HomeEmployee ExperienceGartner HR Research Reveals Only 33% of Employees Say Their Organizations Consistently Deliver on Promises

Gartner HR Research Reveals Only 33% of Employees Say Their Organizations Consistently Deliver on Promises

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A March 2024 Gartner survey of more than 1,300 employees found that only 21% of employees said their organization communicates about their EVP enough. “Organizations are pouring resources into their EVP – increasing salaries, promoting people, and offering better benefits – but employees are not seeing these upgrades,” said Keyia Burton, Senior Principal, Advisory in the Gartner HR practice. “Communication […]

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A March 2024 Gartner survey of more than 1,300 employees found that only 21% of employees said their organization communicates about their EVP enough.

“Organizations are pouring resources into their EVP – increasing salaries, promoting people, and offering better benefits – but employees are not seeing these upgrades,” said Keyia Burton, Senior Principal, Advisory in the Gartner HR practice. “Communication is the biggest barrier for HR leaders when it comes to EVPs. Our survey found that 75% of HR leaders admitted they are not doing a great job of communicating their EVP internally.”

There are three key challenges currently hindering EVP delivery for employees that HR leaders must address when revamping their EVP communication strategy: 

  1. Understanding the EVP 
  2. Connecting to the EVP
  3. Believing in EVP improvements

Help Employees Understand: Position EVP in the Context of the Employee Journey

The March 2024 survey of 1,300 employees found that just 16% of employees reported knowing what makes up their organization’s EVP. To help combat employees’ lack of understanding, HR leaders should communicate the EVP at the most relevant moments in an employee’s experience.

HR leaders have a variety of channels through which they can communicate about their EVP – job descriptions, career websites, job interviews, onboarding, team meetings, the company intranet, employee working groups and more. Among 3,500 respondents to the March 2024 Gartner survey, for each additional channel through which employees learn about their EVP, they are 24% more likely to agree that their organization delivers on its EVP promises.

“It is imperative that HR leaders are thoughtful about which channels they are using and when,” explained Burton. “EVP communication should occur at all stages of the employee lifecycle, starting from the interview process all the way through the alumni experience.” 

Make Employees Feel Connected: Embed EVP Communication Into Workflows

Managers are the day-to-day touchpoints for employees, but they don’t often communicate with employees about EVP. Yet, among the 3,500 respondents in the March 2024 survey, Gartner found that employees who believe they can depend on their manager to deliver on EVP promises are five times more likely to agree that their organization delivers on its promises. 

Unfortunately, managers today are already overburdened and don’t necessarily have the capacity, or the knowledge, to communicate about and help deliver on EVP to their direct reports. 

“A great way to ease the burden for managers is to encourage them to signal EVP during their existing touchpoints with employees. This could be during a team meeting, a mentoring session, or during development conversations,” noted Burton. “By discussing EVP in their existing touchpoints, managers are creating connective tissue for employees to be able to connect things that they are doing in their day-to-day back to the organization’s EVP promises.” 

Build Employee Trust: Demonstrate Responsiveness and Intent to Act 

The March 2024 Gartner survey revealed just 38% of the 1,300 employees surveyed anticipated EVP offerings would improve in the future, showing a lack of trust in their organization. 

“Employees are wondering if their employer is taking their feedback seriously,” explained Burton. “HR must show that they are responsive and intend to act on any hiccups or missteps that happen throughout the employee experience.” 

One way that organizations can show they are responsive to employees is through greater transparency. Organizations can share information at greater depth by going beyond just defining their EVP and aligning it with the organization’s mission. This shows up by taking action on employee feedback, as well as addressing feedback that the organization cannot act on or speaking to challenges faced when delivering on EVP.


About Gartner for HR Leaders

The Gartner HR practice brings together the best relevant content approaches across Gartner to offer individual decision makers strategic business advice on the mission-critical priorities that cut across the HR function. Additional information is available at https://www.gartner.com/en/human-resources/products/gartner-for-hr. Follow news and updates from the Gartner HR practice on X and LinkedIn using #GartnerHR.

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