Employer Branding — Part 16: Harnessing the Power of EVP in Real Estate

How do you achieve effec­tive employ­er brand­ing ? We have intro­duced you to many aspects of this topic since the begin­ning of our Valdivia News­room series - from theo­ret­i­cal approach­es such as the concept of purpose to prac­ti­cal tips such as job adverts  and events for appli­cants . Today, we would like to address compa­nies that have recog­nised the impor­tance of strate­gic employ­er brand­ing and are now look­ing for an effec­tive way to get started.

Over­com­ing the inhi­bi­tion threshold 

Employ­er brand­ing is an effec­tive tool for coun­ter­ing the short­age of skilled labour . This also applies to the construc­tion and prop­er­ty sector — an indus­try that is strong­ly char­ac­terised by medi­um-sized compa­nies. Howev­er, SMEs have often priori­tised other tasks. For exam­ple, a good 60 % do not yet have a strate­gic approach to employ­er brand­ing^1/2  There are many possi­ble reasons for this — for exam­ple, the lack of special­ists in person­nel market­ing³. Anoth­er reason could be that there is no tangi­ble start­ing point:

• How do you start to build a sustain­able employ­er brand?
• How can previ­ous indi­vid­ual measures be bundled into a mean­ing­ful whole

The first step is to formu­late what char­ac­teris­es your compa­ny as an employ­er: the so-called “Employ­er Value Propo­si­tion”, or EVP for short. This not only helps you to find guid­ing prin­ci­ples for commu­ni­cat­ing your employ­er brand. It is also a way of elim­i­nat­ing possi­ble uncer­tain­ties, uncov­er­ing deficits and recog­nis­ing previ­ous­ly hidden potential.

The EPP as a central value proposition

An employ­er brand must be authen­tic and cred­i­ble. It can there­fore only be formu­lat­ed and devel­oped “from the inside out”. It bene­fits from the formu­la­tion of an EVP, which serves as a central value propo­si­tion for employ­ees and appli­cants. Howev­er, the EVP is often equat­ed with employ­er brand­ing, although the two terms differ significantly:

• Employ­er branding
  Like brand commu­ni­ca­tion in prod­uct market­ing, employ­er brand­ing primar­i­ly involves imple­men­ta­tion and presen­ta­tion. This also includes mate­r­i­al elements such as salaries, bonus­es and bene­fits as well as the entire imple­men­ta­tion in career pages on the website, adverts, social media or appear­ances at job fairs.
• Employ­er Value Proposition
  With the EVP, you describe your atti­tude as an employ­er and the culture of your compa­ny from the employ­ees’ perspec­tive. Indi­vid­ual contents of the EVP also appear again and again in employ­er brand­ing. It is essen­tial that the values it contains are also lived with­in the company.

Check­list for your EPP

The formu­la­tion of a seri­ous EPP is based on two ques­tion areas. On the one hand, it is about the iden­ti­ty of the compa­ny and, on the other, about your person­nel target groups:

Who are we?

• What values and atti­tudes do we stand for as a compa­ny or employ­er? What is our purpose in the market and society?
• Which of these char­ac­ter­is­tics make us stand out in the industry?
• How can you describe our corpo­rate culture?
• Where do we come from? What are our roots and traditions?
• Where do we want to go? What is our vision?

Who are we addressing?

• What kind of people work for us? How could we describe the differ­ent groups — e.g. in the form of exem­plary personae?
• What attracts employ­ees to us? Why should appli­cants be inter­est­ed in us?
• What do we as a compa­ny expect from candidates?

Success factors for your profile as an employer

As a result, your EVP describes what makes you attrac­tive or perhaps even unique as an employ­er. This is based on the elements of your corpo­rate culture, such as the work­ing atmos­phere and your atti­tude towards diver­si­ty, digi­tal­i­sa­tion, train­ing or work-life balance, for exam­ple. To set your­self apart from competi­tors in the labour market, you could also focus on atten­tion-grab­bing topics such as salary trans­paren­cy or a posi­tive atti­tude towards whistle-blowing

The values and content of your EVP should always be tangi­ble in every­day work­ing life. Then they will strength­en a sustain­ably effec­tive employ­er brand­ing as a support­ing pillar and improve your chances on the labour market and for your compa­ny’s success.

List of sources

• “Employ­er Brand­ing in B2B — Status Quo, Trends & Exam­ples”, Marcon­o­my Dossier of the Vogel Commu­ni­ca­tions Group, Würzburg (Novem­ber 2022)
• “Employ­er Brand­ing & Recruit­ing Study 2024” on medi­um-sized compa­nies, Die Schätzefind­er, Stuttgart

(Image source: istockphotos)