9 tech companies with great employee value propositions

Employee disengagement and attrition could cost median-sized companies $228 million a year in lost productivity, according to McKinsey. That’s a staggering figure that has people leaders strategizing new ways to retain and motivate employees.

Developing a powerful employee value proposition (EVP) is one way to reduce attrition and improve overall performance—because EVPs support employees to become more engaged with the organization.

When defining your EVP, McKinsey’s findings could act as a starting point, as the report shows that factors like inadequate compensation (12%) and a lack of career development opportunities (10%) are among the top contributors to employee disengagement.

However, every EVP is unique to the company’s vision and the specific priorities of its people—whether that’s a great bonus scheme, flexible working, or a strong learning culture that leads to internal promotions. 

In this article, we’ll discuss the top tech companies that have taken the time to define an EVP that works for their people. We found that the best EVPs aren’t just a bullet list of perks on a careers page. They’re innovative, ongoing commitments crafted with the needs of employees in mind. 

Before we explore each example EVP in detail, here’s a quick breakdown:

🧠 Discover expert tips for developing your EVP and improving employee retention. Get the ebook.

Now is the time to define and refine your EVP

Your employee value proposition (EVP) is everything a company has to offer as a workplace. It’s the promise made to new employees when they take the job—and the reason they decide to stay and develop their careers with you.

For example, at Learnerbly, we practice what we preach, making continuous learning a huge part of our EVP. Each Learnerbly employee gets unlimited time off for learning and a significant personal upskilling budget, so they can evolve in their roles both personally and professionally.

Why does it matter? Hiring and retaining talent is still a huge challenge for people teams in the wake of the pandemic and The Great Resignation. Plus, according to Gallup, organizations with high employee engagement see an overall 23% increase in profitability, compared with the lowest-ranking organizations

A compelling EVP could reduce employee turnover by improving the employee experience and showing your people exactly why your company is worth believing in. Your EVP will be unique to the company’s unique perks and values. But, if you need guidance as you refine it, we find that the best EVPs include:

- Compensation and recognition

- Investment in continuous learning and career development

- Wellbeing support as part of your culture, not just a perk

- Commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR)

- Connection and community

- Trust, transparency, and flexibility

9 examples of strong employee value propositions in tech

Next, we’ll look at some real examples of EVPs from tech companies doing it right.

Nextdoor

Company size: ≈700 employees

💡1# EVP takeaway: Empowering people to own their functions

Nextdoor is an American tech company designed to connect neighborhoods with social groups and local insights. This organization has a great EVP that focuses on career progression and professional development. 

Nextdoor offers other great perks like health insurance and paid parental leave. But it’s the learning culture that stands out, especially when you consider that career growth and L&D are among the top most important factors for people seeking new jobs. 

In fact, Nextdoor is so devoted to this mission that it committed to filling 51% of its open roles with internal rather than external talent by 2025—a testament to its investment in people’s personal and professional development.

According to Stacey La Torre, People Leader at Nextdoor, the company supports people to work alongside senior executives and shape the direction of emerging teams. This means employees can develop their leadership skills, take ownership of their career progression, and benefit from a wide variety of progression routes to follow.

“There are still opportunities to be on founding teams within the functions we already have,” Stacey says. “That’s a key differentiator for some people.” As a result, Nextdoor has an A rating for work culture on Comparably. It also beats Meta, DoorDash, and Airbnb in rankings based on professional development.

Hotjar

Company size: ≈200 employees

💡1# EVP takeaway: Individual budgets for personal holidays and remote working

When Hotjar says it doesn’t “confuse perks with gimmicks,” that’s no lie. 

Hotjar provides website analytics for a million websites around the world, with customers including HubSpot, Hello Fresh, and Adobe.

Hotjar is a global SaaS company specializing in product experience insights. It makes a pretty compelling promise to employees. They benefit from 40 days paid time off (PTO), incredibly flexible working arrangements, and personal budgets to spend on things like wellbeing activities, home office setup, and personal development. On top of that, the company offers:

- Working together budget: Hotjar employees are based all over the world, so they get €2,000/year to facilitate travel and meetups that allow them to collaborate with their colleagues in person.

- Working space budget: They get an additional €2,400/year to work in their preferred environment. This can be used for expenses like co-working spaces, high-speed internet, or as many coffees as they can drink at their local cafe. That’s on top of the €2,500 home office budget, which gets topped up by €500 annually.

- Holiday budget: That’s €2,000/year to… go on holiday! Seriously.

If you have the budget to invest in your EVP, this is an innovative example of a way to do it that offers real value to employees. If not, it’s still worth finding out what perks your employees would use most and see if you can reprioritize your spending. We love this employer’s people-first approach and it’s no surprise that Hotjar has a 5-star rating on Glassdoor for perks and benefits.

