Employee Value Proposition
By JoeBruin88. Filed in Career and Education and Training |Tags: Career, CSUSM, education_and_training, MBA, work
To: Penny Handscomb
From: Joe *****
Date: September 15, 2004
Re: Experiential Activity: Employee Value Proposition for A Corporation
In the three short months that I’ve worked at A Corporation, I am convinced that A does not have a winning, compelling Employee Value Proposition (EVP) that would draw me to stay with them in the long run. In fact, according to the four key elements of a winning EVP in The War for Talent by Michaels et. al., A falls far short of these ideals.
Having left an 11-year career in public education, I came to private sector, defense contractor giant, A, thinking that doing anything other than teaching teenagers would be good. While I don’t have the excitement of having to deal with disrespectful teens on a daily basis, I also no longer have an enjoyable, creative outlet at my place of employment. While I did not really enjoy teaching at the end of my career, I did however, find tremendous pleasure in designing web sites at my last school as a web site design instructor and school technology coordinator. It was the one fulfilling thing I still enjoyed at the end. One of the things that initially attracted me to A’s position as an Instructional Designer was to be “creative” every single day. At A, the work is extremely boring because of my department’s primary client, the US Marine Corps. While I design training materials for the Marines, it is definitely not creative. The Marines have a certain format and a certain way of doing things. The materials I write are standardized, all with the same military format.
Because A works primarily with the military, it comes as no surprise that many of the company’s top leaders are former military officers and personnel. On my first glance, it seems that it would be difficult to advance beyond a certain point at A, given my lack of military experience. It would still be possible to garnish a variety of experiences for professional growth and development through A’s online classes, as well as various seminars announced via corporate email. However, they are not as readily accessible. Employees must attend classes and seminars on their own time, not company time. The company only makes the seminars available, but the employee must pay out of his own pocket to attend. As a new employee, I did not go through any formal training or indoctrination to the company culture other than my brief new employee orientation during which I learned how to use the security system and filled out all the new hire paperwork. My conclusion is that A is committed to my professional development only as long as I want to pay for it myself and pursue it on my own time.
With having to pay for my own professional development, it would be difficult to do so with my current compensation package at A. Understandably, making a transition from the public sector to the private sector as I did, required me to take a 14% pay cut in my salary in comparison to what I made as a public educator. A’s commitment to providing competitive compensation does not seem that strong to me. After doing some initial research into a career in instructional design, I learned that A is paying me about $5000 less than the median salary for my position in San Diego. The nature of the company’s business, bidding on and acquiring government contracts, makes budget constraints somewhat inflexible. Salaries must fall within the current and upcoming budgets for projects. There is not much room for negotiation. When I compare my current abilities and skill set to the skills I am actually using daily on the job, I would say that A acquired my talents at a tremendous bargain.
While it is quite disappointing to have worked for so long in another career and now earn less wages, I was prepared to make this type of financial sacrifice in the short run to make my career transition a reality, especially for the right company with the right culture and the right management. My dreams were shattered soon after I started at A. On my third day of employment, I experienced extremely unprofessional treatment from my manager. Even then, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but having experienced being treated with rudeness, condescension, and just plain meanness for the past three months, I am convinced that my manager is a jerk and he poorly manages our department. This is the icing on the cake which currently drives me to seek other employment, even to consider working in public education again. Without wanting to seem like a whiner or complainer, I waited six weeks, enduring my manager’s behavior before I confronted him. I don’t trust him. He’s like Jekyll and Hyde, bipolar, nice one day, and a jerk the next. All of my current projects are all losses for the company because he mismanaged the bidding process and the time constraints long before I arrived at A. Now that he’s feeling the pressure of having so many late deliverables, he often takes out his frustration on me, as well as other employees. This is definitely not a company I want to continue working at. My loyalty to A is only as strong as the time it will take me to find someplace else that will give me a winning employee value proposition in task, culture, growth, relationships, and rewards.