The EVP research process: how to find out what your employees really value

An EVP that reads like a press release has already failed. Candidates see through it. Employees do not recognise themselves in it. And the people you want to attract stopped being convinced by it a long time ago.

The cause is almost always the same: the EVP was written from the organisation's ambition, not from the lived experience of the people who work there every day. To build an EVP that actually holds up, you have to listen first. That requires a research process designed to surface honesty, not confirmation.

At Livewall, we help brands run EVP development processes grounded in real employee research. What we find consistently: the insights that matter most are rarely in the first answer.

Start with the people who already left

One of the most underused sources in EVP research is the exit interview. People who are leaving have nothing to lose and tend to give the most direct feedback. Which promises went unmet? Where did the gap between expectation and reality open up?

This is exactly the information you need. Not to hide problems inside an EVP, but to understand where your current positioning falls short. An EVP that is honest about tensions, and shows the organisation is working on them, is more credible than one that only names the highlights.

Alongside leavers, new starters are a valuable research source. They have just gone through the hiring process and can assess both the promise and the early reality clearly. Build in structured feedback at 30, 60 and 90 days. The 90-day point is often the most useful: the initial enthusiasm has settled and someone now knows what the work is actually like day to day.

Depth interviews over surveys

Surveys are efficient but shallow. They give you averages, not insights. People rarely score things low when their name is attached, and in anonymous surveys the nuance collapses into a middle-of-the-road mean.

Depth interviews produce more. Schedule 45 to 60-minute conversations with employees across different levels and functions: operational roles, support functions, line managers, part-time workers. Use open questions that invite stories rather than judgements. "Tell me about a moment when you felt proud to work here" produces more than "How satisfied are you with the company culture?"

Listen for the themes that repeat. Not the answers that confirm what HR already knew, but the words that come up again and again without prompting. Those words are the raw material of a strong EVP.

Validate internally before you communicate externally

A common mistake: the EVP is developed internally by a small HR team, passed to communications for a polish, then published without employees ever being asked whether they recognise it.

Before you publish an EVP, test it with a broad cross-section of the organisation. Do people see themselves in it? Do the words match their daily reality? Are there promises that feel overblown?

This validation step prevents the most dangerous outcome an EVP can produce: employees reacting with cynicism. The moment existing staff describe an EVP as "that's what they say, but it's not how it works here", you lose credibility not just with candidates but internally too.

External positioning: understand the market

An EVP does not exist in isolation. It needs to stand out against the employers competing for the same people. That requires external analysis alongside internal research.

Look at how comparable employers position themselves. Which promises are already overcrowded? What are employees saying on Glassdoor or Indeed about your competitors? Find the space they are not occupying, then check whether your organisation can authentically claim it.

The strongest EVP positions are specific enough to be distinctive and broad enough to speak to multiple candidate audiences. "A place to grow fast" is generic. "A place where you lead significant projects in your first year" is concrete and checkable.

From insight to activation

Research is not the end point. It is the starting point. The insights you gather need to be translated into an EVP that works across multiple contexts: on a working-at website, in recruitment campaigns, in preboarding, and in internal communications.

At Livewall, we connect employer branding strategy directly to activation. We do not just develop the strategy. We build the tools that bring the promise to life: from pre-boarding tools that engage new starters before day one, to employer brand campaigns that reach the right candidates with the right message.

The Kruidvat Vriendenteam campaign is a good example of what happens when you properly understand your audience. Young retail workers who apply with friends needed a recruitment concept built around that behaviour, not around how HR preferred the process to work. The result was a campaign that felt natural to the people it was aimed at.

An EVP grounded in what employees genuinely feel does not need to work as hard to convince. It resonates with the people who belong in the culture you are describing.