What’s it really like to work at the University of Liverpool?
How we are producing a compelling Employee Value Proposition
By Keith Watkinson, Director of Human Resources, University of Liverpool16 January 2024
We’re great employers, aren’t we?
As a sector, we have levels of staff retention that most commercial employers could only dream of. We boast flexibility and we are family-friendly. Our pay is competitive and our benefits are impressive. Our annual leave is generous and we even close down over festive period (although it feels somewhat distant already!).This is borne out in the recent UCEA report The benefits of Working in HE 2023 which showed that 97% of respondent HEIs (compared to 62% of employers in the wider economy) offer hybrid working, with all having family friendly policies (compared to 67% in the wider economy). And as for our sector’s excellent pensions, nearly all HEIs confirmed that these include the rarity of offering defined benefit schemes in addition to defined contribution schemes.
UCEA’s report What’s it really like to work in HE offers further insight. It explores the more intangible aspects of working in the sector which, when taken together, speak to what we have been doing here at the University of Liverpool.
Add all of this up and you get an offer that helps us attract and hold on to the best people. Or, at least, we assume it does. But is it really why candidates join us? Do we ever actually test this? And, if our offer is as compelling as we think it is, why do we still struggle to recruit staff in specific areas?
For all our differences, most of us in our sector tend to say the same things when we hire. Cover up the logos and our ads are largely interchangeable.
At Liverpool we sought a more distinctive story when it came to considering working here. We also wanted to stop guessing and start understanding what inspires people to join Liverpool and stay with us.
The time is right to develop our employer value proposition
In fact, the timing is perfect. We have a new VC, a new strategy and a fresh set of values – all of which are shaping life and work here. This, combined with our proud heritage and our current standing, feels like the story we should be telling.The development of our new People and Culture Strategy is a major driver too. We’ve been asking ourselves where we should invest to make the biggest difference in terms of attraction and retention. For example, should we be paying most attention to our staff development or our reward and recognition offering? Again, we don’t want to guess: we want to know we’re making the right decision.
Finally, recruitment pressures are playing their part. We want to have a stronger voice in the employment marketplace and be confident that we’re saying the right things to our many different candidate audiences.
The value of partnership
We’ve got plenty of HR know-how in our team and indeed in the University of Liverpool Management School. And research is a major part of what we do after all. So we worked hand-in-glove with our academic colleagues and employed our own students to do our research.What we don’t have is experience in turning our findings into a compelling proposition. This is where SMRS come in. They’re the culture, brand and communications business who worked in partnership to develop our wider University brand as the Original Redbrick. With expertise in both employer and education marketing, they have worked with us to translate a corporate brand into an employer value proposition (EVP).
This partnership is providing real value for money. With budgets tight, we’re maximising our spend with SMRS by playing to each other’s strengths. Where we have resources and expertise, we’re taking the lead. Where we don’t, SMRS pick up the reins.
As you’d expect from a university, we took our research very seriously
Our team carried out an all-staff survey and ran 14 supplementary focus groups, engaging with colleagues of different staff groups, demographics and tenure, to find out the views of our diverse university community. In total, we engaged with 1,140 colleagues across all areas of the University. We also surveyed 87 recent candidates, to find out whether we were getting the outside picture too.SMRS supported our research by reviewing the wider market and helping us engage with our stakeholders to ensure that we are as focused on our new strategic ambitions as we were on the ‘here and now’. Once our results were in, they analysed our findings and turned them into the themes of our EVP. Our partnership understanding, joint knowledge of our strategic ambition and corporate brand helped hugely – allowing for a seamless alignment of our employer and corporate positioning.
Together, we are creating the 'sparkle' that is turning our insight into the headlines and imagery. This enables us to share our new story with the world.
Where we are at the start of 2024
At the time of writing, we are testing a range of creative concepts with our colleague community – checking that we’re presenting ourselves with words and pictures that feel authentic to the people who know us best.We’re developing specific messaging frameworks for our core professional audiences. This is a crucial part of the project because we actually know now that what matters most to a Building Manager or an IT professional is different to what appeals to an Academic. We also know now that, surprisingly perhaps, some things are the same. To build our frameworks, we are carrying out validation focus groups with our four key audiences, to explore how each of our EVP themes come alive in their part of the University.
We’re also weaving our findings through our new People and Culture strategy, to make sure the story we’re creating comes alive for our colleagues as well as our candidates. For example, we’re already using it to inform our retention strategy and some of our key people policies.
