NH237 Consulting and WDAD Communications - Research on the future intentions and challenges facing the UK’s employers

The opportunities for the Employer Branding profession have never been greater and neither have the challenges 12 “A key that prospective employees are looking for will be some evidence of changing perspective as a result of COVID. If you absolutely look the same with no discernible shift of what ’s valued or commitment to flexibility (where possible), I think that ’s going to be a difficult sell , particularly at a senior level .” Julie Griggs Again, backing up the desire for EVPs to touch all employees and candidate pools, the most populous answer, with 42%, was a desire for their proposition to become more inclusive. Consistent with this, a desire to create more sense of belonging also attracted 22% of our participants. “I struggle with this idea - surely the EVP is about what you stand for as an organisation and what the deal is when you join - so it ’s not going to touch all external candidate pools, nor should you want it to. Think there’s a difference between being inclusive as an organisation and the talent pools you want to reach.” Alison Heron “Definitely agree on spend focused on diversity. Diversity and Inclusion cannot just be a tick box, we have to put provisions in place to ensure that we are reflecting our communities at all levels and that our messaging is not excluding any groups. This has to be done thoughtfully and strategically, this isn’t about token imagery, it ’s about the underpinnings of what we are as an organisation, our culture, our processes and our behaviours”. Julie Griggs There’s a slight irony that the second most popular option selected, behind inclusive, was for their EVP to be more differentiated. Is there an inherent challenge for an EVP seeking to reach out to the broadest possible audience, that it risks becoming a bland, vanilla construct, identical to many within a sector?