Kepler 

Company size: ≈600 employees

💡1# EVP takeaway: Keeping DE&I “always on” through L&D

Kepler is a digital marketing agency that’s hugely invested in learning and career development. Karinna Maldonado, Associate VP for Learning & Development at Kepler, knows how important it is for employees to easily access learning. She says, “Taking time to have conversations with employees is really helpful.” That includes showing people where to find resources and supporting them to “know where to start.” 

Kepler also offers employees an “annual education stipend”, which they can use for reimbursement on both degree and non-degree courses. But what makes Kepler’s EVP even more unique is the belief that DE&I should be, as Justin Roberts puts it, “always on.” Justin is the Associate VP for the DE&I Center of Excellence at Kepler, and he advocates for the idea that DE&I “[isn’t] a box to check or a goal to finish in a year. It is a consistent commitment over time.” 

The company demonstrates this commitment through programs like Kepler Academy, a distance learning program that addresses skills gaps in the industry and has helped many people with no marketing background break into the field. It was also one of the first companies to have a certification plan approved by MLT Racial Equity at Work. This involved initiatives like mandatory inclusive leadership training for senior employees and increased investment in programmatic media from black-owned publishers.

Oyster

Company size: ≈590 employees

💡1# EVP takeaway: B Corp with a strong CSR message

Oyster is an HRtech platform that facilitates multi-country payroll and localized benefits for organizations with global teams. Naturally, the company’s own approach to people experience is remote-first and all about elevating talent, no matter where it can be found. Plus, it offers perks like a monthly wellbeing allowance, mental health support through Plumm, and 40 days PTO.

Oyster is also a certified B Corp, meaning it has made a commitment to operational transparency and balances profit with a high standard of social or environmental performance. This complements Oyster’s strong company mission to support people who are typically overlooked by the employment system to get decent work, bringing all kinds of benefits to them and their communities. 

As a result, CSR plays a big role in Oyster’s employer brand. Research from Porter Novelli shows that having a strong purpose like Oyster can result in a work culture that’s more motivated (89%) and productive (85%)—and more likely to recommend their employer to others (92%). So, if your company is actively operating in ways that benefit society or the environment, it’s worth communicating this to employees.

Signifyd

Company size: ≈560 employees

💡1# EVP takeaway: Maintaining work-life balance with Wellness Days

Signifyd is an ecommerce security company that provides fraud protection software for online stores. In 2021, Signifyd trialed Summer Fridays, meaning employees could take alternate Fridays off on top of their PTO allowance. This was part of an internal research project to investigate how feasible a four-day workweek really is. 

The R&D team discovered that shorter weeks had no negative impact on productivity and the feedback from employees was hugely positive. As a result, Signifyd now offers Wellness Days, meaning everyone gets an additional day off, twice a month. 

Signifyd decided to make Wellness Days flexible rather than enforcing a specific schedule that wouldn’t suit all teams. Plus, it improved its framework for reducing meetings and encouraging asynchronous ways of working. This meant that the initiative could actually succeed, without pushing people to work longer hours to make up for lost time.

One reviewer on Glassdoor wrote, “This has truly been a game changer for my overall wellness and mental health.” You can see why this employer got a 4.6/5 star rating for perks and benefits on Glassdoor. We love Signifyd’s EVP because it’s based on research into what employees actually need—going the extra mile to make sure its perks benefit everyone.

We also know, from partnering with Signifyd, that the company has taken a more self-directed approach to L&D and is seeing more learning engagement than ever before. Read the case study.

Shopify

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Company size: ≈11,600 employees

💡1# EVP takeaway: Clear and flexible career pathways tailored to each employee

Shopify is a multinational hosting platform used by small businesses that don't have the time or skills to build their own ecommerce site. Its goal is to democratize commerce, making it simpler and easier to access. 

Shopify is an especially highly-rated employer in the US, having been awarded an A for culture and an A+ for perks and benefits on Comparably. In our view, a big part of that is its approach to career development. In 2018, Shopify introduced two career tracks to embed a culture of continuous learning, including a manager track and an individual contributor (IC) track. 

Each track can be adapted to fit the employee’s individual strengths, life circumstances, and unique goals. Employees can also switch tracks to follow the roles that interest them most, allowing for even greater career flexibility within the same workplace. Shopify also offers:

- Dev Degree for people transitioning into tech to gain a degree while working

- Paid internships for students, recent graduates, and those early in their careers

- Apprentice Product Manager program to start a PM career

- Revenue School for aspiring sales professionals

This shows the company’s commitment to talent activation, as Shopify offers a broad range of progression opportunities to suit the individual. It’s also supporting people with non-traditional backgrounds to enter ecommerce, sales, and tech careers through programs like the Dev Degree and Revenue school.

