship. We are still left with numerous questions.

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As an employee I may be asking myself...

  • Is my work interesting, engaging and challenging?
  • Can I be my true self at work?
  • Is my work-life balance sustainable?
  • How important is my organization’s purpose to me?
  • Do I have meaningful friendships and relationships at work?

As an organization we may be discussing...

  • What should our WFH policy be, to whom is it applicable, and who gets to decide?
  • What should we be investing in to increase employee attraction and retention?
  • How do we build and maintain connections when working remote or hybrid?
  • How do we articulate and communicate what we do in a way that truly motivates people?

Integrated factors

There’s a much better approach—one that benefits both employer and employee by shifting the focus of leaders and workers alike from what they want in the moment to what they need to build a thriving and sustainable future for their organization and themselves. We need to approach the employer-employee relationship as the multi-dimensional system that it is and to design and implement an integrated employee value proposition (iEVP) based on the following four interrelated factors:


As an employee, what can I do?

You need to understand your needs and how they align with what you feel your employer offers. The ability to understand and articulate the possible imbalance between what’s needed and offered is a critical first step towards understanding where you have opportunities to improve your experience. It provides insights critical for any efforts to engage with peers or leaders to improve the value proposition for all stakeholders.

Your first step is to take a data-driven look at your own preferences and experience…

Measure your own iEVP

(Take a free survey and receive your data in a customized report)

As an organization (or leader), what can we do?

A successful, systemic, sustainable approach to attracting and retaining employees requires three steps:

  1. Assess what your company offers, what your employees need, and where there are opportunities to improve that alignment.
  2. Use that data to drive conversation and change to create a better, integrated employee value proposition that benefits both employers and employees.
  3. Continually revisit, update, and refine the discussion.

Your first step is to collect data on employee preferences and their perceptions of what you deliver…

Measure your Organization’s iEVP

(Find out how to measure iEVP across all or part of your organization and receive detailed analytics)