What is an Agile EVP?
Employee Value Propositions (EVPs) have long been the foundation of employer branding, helping companies articulate what they offer employees in exchange for their time, skills, and commitment.
Traditionally, EVPs were thoroughly researched, structured, and documented—often taking months to develop and expected to remain relevant for years. And while this method remains valuable for many organizations, today’s fast-changing work environments demand a more flexible approach.
Enter the Agile EVP.
What is an Agile EVP?
An Agile EVP prioritizes speed and adaptability without sacrificing authenticity. It embraces the evolving nature of your organization by using real employee experiences to fine-tune messaging in real time.
Importantly, an Agile EVP doesn’t require discarding previous employer branding efforts. Instead, it enhances your existing EVP, allowing you to evolve it to ensure candidate expectations align with reality.
The Evolution of EVP: From Static to Agile
The Traditional EVP Approach
A traditional EVP is typically developed through in-depth research including employee focus groups, external benchmarking, and leadership input. This method ensures that messaging is carefully considered and rooted in real employee experiences. The EVP is then activated across employer brand touchpoints like career sites, job descriptions, social media, and recruitment marketing materials.
This approach is valuable because it provides a stable and well-researched foundation. However, it also has limitations:
- The process can take months, delaying activation.
- By the time it’s fully launched, company culture or employee expectations may have shifted.
- Ongoing updates can be challenging, requiring significant time and resources.
The Agile EVP Approach
Unlike traditional EVPs, Agile EVPs are designed to adapt. They embrace an iterative, content-driven approach, where employee stories continuously shape messaging. Rather than waiting to finalize every aspect of the EVP before activating it, organizations with Agile EVPs refine and test their messaging in real time, ensuring that it remains relevant and reflective of company culture.
Key characteristics of an Agile EVP include:
- Integrated Process: Instead of creating EVP messaging first and activating it later, Agile EVP development and content creation happen at the same time. Employee stories are captured throughout the process, shaping the brand in real time and making the EVP more authentic and immediately actionable.
- Iterative Testing: Instead of crafting an EVP in isolation, organizations use employee stories to test concepts throughout development and ensure alignment with lived experiences.
- Real-Time Adaptability: Messaging evolves based on culture shifts, employee feedback, and external factors.
| Aspect | Traditional EVP | Agile EVP |
|---|---|---|
| Development Approach | Research-heavy, finalized before activation. | Developed iteratively, refined through continuous employee stories. |
| Activation Timeline | Long development cycle before external use. | Messaging and content activated throughout the process. |
| Employee Story Integration | Used primarily for post-launch activation. | Embedded throughout, from concept to validation to activation. |
| Adaptability | Updated infrequently, often requiring a major refresh. | Continuously evolves with company culture and workforce priorities. |
While a traditional EVP remains a strong and effective strategy, an Agile EVP provides a complementary approach that enhances responsiveness and ensures messaging remains relevant over time.
How to Develop an Agile EVP
1. Start with Employee Stories
Instead of defining your EVP first and then gathering content to support it, begin with employee stories. Interview employees across different levels, locations, and backgrounds to uncover key themes about what makes your company unique.
Capture them in a way that allows you to create content immediately — video is best, but recorded audio interviews can also be used to create written testimonials, blog posts, and social copy.
2. Use Stories to Shape Your EVP Messaging
Once you’ve gathered stories, look for common themes that emerge. What do employees consistently highlight as reasons they love working at your company? What unique aspects of your culture come through in their experiences? Use these insights to refine your EVP pillars and validate them with internal stakeholders before finalizing messaging.
3. Test Messaging While You Build
The world (and your talent attraction and employee engagement efforts) doesn’t stop while you’re refreshing your EVP. Rather than waiting until the brand is fully formed, start sharing content along the way. Employee stories serve as both a testing mechanism and an activation tool, allowing you to:
- Gauge which themes resonate most with employees and candidates.
- Adjust your EVP based on real-time feedback. Early responses to content provide clues on what messaging to double down on, and what can be less of a priority.
- Build excitement and momentum within your organization.
4. Involve Key Stakeholders Early
Leadership, HR, marketing, and employees all play a role in shaping and maintaining your EVP. By involving these groups early and throughout the process, you’ll ensure buy-in and create an EVP that genuinely reflects the company culture.
How to Refresh and Maintain an Agile EVP
Because of its iterative nature, an Agile EVP is easier to maintain and update over time, ensuring alignment with current employee experiences.
Here are a few occasions when you may need to refresh your EVP:
- Your company undergoes significant changes (mergers, new leadership, strategic shifts).
- Employee feedback suggests a disconnect between EVP messaging and actual experiences.
- Candidate expectations evolve due to industry trends, societal changes, or new workplace dynamics (e.g., remote work or AI innovation).
As you approach your refresh, remember that the whole point of an Agile EVP is that you don’t need to start from scratch! For instance, you likely can maintain your same brand colors and tone, while updating one or more brand pillars. Or maybe your pillars still ring true, but you need to update the employee stories you are using to bring them to life to better reflect the current state of the workplace.
Regular “maintenance” will make it easier to keep your EVP agile:
- Conduct regular employee interviews to capture new cultural insights. This could be quarterly, annually, or anywhere in-between depending on the size and needs of your organization.
- Continuously compare EVP messaging to real employee experiences.
- Refresh employer brand materials (career site, job descriptions, social media) with updated stories and themes.
- Leverage employee storytelling as an ongoing content strategy, not just a one-time EVP activation tool.
Final Thoughts: Why Agile EVP is the Future
An Agile EVP is not about abandoning traditional EVP efforts—it’s about enhancing them. By incorporating employee stories at every stage of the process, organizations can create a more dynamic, authentic, and adaptable employer brand that resonates with candidates and employees alike for years to come.