ali khan
Ali Khan
Co-founder
Published On
December 14, 2023
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The Employee Life Cycle

The employee life cycle is critical for every company; their team's advancement is an essential aspect of the health and growth of the organization. Employee life cycles allow HR leaders to help employees achieve their full potential. Additionally, knowing the process can help companies manage staff turnover risk. During the recruitment process you can understand at what phase is the candidate. Keep in mind that these phases do affect the team morale and productivity and employee happiness. Creating and implementing such an organizational method requires time and effort from both the employer and the employee. 

What is the employee life cycle?

The employee life cycle model identifies and expresses the various and most crucial stages employees go through to understand how they interact with their company. The employer brand offers a total of six stages that are involved: attraction, recruitment, onboarding, development, retention, and separation. Each step is passed chronologically by an employee. No matter what stage you’re in, there’s always something you can be doing to help all employees grow, improve, and thrive, both individually and as a team. As an employer, you should strive to be the best version of yourself. How can you do that? Investing in your employees through each of the employee life cycle stages, throughout your employee's entire career at your company. Employee feedback will help you understand what employees think about it. Every team member goes through this life cycle. The company values do add up to the fact whether this will be easier for them or harder. Consider helping employees for their professional development, career development, personal development etc.

Employee life cycle stages?

As we mentioned earlier, there are a total of six stages that are in the current model.

Attraction - Identifying the potential applicant 

Recruiting - Going from applicant to employee 

Getting Onboard - Blending in with the team culture 

Ongoing Retention - Boosting employee satisfaction 

Development - Offering growth opportunities 

The Separation - When an employee leaves the company

Employee life cycle stages

The Attraction 

An endorsement from a current or former employee is invaluable, this is why recruitment referral plans work so well.

Relationships with employees don't begin when they arrive at work on their first day. It doesn't even begin when they sign an employment contract or apply for a job. It starts as soon as they come into contact with the employer’s brand.

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Recruiting 

Recruitment is the next stage in the employee life cycle. This is essential regardless of how you manage recruitment, whether you do it the old-fashioned way or with new fancy automated tools. Your treatment of prospective employees, even those who don't get the job, will influence their perception of your organization for the rest of their lives.

Getting Onboard 

When you start a new job, you're naturally excited. The atmosphere is optimistic and full of potential. In this situation, people should feel welcome, safe, and “at home.” By getting this right, recruits will feel like they have a chance to impact the organization, like their input can make a difference.

The goal of onboarding is to help new employees become part of your company culture and feel like they belong. Communicating your company's core values is one way to accomplish this. A good onboarding process goes a long way for new employees, so don’t phone it in!

Another essential thing to remember is to be appreciative of their hard work. Those employees are eager to see a path to success, so show them that hard work is appreciated and rewarded. Be fully transparent about your company's mission, vision, culture, and everything else required to succeed.

 

Ongoing Retention 

This is a very important factor. When years pass by without growth in a workplace, employees start to feel that their employer is taking them for granted.  Important matters like rewards and recognition must somehow be dealt with as soon as possible. Then, as time goes on, it's vital to make sure that staff members know what they can do to support the achievement of their objectives and what HR must do to maintain accurate records of their goals, growth, and success.  

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Development 

When senior colleagues offer their knowledge, company culture is effectively spread while at the same time providing new hires with support, access to a trusted advisor, and a place to turn when they have questions that seem silly but are usually not.

Push them to learn more at all stages. Whether internal or external, conferences, seminars, and "lunch-and-learns" are all forms of learning and development. Keep staff members informed of new trends while increasing their knowledge. It's beneficial for everyone if they can transmit their knowledge to the rest of the team and implement changes depending on new information.

Separation 

Employees eventually decide to leave. Multiple factors are in play at this point in the employee life cycle. For instance, former workers may move, look for professional possibilities outside your business, retire, start their own business, or even be lured away by a rival organization.

It's critical to reflect at this point. A company can improve the employee experience in certain areas if you have an excellent offboarding process. This is likely the period when you'll obtain their most candid feedback (which is usually the most helpful feedback). It might also raise important questions about how you draft employment contracts or leave policies. 

Employee engagement life cycle importance

The modern HR department now prioritizes a positive employee experience. As a result, the HR function puts the employee life cycle model front and center. Managing all of the interactions between an employee and an employer at various points over their employment period has many benefits, such as increased engagement, reduced turnover, and improved quality of work.

Implementing feedback methods such as anonymous feedback can help you improve the areas that need improving. Engage with employees at every level: Using the employment life cycle model and focusing on enhancing the employee experience at each stage can help to increase employee engagement. As a result, productivity rises thanks to a contented and motivated workforce.

Enhancing employee experience: The model also aids in improving the employee experience, which aids in forming a happier, more cohesive force: low turnover and better retention rates. Staff members feel more valued and are more likely to stay around the company for longer. Long-term cost savings on recruiting are made possible by this for the company.

Employee Life Cycle Model 

The mapping of customer journeys served as the basis for the employee lifecycle model (ELM). How effective would such mapping be for employees if businesses could track and evaluate insights, impacts, concerns, opportunities, and innovations for customers? 

After all, both customer and employee experience are valuable.

The ELM is a visualization technique used to monitor how workers interact with their company at specific points during their employment. Each employee experiences a journey within an organization, moving through several phases. It begins the moment they learn about your business and lasts until the moment they depart. The employee lifetime model is a tried-and-true framework utilized by HR and People Teams globally.

The Employee Life Cycle Conclusion

The employee life cycle is a concept that is becoming more recognized within the HR community. While it has existed for decades, it was not an idea or concept that was widely talked about. The life cycle event studies and research has been done to discover the different phases and what the phases mean.-

The employee life cycle is an idea where employees start off with a high level of engagement and interest in the job they are doing. As they get into the preparation phase, such as working, learning, and training, things start to become more routine. Overtime that can lead to dissatisfaction on the job and can cause employees to leave. The employee life cycle is a concept that people are just starting to embrace and understand more.

HR professionals are utilizing it to help them make better decisions about the people they hire and how they perform once they are hired.- There are many different ways to look at the employee life cycle, but most companies will have their own specific one. When you use this concept with your team, there are many different things that you can do with it. You could use it as a way to set goals for yourself or others in your company. You could also use it as a way to better retain employees by helping them get through the preparation phase quicker or even avoid it altogether.

The employee life cycle is a concept that is worth using so you can better connect with your employees and help them succeed at their jobs.

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More Articles From Ali Khan

Ali is a co-founder of Wrenly known for his innovative thinking and exceptional drive to create value for every Wrenly customer. His dedication, mentorship, and leadership skills have not only shaped various careers but have also made him an invaluable asset to the Wrenly team.

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