topics include EVP
On LinkedIn the other day there was an interesting thread in response to the question ‘Is an EVP the same as a USP?’
One of the perennial problems with the Employer Brand as a concept is that, over the years, it has had additional marketing-related principles bolted on to it which do not always fit precisely.
The EVP is the employment-related version of the Value Proposition, which is a well-established marketing concept. The E can be interpreted as either employee or employer and the two have very different meanings, so it is important to use the acronym with care and in clear and carefully considered context.
Whether the Employer Value Proposition is the same as a Unique Selling Proposition (or perhaps we could coin an acronym and call it an EUSP) is less clear. The conundrum lies in the Uniqueness of the proposition.
Many EVPs are unique only in that they apply to a particular organisation. If you compare the employer value propositions of a number of organisations in a particular sector, even under far closer scrutiny than most employees would ever consider, there is sometimes very little to differentiate between them at all and certainly nothing that would constitute a unique proposition in the true meaning of the phrase. Yet each can still have a strong EVP. On occasion, yes, an employer might have a very distinctive point of difference and this could be referred to as a USP.
The truth of the matter is that, however much it might be convenient to do so, it is not really possible to treat the complex combination of factors that constitute an offer of employment in exactly the same way that one treats the offer of a product or service. More to the point, employees tend not to be looking for any one point of difference, but rather a combination of factors that match their needs and aspirations at the time.
Having looked online at the range of definitions of each of the concepts we’re wrestling with, it would be possible to arrive at the conclusion that an EVP and USP are readily interchangeable. But, I don’t believe they are.