Every business owner and manager knows that employees are one of the crucial elements in achieving success. It is not possible for any business to retain skilled employees forever. As per the report, 63% of CFOs have stated that employee turnover has increased over the past three years. Hence, it is essential to keep evaluating and improving each stage of the employee lifecycle to hire, engage and retain the best talent for a longer duration.
The HR department is responsible for handling and managing employees in the organization. Their managers have to evaluate each stage of the employee's lifecycle and see if any improvement is needed. This will make the employee journey smooth and increase the business's reputation. In this article, we will go through all the important stages of the employee lifecycle.
What is the Employee Lifecycle?
Employee lifecycle is a framework that includes the whole employee journey in the organization, starting from recruitment, onboarding, development, retention, and till offboarding. Also, managers can build various engagement and retention strategies for each stage an employee enters. For example, if an organization has the best recruitment strategies but its turnover rate is high. Then they will need to give proper attention in the retention stage to keep the best talent stay longer in the organization.
Stages of Employees Lifecycle
It is essential for businesses to understand all stages of the employee cycle and use strategies where required. Here we have listed 6 important stages of the employee lifecycle and tips for enhancing it.
1. Attraction
Just like business branding, employee branding is essential for any business. As it helps in marketing your company to the desired prospective employees. If your organization fails to attract suitable talent for the job, it will slow down the growth of the company. The attraction stage occurs before there are vacancies available in the organization.
Important Tips to Optimize the Attraction Stage:
- Raise Brand Recognition - it is essential for businesses to build a good brand reputation to attract the best talent. For that, you can have your managers frequently attend and find opportunities to speak in the conferences and seminars organized in your industry. Also, you can sponsor well-known blogs, websites, or magazines to raise brand awareness.
- Provide Perks - If your business offers competitive benefits to employees, it can be a great effort to get the attention of the top-skilled talent in the industry. It does not mean you should spend a lot of money on employee benefits, but at least provide the same as competitors in your industry.
2. Recruitment Process
HR should focus on picking the best suitable candidates for the open vacancies in the organization. The need for recruitment can occur if a new role is being created altogether or an existing position becomes vacant. As most Job seekers use various digital platforms to find the perfect job for them. Therefore, the best way to enhance the recruitment process is by using various digital platforms to find the right talent and hire them.
Key tips to Enhance the Recruitment process:
- Ask for Referrals from the Workforce - It will make a great impact on prospective candidates if existing employees are referring them. Also, existing employees are likely to know the suitable candidates for the role.
- Be Specific About what you are Looking For - If you want to find the best suitable person out of many candidates, having a clear idea about the required skills and knowledge can be beneficial.
3. Onboarding Process
Onboarding is important for getting your new recruits well-adjusted in the workplace and understanding their performance aspects easily. Human resources should make the recruits feel welcome in the organization and be well-acclimatized with their role and workplace.
Essential Tips to Enhance the Onboarding Process:
- Discuss the Company’s Vision - Presenting the values and vision of your business to the new recruits can be an important part of the onboarding process. As this will give clarity to the new hire about company values and strategic goals.
- Discuss Expectations Clearly - Most of the roles and responsibilities can be mentioned in the job description. But still, it is important to guide each recruit to the expectations you are expecting from them.
4. Employee Retention
Hiring the right person for a specific role is an important factor in the success of any business. But, not retaining them in the organization can lead to major costs for the company. Having a strong organizational culture can increase employee satisfaction and reduce the turnover rate.
Tips to Optimize Employee Retention:
- Cultivate good Relations with the Workforce - If your managers can build respectful and honest relations with the employees, it will keep them inspired and stay for a longer duration in the organization.
- Take Employee Feedback - To measure workforce morale, you can seek out frequent feedback to understand the progress and problems that employees face in the organization.
5. Employee Career Development
Career development is vital for an organization to enhance its workforce’s competencies, knowledge, and performance. Also, it can help your business in becoming more productive and profitable.
Essential Tips to Optimize Employee Career Development:
- Evaluate Knowledge and Competencies Together - If managers evaluate employees’ knowledge and skills level, they can easily identify the areas that require proper attention. Then managers can focus on implementing strategies for their career development.
- Encourage Employee Self-development - You can encourage the workforce to develop their own action plan of work. This plan should be designed to help them develop their competencies level and increase possibilities for career advancement.
6. Exit Process
It is the process of separation of employees from the organization. HR team or managers are responsible for making a smooth employee exit procedure without any difficulties. When an employee with a desire to leave the company applies for resignation, the managers share a job relieving letter as an acceptance of their separation. Then employees can serve a notice period, which gives managers the required time to find their replacement.
Key Tips to Enhance Exit Procedure:
- Understand the Reason for Separation - HR professionals or managers should try to understand the reason behind the resignation. Sometimes the real reason is different than what is mentioned in the resignation letter. By properly understanding the reason for leaving, you can avoid any similar incidents that can occur in the future.
- Request Honest Feedback - Your managers can conduct employee exit-interview and ask for feedback from exiting employees. With this feedback, they can identify the places where improvement requires and act accordingly.
Conclusion
Improvement in the stages of the employee lifecycle can lead to smooth operations of your business. By improving each phase of the employee journey, the HR team can attract and keep the best employees within the organization. Therefore, the employee lifecycle is a crucial part of the growth of any organization.
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