Important Stages of the Employee Lifecycle

It is essential to track employees' lifecycles as it helps them to progress in their careers within the company. This model is also an organisational method used to visualise how an individual employee engages with the company. Employee lifecycle management can also be used to trace employees' journey from the moment they have applied for a position till the time they have exited the company.

A solid team is the backbone of every company's success, as any business owner or leader knows. While they may refer to their workforce as an extended family, practically every organisation will have personnel come and depart at some point. As a result, it's critical to assess and improve each stage of the employee life cycle. The employee life cycle begins when a potential employee learns about the organisation and concludes when they leave.

The employee life cycle is a concept that explains the many stages that most workers will go through with their employer. The employee life cycle starts when they discover a firm or a job opportunity, continues through recruiting, hiring, and onboarding during their stay with the organisation, and finishes with their exit and post-employment experience. The milestones in your employee life cycle will vary depending on the size of your firm, the kind of people you employ, and your sector. Regardless of the task being done, the general process from hiring to leaving is frequently identical.

Monitoring the employee life cycle can assist business owners and managers in better understanding and anticipating what employees will face during their employment. A particularly favourable or poor experience at any level might have ramifications for the entire company. When new workers come on to begin work, for example, a seamless and low-stress onboarding process may assist them to get up to speed fast so they can begin contributing. If you don't have an onboarding strategy in place, those new employees may get bored, dissatisfied, and bewildered by their new responsibilities.

From there, an employee's experiences can affect how long they stay with the organisation, as well as motivate others to stay or look for work elsewhere. The departure interview, which occurs when an employee departs the organisation, can have an impact on the employee experience. Monitoring and optimising the employee life cycle is critical to the company's long-term success and profitability.

Reviewing and planning around life cycle stages may help your company enhance the entire employee experience, which benefits the company in a variety of ways, from increased productivity to increased customer loyalty. Recruitment and retention are two of the employee life cycle stages that are most obviously linked to bottom-line performance. You'll have fewer roles to fill over time if you can retain staff around for longer. You may save money by better managing the recruitment process. The cost of recruiting might be significantly greater depending on how you monitor and manage the process.

After an employee completes training, which may be rather costly in and of itself when you include their compensation as well as the pay of any other staff members engaged in the training, they may obtain business-specific knowledge that increases their value. Keeping an employee's knowledge and abilities, as they mature, may be difficult, but it should still be the aim and something you strive for. Recruiting new personnel is costly no matter how you look at it. Keeping your workers happy and engaged can help you increase the average length of time they spend with your firm. As a result, better employee life cycle management may have a long-term influence on a company's future.

The employee lifecycle model is outfitted to include each phase of employees encounter inside an organisation, designing that direction into a structure that gives an alternate commitment procedure to each stage they enter. For instance, if an organisation has been practicing a good recruitment strategy, yet comes across high turnover rates, they can then focus on the retention stage in their employee life cycle

By mapping out an employee's journey similar to the way customer experiences are mapped out, an organisation will see improvement in talent retention and reputation improvement. Now let us look at six different stages of employee lifecycle management.

• Attraction

Irrespective of how strong your product or service is, without the attraction of great talent, your organisation won't be able to move forward. This makes the attraction stage quite possibly the most critical aspect of any organisation's growth strategy. The attraction stage is the only stage that happens before there is a vacancy in the organisation. An employer must create a brand image to project their organisation as a great place to work in the minds of current employees and stakeholders. Passive talent candidates should have a positive perception towards work in your organisation.

It might be challenging to attract great personnel to your company. Candidates are focusing on incentives and innovation as remote work settings and flexible hours become more common. Your company began as a dream. Create your company's message and its distinctive "why" by determining the values that drive this goal. Your message should convey what your company stands for and how it wants to be seen. It's crucial to clearly express the "why" behind a vision to attract customers, but it's also a built-in pre-screening tool for recruiting. Candidates that connect with your values and company purpose will be more likely to apply to your available jobs if you create a well-known and consistent message.

Your company's "personality" is simply your employer brand. A strong brand is linked to a broader purpose than just catchy slogans and eye-catching colour schemes. While your company cannot tackle important societal challenges (such as climate change, affordable healthy alternatives, or a more inclusive world) on its own, tying your brand to larger initiatives may provide motivation and fulfilment to your job activities. Individuals that are passionate about the real-world issue that your brand addresses will be more likely to join your cause.

