Reinvent IT EVP to Attract & Retain Critical Talent, CIOs Advised

The employment value proposition is no longer a novelty for companies; COVID-19 has acted as a catalyst, forcing companies to confront significant shifts in working preferences and employee expectations. The rise of remote and hybrid work, along with increased pressures for work-life balance, has prompted a deeper understanding of the EVP. While many organizations are still in the early stages of making structural changes to their EVP, the emphasis on work-life harmonization has made it a central element of talent management discussions.

Companies have been actively implementing measures to enhance their perceived EVP, both directly and indirectly. Organizations around the world are racing to boost their competitiveness by squeezing a decade’s worth of digital transformation and technology adoption into one or more years. This changes the talent search significantly. When it comes to talent, countries are pitted against each other. The public sector is losing talent to the private sector. All other industries no longer fight for talent inside their respective industries; instead, they compete under one banner: technology.

Gartner has found that only 32% of IT employees have a high intent to stay in their organizations, versus 39.9% of non-IT employees. If CIOs do not take charge of designing a human-centered EVP, they will face increased turnover in their critical IT/tech roles, putting the digital transformation of their companies at risk. To address this, CIOs should look at the following actions.

1. Articulate EVP strategies to current and potential workers

Many organizations do not consciously articulate EVP strategies at the enterprise level, and the pressure and responsibility are on CIOs to address the tech talent risks. This means implementing some actions to help address the immediate issues, while at the same time structuring a response to tech talent expectations.

Seventy-six percent of candidates report exiting the hiring process due to at least one mismatch in EVP preferences. Compensation, benefits, work-life balance, and flexibility are among the highest reasons for discontinuing an application. When it comes to recruiting new talent, CIOs, in partnership with HR, should promote employee referral programs focused on recruiting tech and digital talent and incentivize participation.

2. Reframe EVP by focusing on the human deal

EVP is traditionally defined around employees, designed to provide an exceptional employee experience and focused on delivering features that match employee needs. But persistent engagement and attraction challenges, and the human crises of 2020, have proven these underlying principles outdated. Employees are people, not just workers, and work is a subset of life, not separate from it. Value comes through feelings, not just features. Building a more human employment deal requires an EVP that focuses on the whole person, their life experience and, ultimately, the emotion the human deal creates.

There are five components to the human deal, each of which aims to generate a specific emotion in employees:

1. Deeper connections: how tech leaders help employees strengthen their family and community connections, not just work relationships.
2. Radical flexibility: how tech leaders provide flexibility in all aspects of work, not just when and where employees work.
3. Personal growth: how tech leaders help employees grow as people, not just as professionals.
4. Holistic well-being: how tech leaders ensure that employees use holistic well-being offerings, not just that they are available.
5. Purpose: employees feel invested when organizations take collective action on purpose, not just make corporate statements.

When organizations make progress on any part of the human deal, they see clear benefits — some of which include an increase in the following areas:

• Employees who are highly likely to recommend the organization.
• High performers.
• Intent to stay.
• Physical, financial, and mental wellness.

3. Strengthen EVP by responding to individual needs

Companies that capture the elements that employees care about most and adapt both their message and their investment are more successful. While it is tempting to create an annual plan for an EVP evaluation, such an approach is slow and insufficient to gain competitive advantage in relation to one’s competitors. To build a relevant set of attributes that people perceive as the value they gain in their lives from employment, CIOs need to recognize the cues and triggers of change that impact people.

With the increase of economic uncertainty, IT employees seem to be more inclined toward organizations with a growth trajectory. Knowing this, organizations can adapt their communication and shed light on the elements of their EVP that matter most.

There is a clear trend of shifting from work from home to work from anywhere. With this shift, the IT talent market is now borderless. People are responding differently to the future of work. People in different age groups, regions and seniority levels expect different things. This means CIOs now also need to take into account segmented EVP drivers of attraction and retention of talent in order to maintain competitiveness.

CIOs focused on leadership, culture, and people who aim to attract and retain top talent with a compelling EVP should address the talent attrition/shortage by taking the lead on IT talent and partnering with HR. Reframe the EVP components by adopting the human deal — designing for people, based on life experiences and centered on feelings. Make EVP more adaptive by capturing changes in preferences and responding to individual needs swiftly based on elements such as career moments, region of work, tenure, and level of experience, among others.

Gabriela Vogel is a VP Analyst in the Executive Leadership of Digital Business practice at Gartner. She provides pragmatic guidance to executives on C-suite dynamics, effective leadership in times of change, and specializes in enhancing leadership effectiveness, managing corporate politics, addressing conflicts, and developing strategies to tackle these issues.