The employee lifecycle happens even before the employee is hired to the off boarding day in the company. Therefore, employee lifecycle management is the most essential component that the HR department is responsible for. The employee lifecycle is related to the most important asset of a company: its people. Any amount of funding, technology, infrastructure cannot succeed if the people’s performance factor is missing.
Having a system that encourages employees to have a positive, engaging, and success-based approach in doing their job is what a company should always aim for to have a performance-based workforce. Employee engagement should be an area of focus for the HR department not only temporarily but regularly so that every employee feels connected to the company values and business goals at any point.
What is Employee Lifecycle Management?
The employee lifecycle is the different stages an employee goes through in their period in the organization. It is a method to visualize how an employee engages himself with the organization throughout his lifecycle. The human resource department’s role is vital in employee life cycle management.
There are six stages involved in the employee life cycle: outreach, recruitment, onboarding, development and training, performance, and offboarding. The stages include how the organization approaches the candidate for selection, recruitment, onboarding the employee, training needs, determining personal and organizational performance levels, and final separation.
Employee lifecycle management allows a company to explore how they can bring positive changes in the time span of the employee in the organization. The different stages can be studied, and the areas that are weak in employee engagement can be focused on improving employee output. Managing an employee life cycle to the best will ensure employee retention, greater satisfaction, and high productivity levels altogether.
Let’s explore each stage to know how a company can contribute positively in an employee lifecycle management,
1. Outreach
The first stage in employee lifecycle management is the employee outreach stage. In this stage, a candidate first comes across the open position in the company through online job sites, social media, etc. Next, the organization should aim to influence an aspiring candidate in the right sense, like putting up a good job role description, details about the company, perks and facilities available, etc.
Your company’s description and the image is the first point of reach to a future employee. Make a good impression so that the prospect gets a clear picture of the company and is willing to crack the interview and join your company soon.
2. Recruitment
It is the most important stage of an employee’s lifecycle. An organization is built because of its people, and it is crucial to have the right set of people who are willing to work towards a common goal. This is a vital job of HR to have a strategic recruitment process to get apt candidates for the required roles. HR should carve a complete plan for the interview process.
The candidate should be given a complete picture of the job expectations and the company’s benefits package. This stage includes shortlisting candidates for the final interview, how many you finalize, and how many you put on hold or decide to add another step to the interview process. It is crucial to identify and hire the right skill and competencies required for the open role.
3. Onboarding
Onboarding is a stage that every employee looks forward to while joining a new company. The individual makes an impression about the company in the first three months and develops a thought of whether he wants to remain in the company for the long term or not. Losing an employee within a year shows that your company still lacks behind in the onboarding stage and causes economic losses.
Hence, companies with a robust onboarding strategy as a part of their employee lifecycle management strategy develop good employee engagement, employee satisfaction, employee retention, decreased employee separation, and many more benefits.
4. Development and Training
Training and development is the most crucial component in an employee’s lifecycle management in any company at all stages. There have been many advancements in how training is provided, the digital medium being the perfect tool to conduct any number of training using different tools.
Training and development can build new skills in the employee and make them technologically sound. It would, in turn, help in achieving personal and professional goals. Training is also vital for employees of all age groups to learn and train themselves in the latest technologies and tools. In addition, training in employee lifecycle management brings many benefits to the business. When a company rightly invests in the training and development of its employees, employees feel satisfied, it boosts their morale, and they perform better.
5. Performance Management
With training and development, what comes next is performance management. Performance management evaluations and appraisals boost employee satisfaction and give an idea about their progress, areas that need improvement to be a better performer, etc. These help in employee retention and lead to continuous development at the personal and company level.
A performance management software system is crucial in an employee’s lifecycle management for a company to monitor its employees for promotions and identify their weak areas using analytics and reports. The HR department must use feature-rich performance management software to manage a significant workforce to evaluate the employees. Based on their findings, a company can have timely eLearning programs for knowledge and skill development, mentoring programs, succession planning, etc. Evaluation and recognition of the employee boost job satisfaction and engagement.
6. Offboarding
Every employee comes to this stage at some point or the other. The reasons may be different from retirement, a new job, further education, personal reasons, etc. So many organizations create a negative impression when the employee wants to quit, making the process cumbersome and unpleasant. Companies should understand that offboarding activity is as important as onboarding in an employee’s lifecycle, and it is the opportunity to show the employee that he is valued. He can always come back to the organization in the future. Although, some conditions may not be workable.
A happy ex-employee provides your company job referrals, develops good feedback about the company in the market, and does not mind returning to the company in the future with more experience to serve the company even better.
To have the best employee lifecycle management, there has to be a focus on employee experience throughout the complete life span of the employee in the company. The company should have the required tools and processes to ensure the employee gets all support to make his journey blissful and fruitful.
The right software will provide feedback and analytics to the HR department to analyze data and identify problems that help improve the organization. For example, 360-degree feedback and performance management software is crucial to HR functions to determine the employee lifecycle. In addition, the data analysis using such tools also helps in HR improvements. Thus, employee lifecycle management as a process helps achieve higher business goals.
This article was published on Adrenalin Max
