What is a Team Value Proposition?
In today’s competitive job market, it’s crucial to have a strong Employee Value Proposition (EVP) to attract the best talent to your organization. But what many may not realize is that a Team Value Proposition (TVP) can be even more important when it comes to hiring the right people for specific roles.
Candidates are looking to learn about more than just an organization’s mission, purpose, and values (though they absolutely want that information, too.) They are also looking for insight into the people they will be spending the bulk of their time with and are most likely to impact their day-to-day satisfaction at work: The Team.
What is a Team Value Proposition?
A Team Value Proposition is a concise statement that defines the unique opportunities and culture offered by a specific team to employees on that team. While your EVP is about what makes your company a great place to work, your TVP focuses on what makes a specific team great within your organization.
Similarly to an EVP, a TVP will include an overarching brand statement, supporting brand pillars and proof points as they relate to the team. Note that while TVP includes the word ‘team,’ a TVP can be specific to a department, office location, specific skill set, or any other way your organization groups talent together.
Elements of a Team Value Proposition
In order to help the team or business unit stand out, a TVP typically includes the following elements:
- Expertise and Skills: TVP highlights the specific skills, knowledge, and expertise that the team members possess.
- Collaboration and Team Dynamics: TVP shows how the team works together, including any tools and preferred communication styles.
- Results and Impact: TVP showcases the outcomes and results the team has achieved in the past or intends to achieve in the future.
- Differentiation: TVP clearly articulates what sets the team apart from other teams or competitors. What makes this team unique and valuable in its specific context?
There are several key reasons why you should use a TVP approach to your employer brand and recruitment marketing efforts.
A TVP grounds your EVP
It can be tricky to wrap your head around the relationship a TVP should have with the broader EVP. Should the TVP be its own thing? Should the TVP share anything with the EVP? Is there a way to effectively tie the two together?
The answer to all of these questions is…yes.
When it’s created right, a TVP should only speak to the experience of being on that team and wouldn’t work if applied to another business area. In this vain, the TVP feels very distinct from the EVP.
At the same time, each team is part of the greater organization and thus the EVP should still apply to their experience working at your company. It might just apply in different ways. Just as different teams might align more closely with different aspects of your EVP, TVPs will often align with certain EVP brand pillars more than others. But, the two should connect in a certain way.
TVPs are a great way to get started
If you’re new to recruitment marketing, branding a team is a good way to start before tackling the organization’s overall brand. You will learn a ton in the process that you can apply to more universal culture content and value proposition projects.
Also true: because a TVP is created closely with a team or business unit’s hiring goals, your project will help create a measurable impact for that group. Which brings us to…
A TVP project proves your value to the business
A TVP project is often linked to a team’s talent goals or a very specific recruiting challenge. It could be that the team is struggling to recruit people with a very specific set of skills, is hiring the same profile every year, or is opening a new division somewhere new.
And, you will be working directly with a business or team leader to make the TVP a reality. You’ll need their buy in and support to:
- Understand the team’s unique value proposition so you can best communicate it to candidates
- Confirm the content you’re creating truly reflects the team experience
- Share their story with their networks, to supplement your content marketing efforts through your organization’s candidate-facing channels
- Pay for the project, in some cases.
As you bring your TVP to market, you’ll have greater access to performance metrics and organizational impact than you typically would in a more general, siloed employer brand project. Connecting the TVP with metrics such as quality of hire, time to fill, or other KPIs important to your organization will help build your case for future employer brand projects.
See how CVS Health, and BAE Systems took a team approach to solve specific recruiting challenges!
Get our guide: How to Create a Team Value Proposition
If you’d like to get started on team storytelling, download our guide with actionable steps to creating a TVP.
