Understanding what the employee life cycle is and knowing how to optimize each stage in it will bring a positive impact to the company. Please refer to the article below to understand the meaning of the employee life cycle and ways to improve it.

As we know, employees are a valuable asset owned by the company. They have the knowledge, skills, and capacity that can help companies achieve their business goals. Therefore, when a company can successfully carry out employee life cycle management, the company will also get a positive impact starting from increased productivity to employee loyalty.

What is the Employee Life Cycle?

Employee life cycle is the process that employees go through in a company. This process consists of several stages starting from the process in which employees are interested in working at your company, up to the termination of employment. Thus, the employee life cycle can also be said to be the life cycle of employees in the company where they work.

The following are the stages of the employee life cycle:

  1. Attraction
  2. Recruitment
  3. Onboarding
  4. Development
  5. Retention
  6. Separation

You need to know, the employee life cycle is an important part of company development. It’s not only about hiring and retaining employees, but also about dealing with various skills development and ensuring that employees cherish a good impression when they leave the company. If you are a stakeholder in a company or an HR manager then you must understand this employee life cycle.

Why is the Employee Life Cycle Important to Improve?

Many large companies pay no attention to employee engagement and only focus on customer satisfaction and engagement. In fact, the employee life cycle is just as important as the customer life cycle.

You need to know that employees are one of the important pillars that determine the success or failure of a business. They are the company’s human resources (HR) who will help run daily business matters, handle customers effectively, and offer products/services to consumers. Therefore, it is important to effectively carry out employee life cycle management effectively to maximize the potential of every employee in your company.

In general, here are several reasons why it is important to manage the employee life cycle:

1. Improve employee experience

Monitoring the various stages of the employee life cycle will help you ensure that all employees have a good experience while doing their job. You can identify gaps in your recruiting, onboarding or retention processes so you can make changes to repair them.

2. Increase productivity

When employees acquire good employee experience, they will tend to be more motivated at work. This will ultimately drive greater productivity so as to increase company profits.

3. Reduce employee turnover

A well-designed employee life cycle can help reduce employee turnover as they feel more involved and valued. In addition, understanding and managing the employee life cycle can also help HR practitioners to predict when employees will leave the company. Thus, HR can take steps to retain employees before they leave or make plans to hire new employees.

Stages of the Employee Life Cycle and How to Improve It

1. Attraction

The first stage is attraction, which is when an employee or someone has an interest in working for a company. This stage occurs even before the company opens job vacancies because the company has managed to build a positive image as a place to work.

To increase the attractiveness of the company in the eyes of job seekers, the company must be able to build a strong employer branding strategy. Some of them are as follows:

  • Build a positive company culture so that your company’s employees are motivated to tell those closest to them how great it is to work at your company.
  • To attract candidates, you can also offer various benefits that are not offered by many other companies. Examples include remote working, free snacks and lunches, gym memberships, flexible working hours, and so on.
  • Manage career pages on the company’s website, then make sure that the information contained in them is interesting and in accordance with the company’s target audience.
  • Take advantage of social media such as LinkedIn to promote the company’s brand and interact with the target audience.

2. Recruitment

Recruitment is the second stage in the employee life cycle, when employees begin to participate in the company’s selection and recruitment process. At this stage, companies need to ensure that they can find the right candidates and are able to provide a pleasant experience for applicants.

To optimize this stage, there are several things you need to do:

  • Post job vacancies with clear information using an attractive format.
  • Post job vacancies on various platforms such as websites or social media as well as online job boards.
  • Try to ensure that recruitment can run transparently with a process that is not complicated and not too long.
  • Take advantage of technology for a more effective and efficient recruitment process such as using the Application Tracking System (ATS), online psychological test applications, and others.

3. Onboarding

The onboarding stage is when employees are accepted into a company and they need to adapt to the policies or regulations of the company where they work. At this stage, the company needs to ensure that new employees feel welcome and are able to adjust quickly.

Some things you can do to optimize this stage are as follows:

  • Develop an onboarding process that is easy to follow and understand.
  • Provide training or orientation training for new employees.
  • Clearly communicate company expectations to the employees.
  • Inform company policies and regulations clearly.
  • Equip the employees with all the tools and systems they need to do their job. 

4. Development

The fourth stage in the employee life cycle is the development. You need to know that poor learning and development opportunities are one of the reasons that cause employees to leave the company. Therefore, it is very important for companies to provide their employees with opportunities to hone their strengths.   

This strategy will not only benefit employees but also the company. When employees have skills that are continuously developed, companies can get more qualified employees. Thus, those employees can produce much better productivity and performance.

Here are some development strategies that can be applied:

  • Identify skills that are most important for employees to increase their productivity and performance.
  • Provide training or development according to the needs of employees and the business.
  • Track employee performance progress to find out which areas still need to be improved.

5. Retention

Retention is the longest stage in the employee life cycle because employees will continue to be managed and cared for in order to survive in the company where they work. This needs to be considered because when a company is successful in retaining its employees, they do not need to carry out a recruitment process that will take a lot of time, money, and effort.

At this stage, companies can carry out several strategies to increase employee retention, as follows:

  • Maintain good communication with employees.
  • Provide a positive work environment.
  • Look after the employees’ welfare by providing benefits.
  • Utilize HRIS applications to manage employees effectively and efficiently.
  • Provision for timely payment of salary by utilizing the payroll system.

6. Separation

Employee separation or termination is the final stage. This stage occurs when employees have reached retirement age, resigned, or even been expelled. At this stage, the company must be able to ensure that the resigned employee can leave in a good way and does not cause major disturbances.

To manage this stage, there are several things to note as follows:

  • Minimize the disruption that may arise due to employee resignation. For example, by ensuring that the employee’s assignments have been handovered properly.
  • If an employee resigns, then you can try to find out what are the main reasons for the resignation. If it turns out that there is a problem in the company’s work environment, then you can deal with it immediately to avoid similar problems in the future.
  • If the termination is done because the employee is asked to leave then make sure the company does it the right way.
  • Conduct a small interview to get honest feedback about what it’s like to work at your company. You can use the feedback provided for improvement.

DEOS Solution to Improve Employee Experience in the Employee Life Cycle

DEOS provides comprehensive services to improve employee experience in your company, starting from the process of screening candidates, onboarding, training, to retention. This is a practical HR management solution as DEOS will help to optimize all stages of the employee life cycle.

We will ensure that your company can obtain a workforce with the appropriate requirements, so that they can give their best performance. Please contact us to get more information about DEOS services. You can also click Employee Experience Services to get a full explanation.