Asana

Company size: ≈1,600 employees

💡1# EVP takeaway: DE&I-focused culture

Asana is a software company specializing in work management tools. Like Kepler, Asana shows a genuine and impressive commitment to DE&I. As an employer, it aims to not only recruit fairly but to create an environment where everyone is supported to express their identities and thrive at work. Asana also puts its money where its mouth is, conducting regular pay equity studies to create a culture of transparency. 

Here are just a few ways that Asana has embedded a DE&I-focused culture:

- Dedicated onboarding with a comprehensive DEI&B curriculum for all employees (the “B” stands for “belonging”)

- Anti-bias and allyship training for ICs and managers

- Employee resource groups for communities that are underrepresented globally (and their allies)

- Employee-driven communities for people with disabilities, mental health advocates, parents, and caregivers

- Real Talk sessions offering a safe space to discuss personal experiences, current events, and issues

- Pay equity studies occurring twice yearly

As a result, Asana gets an A+ on Comparably for culture and diversity and has been named one of Fortune’s Best Workplaces in Technology for five years in a row.

HubSpot

Company size: ≈7,100 employees

💡1# EVP takeaway: People-first culture with a global week of rest

HubSpot is a software company most well-known for its sales and marketing CRMs. As an employer, it prides itself on having “no inner circle,” meaning everyone shares knowledge and practices radical transparency, right up to the C Suite. But the most stand-out element of HubSpot’s EVP is the following company value: “Employees are treated like people, not line items.”

This employer treats its people as individuals with lives, hobbies, and responsibilities outside of work. That’s why HubSpot operates on a remote work basis and keeps non-traditional hours. Plus, HubSpot actively encourages employees to take holidays and make use of the unlimited PTO policy.

“We need to ensure [our] people are well-rested and able to support our customer and partner needs for the long haul,” explains Katie Burke, HubSpot’s Chief People Officer. “As leaders, it's our job to show our employees that taking time off isn’t just encouraged, it’s critical."

To honor this, HubSpot announced in 2020 that, instead of their usual Global Day of Rest, employees would get a Global Week of Rest, so everyone could rest and recharge. This was universally welcomed, especially by busy parents trying to care for their families while working from home.

Apadmi

Company size: ≈250 employees

💡1# EVP takeaway: Modern offices set up for L&D

Apadmi is a UK-based software company that has built customer apps for companies like Dominoes, Co-op, and Chelsea FC. As an employer, its perks are pretty standard, boasting the likes of free eye tests and flexible working. But this company is redefining corporate L&D which, in our view, earns its EVP a spot on our list.

Apadmi has employees across the UK, Portugal, and the Netherlands and has recently invested in new office spaces. These spaces are designed with collaboration and learning in mind, and have become home to initiatives such as Apadmi Academy and “Learning Week.” 

Apadmi Academy is designed to deliver on-the-job training to those starting their careers in tech, through robust internships and graduate scheme programs. With this approach, Apadmi supports people at the start of their careers and develops them into the employees the company needs in future—rather than only ever hiring to plug a short-term skills gap.

The academy’s success is clear, as most people who join the company as graduates tend to stay a long time. Meanwhile, Learning Week is a festival for peer-to-peer learning and workshops from industry experts—on everything from accessibility to neuroplasticity.

In 2023, Apadmi was named one of The Sunday Times Best Places to Work. The Sunday Times discovered that 92% of Apadmi employees feel happy in the workplace and 87% feel empowered and have overall job satisfaction. Those are pretty impressive scores.

Treat your employees like customers with a remarkable EVP

If there’s one thing that a great EVP does, it speaks to the needs and priorities of your people. Business leaders do this all the time for their customers. They know they have to stand out in the market, offer something unique, and create real value if they want to sell a product.

So, just as a product team would make sure new features actually solve customer problems, people teams can do the same. Treating employees like customers as you develop your EVP will remind you to take their feedback into account and ask yourself: What are their pain points? How can we solve them? Why should they be loyal to us over another company?

For example, Shopify and Signifyd know their people want upskilling and career development. So, they offer learning opportunities that support employees to pursue the goals that interest them most, while developing their careers with the company long-term. 

In fact, Learnerbly strengthens Signifyd’s EVP by empowering employees to learn both technical and soft skills, however suits them best. That’s because our L&D marketplace includes multimodal resources like audiobooks, courses, subscriptions, and even coaching—all from vetted learning providers, like Pluralsight, Codecademy, and Blinkist. So, they’ll always find relevant content to challenge them and support their growth.