Maturity model · 5 dimensions

EVP Discovery.

The EVP Discovery pack runs the research half of an employer-value-proposition engagement: a rank-order employee survey, leadership interviews, segmented focus groups, a joiner instrument, and a document-review register covering careers content, engagement results and exit themes. The five components follow Gartner's EVP model — Rewards, Opportunity, Organisation, People and Work — scored as how well the lived deal delivers each component, not as a classic maturity climb. The product of the engagement is a synthesis of 3–6 pillars, each with proof points and employee verbatims; the scores are a diagnostic of evidence strength, not the deliverable. Coding is seeded with the five components plus Give & Get and the authenticity gap (the Invented EVP trap). Provenance: docs/strategy/research/evp-development.md.

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What the EVP Discovery model measures

Rewards: Pay, benefits, recognition and the total reward employees actually experience — not the careers-site list. Gartner's first EVP component. The authenticity test is whether people would describe the deal the way the organisation advertises it, including what the deal demands in return (Give & Get).
Opportunity: Career growth, development, internal mobility and whether people can see a future here. Gartner's second component, extended by the Human Deal's personal-growth framing. The test is lived progression, not a learning-catalogue page.
Organisation: Purpose, values, reputation and the kind of institution this is to belong to — Gartner's third component, overlapping the Human Deal's shared purpose. Includes whether the outside view (careers site, reviews) matches the inside view.
People: Managers, colleagues, belonging and the quality of working relationships — Gartner's fourth component, overlapping the Human Deal's deeper connections. The "great people" claim every competitor makes; only evidence makes it usable as a pillar.
Work: The work itself: job design, autonomy, tools, pace, flexibility and how work actually gets done. Gartner's fifth component, overlapping the Human Deal's radical flexibility and holistic wellbeing. Includes the Get — what the work demands of you.

How it's assessed

EVP Discovery Survey — Staff survey of lived delivery against Gartner's five EVP components, plus rank-order trade-offs (what attracts / what keeps people), three words, advocacy, and a first-90-days gate. Rank-order and free-text items are collected, not scored. Takes about fifteen minutes.
Focus Groups — Facilitated listening sessions (typically 6–15 groups, segmented by function, level, site or tenure). This is where pillar names and proof-point phrasing are lifted from how employees talk. A 1–5 band is recorded per Gartner component alongside themes and exemplar quotes.
Leadership Interviews — Confidential one-to-one interviews (~60 minutes) with 8–15 senior stakeholders: the stated deal, talent priorities, and what leaders believe they offer versus what they would defend in a room of employees. Banded per component; the gap against the survey and groups is the analytical core.
Document Review — Desktop review of the research pack: careers content, job ads, values artefacts, engagement results, exit-interview themes, offer-decline reasons, onboarding materials, and a consultant-entered competitor claims checklist. Leaver evidence lives here, not as a separate survey. Banded per component against what the artefacts evidence.
Joiner Survey — Short "was it what you expected?" instrument for people in their first 90 days — the single best authenticity-gap measure. Held out of the composite (weight 0); consultants field it as its own wave of the perception-survey method, or rely on the first-90-days gate inside the main survey. Not folded into the 1–5 read.

Results are reported against 5 maturity levels: Invented, Thin, Recognised, Distinctive, Lived deal.