The situation

Over the last 60 years, ACT has established itself as one of the leading assessment companies in North America, however, in the last few years, ACT has been going through high levels of change, caused by significant disruption in the education sector and shifting strategies.

With the appointment of a new CEO and then a subsequent change in leadership for the Talent Strategy team, Mindyasa were hired to partner with the team and develop a clear and inspirational EVP statement and narrative, as well as a new set of Core Values and Behaviors that more accurately reflected the organisation. This was to support the goal of driving a more healthy and effective organisation, by becoming more consistent and aligned in the way they work and collaborate, as well as how ACT’s team members were treated.

ACT’s Talent Strategy (TS) team had craved a clear Employee Value Proposition (EVP) for years, but one way or another, it always seemed to stay on their backlog of ‘things to get to’. During this period of change and disruption, the experience that ACT’s team members had could be very different year to year, as well as by function to function.

The approach

An Employee Value Proposition is the experience offered by an employer in exchange for the productivity and performance of an employee – it must be inspiring and motivating, but it has to be truly grounded in reality to avoid over-promising and over-committing. It must also reflect how your organisation presents itself to its customers and partners and ladder up directly to the organisation’s purpose. There’s a lot to consider to ensure that it is powerful and effective.

Mindyasa were perfectly placed to help ACT – having been instrumental in developing ACT’s North Star and purpose, as well as their Brand Personality and Tone of Voice. Using these tenets as essential inputs, we also interviewed internal and external stakeholders to capture a range of insights to help guide what was most important to ACT team members, and identify the ‘edge’ that the EVP would need – what type of people are the best fit for ACT, and what’s the difference that makes the ACT unique.

Having captured huge amounts of data and insight, we created a draft narrative using our proven framework and worked with the team to challenge and improve that draft – ensuring that it had the good balance, felt right and was as inspirational as ACT’s purpose. This draft was then tested with key stakeholders – did it resonate with them, was it powerful, did it feel like it was ‘ACT’. In partnership with the team, we edited, tweaked and improved it until we had a fully comprehensive view of what life was like at ACT and had painted a clear picture of what employees could expect.

Finally, we worked with the Talent Strategy team to help them identify the numerous opportunities to weave the EVP into their work to design the programs, experiences and communications with ACT’s team members. This ensured that the work that had been done to create the EVP was translated directly into actions that will have a positive impact on their team members for years.

ACT is a federally registered trademark of ACT, Inc.