The day-to-day modelling of values associated with your message and brand is known as company culture. You can create the ideal atmosphere for employees to achieve their individual needs while working toward corporate goals if you have a clear company culture. A positive business culture will help you keep your current staff while also attracting fresh talent. Keep in mind that all employees should have a say in how the firm operates, and responsibility should be consistent across the board. Your whole team may co-create and promote the culture to potential new hires through these sorts of interactions.

When you value your workers' contributions and respect them, it eventually nurtures their distinctive qualities, abilities, and interests. Employees are less likely to be motivated if they are not treated with respect, and dedication and inventiveness suffer as a result. Employee effort and dedication will be increased if they are recognised and included in corporate choices. This pleasant attitude will radiate through, attracting new employees who want to feel appreciated. Outside of the office, use your skills and relationships to provide employees with wellness and financial security alternatives and discounts. You may not be able to match your bigger competitors' benefits and perks, but you may creatively mimic what they provide to stay competitive.

Networking with other professionals gives you an idea of what other companies are doing for their staff and how it compares to your own operations and products. It also broadens prospects for long-term advantages and can assist you in recruiting new employees through events or talks. Furthermore, you may meet partners or clients that help your company develop in the future, resulting in exciting initiatives for prospective workers and a demand for fresh talent. It's a good idea to invest in ties with higher education institutions if your company wants to acquire and nurture entry-level talent. You may cooperate with university career centres to advertise internship and new graduate job openings, attend career fairs, and build a talent pipeline of students eager to obtain work experience in their profession.

It's simpler to sell your company's perks and prospects if potential employees are exposed to your messaging and culture firsthand. You can show off the finest of your company and participate in conversations that go beyond job listings and mission statements by having an open house. An open house also attracts a diverse range of individuals, including those with backgrounds and talents that aren't already matched to a vacancy or projected role. Interacting with others in a less formal, lower-stakes setting allows you to evaluate fresh possibilities.

People communicate with businesses on social media even when they are not actively looking for job. You'll develop an affection with your audience if you deliver material that goes beyond promotion to your consumers. These favourable sentiments and trust will put your company ahead of the competition, especially when it comes to hiring new employees. Being active on social media provides your followers something to react to, which sparks a dialogue that will keep them interested. As a result, social media can only be beneficial if it is used correctly. Choose the platform(s) that best communicate with your target audience and stick to a regular content schedule.

• Recruitment

In this stage, the HR department needs to search out and select the best talent for your organisation. Recruitment is done to fill the vacant position in your organisation. The best kinds of recruitment plans offer an ideal candidate experience, support hiring through collaboration based on clear standards and measures, and give significant information that can be utilised to improve hiring results over the long run. For effective recruitment, the HR department can try out referral programs from their own employees or search for a platform where an ideal candidate can be sourced.

It might feel like getting the stars to align when it comes to hiring the appropriate individual for a job. Finding exceptional employees takes time, whether you're hiring a part-timer to accommodate growing demand or replacing an experienced team member who's leaving. Sure, you could slap up a job ad, post it online, wait for applications, and then pick the one that appeals to you the most, but if you want the best candidate for the position and your firm, you'll need to be more professional.

It's commonly claimed that hiring no one is preferable to hiring the wrong person. To have an efficient recruiting process, you must first have a clear grasp of what the company requires, then effectively express that need in order to attract excellent prospects, and then carefully pick the individual that best matches those criteria. It entails more than simply locating the most skilled or qualified individuals. It's all about finding the appropriate individuals for the job and the organisation; people with the best skill set and personality fit for the team and the firm. From defining the role to interviewing and reference-checking prospects, each stage is critical, and their combined performance decides whether your new employee will be an asset or a risk.

High staff turnover may be devastating to your company's long-term prospects, but if your recruiting and selection procedures are efficient, you'll be far more likely to choose people who perform well and stay loyal. It's all about identifying applicants who will commit to the position and the company's goal and then effectively bringing them into the team, utilising specified methodologies and assessments. If you're losing workers within the first 90 days of employment on a frequent basis, it's an indication that your hiring methods aren't up to par.

