How we created our Tech EVP.

We’ve been doing the Employer Branding for some time by using our best judgments. We tried different tools, ways, posts but it was always about our gut. At the end of last year, we decided to discover what is our EVP — a compelling argument as to why someone would like to work with us. The main rule that we had in mind was: we want to show the real us. Not what we would like to have, not what our leaders would like to have. Just reality: the culture that each newbie sees and feels after joining our team (or even candidates during the recruitment process).

To do this, we followed the process:

1. Survey to the internal Tech teams asking:

• What 3 characteristic has an ideal candidate to Docplanner Tech
• What 3 things do you like about our company
• What 3 things you don’t like in our company
• What other companies do you find as an attractive place to work in and why?

What we found out is that when talking about our pros, people were quite agreed. We really appreciate the atmosphere, flexibility and autonomy that each of us has here. The possibility to develop and people all around. And the product itself, that we found useful and meaningful.

When talking about the cons, it was more scattered — eg. communication was pointed out by 7 people (out 52 that took part in the survey) and it was the most rated element. So still, we have areas to work on but it looked like issues that pop up at the moment, not like the long-lasting problems.

When our team wrote down other interesting companies to work in, they chose the ones with great product and brand (it was a confirmation for us that it’s worth boosting it ;)). And very often they liked the companies that are very similar to us in the end :)

2. Survey to the candidates

At the same time, we wanted to know what our candidates see in our EB actions OR after following the recruitment process. We prepared the survey where we presented 7 statements that they could answer by Yes/No/Don’t know.

• After joining Docplanner, I think I could develop both professionally and personally.
• I think that people in Docplanner like to share their knowledge.
• I know what is the mission of Docplanner
• I found that Docplanner is a well-known, global company
• I believe that I could have here an impact on what and how I do everyday
• The company gives a lot of flexibility to their employees
• I think that people just like working in Docplanner (the atmosphere is nice and friendly)

We also asked about sources where they look for information about working in the company (it turned out that’s LinkedIn, Career Page, Glassdoor) and why they applied to our company in general. The answer to the second question gave us confirmation that the product that we create is something that people really want to work with, eg:

“the company mission and the services that docplanner provide has direct impact on the people, to improve our lives’’,

“I always use the website Doctoralia to check the doctors before making an appointment. I think it’s a great platform which still has a big space in the market to expand and UI design to be improved”.

We send (the same questions) to the candidates that we disqualified just after CV screening (so they evaluated our EB actions) and the ones that took part in at least one step of the process (additional info how we sell the company). Any interesting findings here? Of course, eg:

• Despite the group, over 90% of candidates felt that they can develop in Docplanner
• Compared to the candidates that were disqualified on the CV stage, more candidates that took part in the process felt that we give flexibility to the employees. So the question is how to underline this flexibility in our EB actions? :)
• Moreover, after the interview, more candidates felt that people simply like to work in the company (71% vs 50% “Yes” answers after CV stage). For us, it was a sign that we do a good job when people meet us.

3. Research about the companies that our team point out as interesting ones, try to find things that make their brands so unique and use it as inspiration in our own actions.

Next steps

After collecting all the data, we moved to the next steps — workshops. We knew that there are some things that we can be proud of:

People — passionate, smart, open-minded, team players, engaged, with humour
That creates this unique atmosphere
And develop inside DP Tech
Thanks to Flexibility
And Autonomy that we have here
To build a product with an amazing mission!

4. We did workshops with our Tech team members (5 groups = ~43 people) some exercises:

• To check what they like and don’t like about our current EB actions
• Create together EVP statements
• Suggesting a specific action that presents our new EVP

We were a little afraid whether the workshops will be valuable. But our peers created a lot of great statements, eg:

We enable you to have a real impact by making your ideas happen for millions of users around the world. We develop our people by letting them experiment with the newest technologies & solutions. We believe in autonomy and flexibility and give you a great atmosphere with super friendly people. All that to meet our mission — to change the unchangeable healthcare experience to become more human.

We enable you to have a real impact by running your own ideas for millions of users around the world. We develop our people by letting them play with new technologies. We believe in authonomy&flexibility and we give you a great atmosphere with super friendly people. All that to meet our mission — make the healthcare experience more human.

Tell your mother you are working in a company that helps patients get healthy in a human way. Tell your friends that you work with people that respect you for who you are and bring you all the support you need to improve the lives of millions. Tell everyone we take care of patients and we will take care of you

5. Then, there was time to do workshops for our Px team. We have two teams (Warsaw and Barcelona) so they were working separately in the first stage:

• On creating the EVP statements that combine all data and ideas we collected so far
• Thinking about DO’s and DON’Ts in our EB actions

Both of the exercises showed us that we are aligned and that we really know how to show our culture and what definitely we would never like to do (like overselling/overpromising or showing only integration parties). And creating our EVP is more about putting some frame and name some ideas.

6. The project ended when we combined the statements into one, we all felt it’s great and is true to the reality:

We presented it to our Tech leaders, and they liked it. How do we know that’s the real one? At the same time, Ania from our Px team was working on EB video. It’s based on testimonials, without the script, everyone could say what really felt. The result is just about our EVP.

What’s next?

Px team is divided into different EB areas, so right now they are working on putting our EVP into life and level up our EB activities. They are working in groups or pairs about what new ways of promotions will be the ones that we wanna try. It includes using our DO’s and DONT’s that we created during the previous workshops and turn them into specific ideas to implement this or next months.

So stay tuned and watch us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Career Page and Medium.