Happiness is the new EVP
Crafting people’s roles to enable more wellbeing may feel like a leap of faith, but that is the proposition employees want.
One positive that’s come out of the global health crisis and the past three years of accelerated change is an increased focus on what helps us be to happy and productive at work. Many businesses are looking inwards, aware of their responsibility in this area.
There’s an increasing realisation that there are also commercial benefits to a successful Employee Value Proposition (EVP), with growing boardroom discussions about the effect of physical and mental health on productivity and performance. Many companies are realising they may be left behind in the war for talent if they aren’t prepared to listen and adapt to employees’ expectations.
Job candidates are increasingly demanding flexibility in contracts. When choosing an employer, flexible working is now the number one consideration for 67% of Gen Z and 49% of Gen Y — more important even than salary, according to the London School of Economics.
However, it would be a missed opportunity to think a successful EVP in 2023 is only about permission to work from home. Businesses have to keep up with the new-found demands of a slippery workforce and create the conditions for people (and therefore profit) to thrive. How?
The place and time equation
UK workers believe flexibility has the biggest impact on their wellbeing but — on the scale ranging from in-office mandates up to complete freedom over when, how and where you work — there is as yet no normal, and no magic formula for success. With huge numbers of hours spent working from home, opportunities to cultivate the USP for employees are slim.
Office perks that were once synonymous with a great place to work, such as free yoga classes and table football, have lost their allure. Nobody is commuting for a free banana. Staff now would rather have a contribution to their home broadband, making the office a minor partner in the EVP.
There is a gap to fill with new offerings, both in-office and out, but these won’t be as simple as a wellstocked beer fridge. The big tech companies who started the office perk trend have begun ditching the frivolities while maintaining benefits like best-in-class healthcare. This makes sense. But having also slashed thousands of jobs they have broken employee trust.
Distributed workforces have thrown up a further dilemma for employers: how do you create a consistent, equitable pay structure? The debate on whether relocating to an area with a lower cost of living should reduce your pay has yet to reach a consensus. This creates the potential for a class system to develop, separating office, hybrid and fully remote employees. Whatever approach is taken has to be handled with sensitivity, recognising that there are broad lifestyle needs.
The personalisation challenge
The bigger the organisation, the broader the range of demographics and lifestyles it has to cater for. Even in small companies, employees can have very different needs. Broad, multi-faceted EVPs allow employees to pick and mix and get access to the right tool or service at the right moment for them. However, they often don’t know what that will be until a need occurs, such as an accident or decline in mental health. Availability of the right provision is essential to feeling supported. It doesn’t matter what the EVP offering is if it isn’t right for them at that time.
If understanding what your employees want was a customer question, you might consider how big data would provide you with the answer. There are ever more services available to survey the employee base. Is it appropriate to treat employees like you would customers if it means greater personalisation of EVP products?
Whatever your package is, it faces a final hurdle: 98% of CEOs believe their companies offer mental health benefits, but only 58% of staff agree. This shows the importance and challenge of internal comms. Creating an environment of trust is pivotal, where employees know they’ll be provided for because they already feel nurtured.
The power of happiness
Not everyone has the same natural happiness level. At the age of 21, 30% of our happiness is due to our genetics. This proportion decreases in prominence as we age and experience other influences, especially our work environment.
Happier people are more likely to become leaders, earn higher scores in performance evaluations and be better teammates.
Happiness is also contagious — as is unhappiness. This suggests that cultivating more happiness in employees will lead to stronger business performance, and that not doing so puts people with a lower level of natural happiness at a disadvantage and perpetuates negative experiences. Purpose, belonging and even fun have to be cultivated in an equitable way to make happiness part of the EVP.
This is an excerpt from our latest book Purpose: Built, it’s all about making change happen and designing a brighter, better future. If you’d like a copy of request one here and sign up to our monthly newsletter to keep up to date.
Author: Nicky, is a Senior Innovation Consultant at Magnetic. If you’d like to talk to Nicky about your EVP, email nicky.ashwell@wearemagnetic.com.
