The HR Leader in conversation with Lotus People on EVP and recruitment

HR Leader hosted Attracting and retaining talent in 2023 on 13 December in partnership with Enboarder and Lotus People. Here, Lotus People’s Iona Colville, divisional manager of HR and talent, discussed how companies can create an effective EVP, how recruitment experts can assist through talent shortages, and whether recruitment agencies need to be local to their clients.

Shandel McAuliffe, editor of HR Leader: “How can organisations create an EVP (employee value proposition) that makes a role stand out from the crowd?”

Iona Colville: “EVP is certainly something that’s always been looked at, but I think that it’s also definitely been a thing since COVID-19 with the increased competition in the market. Organisations are having to look at their EVP overall in order to remain competitive. The organisations that are definitely staying ahead in their EVP are those that are looking at the main drivers … Some of the main ones would be compensation, that has to do with salaries, salary increases. They’re always looking at the highest bracket at the moment because of candidate shortages.

“Organisations need to be aware of that. If you can’t be matching these high salaries in the market at the moment, because some of them are pretty high, you need to be looking throughout the interview process at evaluation and bonuses and what you can offer in the future,” Ms Colville explained.

“Another one would be work-life balance and flexibility … It’s always going to come up first when we’re speaking to candidates. They’re always wanting to know what the flexibility looks like in the organisation. That can be around hybrid working, flexible hours, remote-first policies, paid parental leave … One that’s really hot on the market at the moment as well would be the four-day work week.”

She continued: “I don’t expect organisations to be able to look at all of these at once, but they’re certainly what candidates are looking for at the moment. If you’re not already looking at implementing some of these, I would seriously consider looking at least at a few of them going into the new year because otherwise, you’re going to end up falling behind a little bit.”

“Candidates are wanting a secure role, but they also want to be looking forward into the future … What can you offer me to make me want this opportunity? That needs to be all outlined in the interview process, where your learning and development efforts are, what you put into your mentoring, into your training,” added Ms Colville.

Editor: “Why do you think HR should work with recruitment experts on talent needs?”

Ms Colville: “The fact that we’re in a very tight, candidate short market. You need to be partnering with a recruiter or external partner that you can trust to deliver through this time. It’s not as simple anymore as saying, ‘I've got a job, who wants it?’”

Editor: “Can you get as much value out of a recruiter who isn’t local?”

Ms Colville: “Yeah, absolutely ... We work right across the country. There are no barriers. If you actually think about the way that we recruit, we’ve got a lot of things that we do, but it’s not restricted, especially when you’re recruiting for fully remote companies sometimes and they’re looking at people everywhere. And we can absolutely do the same.”

The transcript of this webinar recorded on 13 December 2022, when quoted above, was slightly edited for publishing purposes. The full audio conversation and the original webinar can be found here.