An effective, seamless recruiting process enhances the potential that new workers will be more engaged and motivated from the start, increasing their long-term chances of success in the position and contributing to the growth of the company. The greatest way to improve your bottom line is to have a team of dependable, engaged employees. No one likes to spend time and money attracting, selecting, and establishing new recruits only to discover they aren't up to par or don't fit, leaving you with the option of retraining them or, worse, starting again with the search for a replacement. If your recruiting efforts are consistently good, you'll be far more likely to find the correct individual every time and have the confidence that you'll be able to do so whenever the company requires it.

• Onboarding

After recruiting the top talent, the onboarding stage is critical to get your fresh recruits composed to the organisational environment. In this stage, the fresh recruits should get a warm welcome in the team and get well familiar with their role. The reporting manager should outline their expectation clearly from the newly recruited candidate. After the completion of the induction, the new hire should not be left all alone to find their way as it could affect their performance in the future. After the first few weeks of work completion, a face-to-face meeting should be held with the new employees to discuss their challenges.

Onboarding is the process through which new workers learn about their job, their team, and the company. Effective onboarding methods assist workers in becoming a member of the business and shifts their focus to contributing to the firm's goals. In other words, it has an impact on the process of integrating newcomers into the organisation and transforming them into motivated and productive workers. It begins when the company says "yes" to an applicant and ends when the new hire is thoroughly trained. This procedure might take up to eight months. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to successful onboarding. Onboarding programmes might differ based on the size and culture of the company. Improved onboarding has a beneficial impact on new employee happiness, engagement, and performance.

An effective onboarding procedure allows new employees to integrate more quickly while also lowering costs. The cost of replacing an employee ranges from 50 percent to 150 percent of the leaving employee's yearly compensation. In a world where talent has a choice of employment and frequently switches employers, effective onboarding techniques are critical for a better onboarding experience. It's also the initial step in starting a new company's personnel journey. As a company, you want to get a good start with your employees straight away, and the best way to achieve so is with a good onboarding programme.

Preboarding is the time between an employee accepting your employment offer and their first day on the job. It comes before onboarding, as the name indicates. Preboarding is, in truth, a few considerate acts that make a new employee feel acknowledged and welcomed. One possibility is to take the new hire out to lunch with his or her coworkers. The discomfort of the initial contact and the stress of the first day are reduced when employees meet their coworkers in a less formal setting.

Other common preboarding practices include sending a welcome email and an overview of the onboarding program. You can also use your HR software to get some initial paperwork out of the way and send a few getting-to-know-you questions to break the ice.Preboarding is where employee engagement starts. Sorting things out for employees and welcoming them to the team in advance helps you gain their trust and minimize the chances of them looking for other options.

• Development

During this stage of employee lifecycle management, the employee must be encouraged for professional development, which will provide them with future career paths within the organisation. External learning can be encouraged by sending employees to relevant conferences, which can lead to relevant skill development. An employee should also be acknowledged for giving extra time out of work to develop skills.

Many people, in fact, do not invest in their professional growth. One-third of employees claim they don't do anything to develop or update their present skills. These individuals are unconcerned about their future employment prospects. Many people are competent in their work, but they are either comfortable with where they are or are unconcerned about their professional future. This implies you've already gotten a leg up on a third of your colleagues by investing in professional development, continuing education, and career planning. You're far more likely to accomplish success and reach your goals if you go for it and take control of your job.

Professional development is to provide professionals with the chance to acquire and use new skills and information that will benefit them in their jobs and help them advance their careers. Professional development is all about honing your skills and expanding your knowledge base in your chosen industry. Professional growth is beneficial not just to you, but also to your company. Professionals like you boost your worthwhile also adding to the total value of your firm by having opportunities to learn, expand your skill sets, and remain current on industry trends. Professional development and training possibilities provide a variety of different advantages to both new and seasoned employees.

Professional development and continuing education options may introduce young and seasoned professionals to new ideas, strengthen existing knowledge, and expand their competence in their industry. Those who actively seek out these learning opportunities will reap the greatest rewards. Professional growth increases professionals' knowledge, which in turn increases their confidence in their job. Nobody wants to believe they're lacking in critical talents in their field. Professional development classes, continuing education, and training opportunities help professionals gain confidence and credibility as they learn new skills and earn new credentials.

• Retention

Here the main focus should be to retain your top employees and ensure that they are adequately happy with their role within the organisation. The culture of the organisation also plays an integral role in retaining employees. If the work culture in the organisation is not good, it becomes a cause of a high employee turnover rate, which eventually leads to the company facing replacement costs regularly. The HR department should constantly communicate about the organisational mission and team aspirations with employees. Team morale should be measured constantly and as an HR professional you should try to figure out what motivates your employees.

Recruiting and keeping new staff costs money and takes time. Furthermore, turnover has a detrimental impact on your employees' productivity and morale. Leaders have rushed to fight turnover in the past year due to staff shortages. The necessity for effective retention methods is becoming more and more apparent. The capacity of a company to maintain its personnel may be characterised as employee retention.

With the correct policies and techniques, you can keep top people from leaving whether you have a high or low turnover rate. Employee turnover is commonly expressed as a percentage that varies depending on the industry. Voluntary employee turnover may be combated with a solid staff retention plan. You also prevent avoidable expenditures and development hurdles by reducing voluntary turnover.

Employee retention is beneficial to your company's health and performance. Hiring and training new staff takes time, effort, and money, and turnover can have a detrimental influence on your company's performance. High staff turnover causes a slew of issues, including increased expenses, knowledge loss, and decreased production.

Employee replacement is costly, costing anything from 16 percent to 213 percent of an employee's compensation. Many hours are spent advertising your organisation to potential candidates, interviewing, onboarding, and training. This results in a substantial expense for your company. When experienced employees go, they take their expertise with them. Employees' information and abilities might be lost forever if they fail to pass on their institutional knowledge to their peers. This might result in a loss of productivity and a sense of bewilderment among team members.

Hours of lost output accumulate when a post remains empty. When other employees take up the slack for empty positions, they may get burned out, lowering overall productivity. Furthermore, it takes a long time to get a new employee up to full production. According to research, it takes a new worker one to two years to acquire the same level of productivity as an established employee.

Turnover is prohibitively expensive. Recruiting and onboarding new workers takes time, and it's much more time-consuming when severance payments are factored in. Furthermore, unskilled staff might degrade your client experience, resulting in revenue loss. A effective retention plan will save your company time and money.

• Separation

There comes a time when an employee lifecycle comes to an end, this could be due to retirement or personal reasons or for getting hired at a new place with a better salary package or career prospect. HR staff should ensure that the exit of an employee does not have any influence on other team members. Also, employee separation should be taken positively, where you should try to figure out the real reason behind the resignation. An exit interview should be conducted where you should try to get honest feedback from the employee who is leaving the organisation.

An employee or an employer might end their working relationship in a variety of ways. While certain sorts of job separations are started by the employee and others are initiated by the employer, each situation is different. Understanding the different types of job separations will assist you in making the best decisions for your organisation or career. Termination is one of the most common methods for ending an employment relationship. This category encompasses a variety of job separations that may give direction to companies or individuals seeking a change.

Many individuals view resigning from a job as a professional and courteous approach to end an employment relationship, since it allows employees to discuss their leave from a firm with potential employers while retaining a good attitude. Retirement is a common subject of conversation when an employee approaches the conclusion of their employment. While many employees look forward to this milestone, a variety of factors such as age, health, money, and personal preferences may cause them to leave their present employment.

A furlough is an unpaid leave of absence from work. While the person is still officially employed by the firm, those who are on furlough may be eligible for unemployment benefits and health insurance. Furloughs may be used instead of layoffs in order to save money while maintaining talent for the future. This permits people to return to their previous jobs and continue working as usual in the future, rather than looking for work elsewhere.

If an employer's and employee's job expectations aren't aligned, the employer may opt to fire the employee. In certain situations, the person may be better suited for a new sort of job or have more success with another organisation. A fresh employment opportunity may be accepted by an individual in order to assist them to achieve their personal, professional, or career objectives. Employees can normally quit their present company on good terms if they give them at least two weeks' notice so that they can find a successor. Employers may opt to furlough or lay off staff in order to save money and ensure the long-term viability of their business. If another employer offers them a position with a higher income, an employee may seek employment separation for financial reasons.

Employees may opt to retire as they become older in order to spend more time doing things they like outside of work. Retirement benefits both the individual and the business, who may be looking for new talent to replace a vacant job. An employee may decide to relocate for a variety of reasons, including being closer to family or supporting their spouse's professional transition. In some situations, leaving their present work may allow them to relocate. Employees may quit a firm due to changes in their family dynamic, such as the birth of a child or the role of primary caretaker for a loved one. This form of absence from work might be brief or permanent.

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