Is your Employee Life Cycle Thriving or Dying?

Scout: Are we not only posting the job description but are we also advertising the Role we are trying to fill? What does our organization offer uniquely to ensure their workplace is safe and happy? Are we communicating this before we have a vacancy?

Recruit: At the time of interview are we criticizing the resume, or are we asking clarifying questions to ensure a clear mutual understanding of what the position requires day to day?

Onboard: Do we take time to ensure that orientation and training are understood as two different aspects to onboarding? Do we have a clearly communicated process at the onset of hiring to ensure what we communicated in our recruitment is consistent with the employee impression from day one?

Engage: Are we encouraging our employees to work in their strengths? Do we consistently affirm the importance of their unique contribution to the overall mission and vision of the organization?

Perform: Are employees surprised by their performance review, good or not? Do we measure expectations and then communicate them regularly? Do these expectations align with mission, vision and purpose? Do we drive expectations to a higher level?

Develop: Do our employees, particularly top performers, see a future with our company? Are we able to support employees with pathways to grow professionally?

Sign Off: Do we have a defined departure process? Does is create a positive experience for both the employee leaving as well as your retained staff?

By reviewing the employee life cycle, one can see that the first three stages occur at the onset of the employee experience yet are often diminished in priority. Excuses plague managers with perceptions such as, “It’s audit season I just don’t have time to provide employee feedback ,” or We provide on the job training, it’s sink or swim around here,” or a favorite is, “We just don’t have the time to fill this vacancy.” Unfortunately, these beliefs often impact job satisfaction at all levels in an organization.

Following initial employee hiring, orientation and training the next three stages dominate most of what leaders and supervisors are responsible for managing. Best practices for evaluating a stellar manager include measuring not only production and profitability but also include measuring employee engagement standards, workload distribution, strategic hiring and development practices, fair evaluation practices, and ongoing technical and soft skills training.

Bookending the employee experience is the stage we refer to as Depart. By providing clear workflows from beginning to end, employees leaving and those employees remaining can have confidence that the exit plan can be depended on to be respectful and in some cases fun.

By critically evaluating the Employee Life Cycle, improved workflows can be developed paying special attention to the employee experience while providing an efficient way to monitor and streamline your employment processes. It’s more important than just establishing what should happen and when. When implemented properly, workflows focused on the Employee Life Cycle will improve buy-in, clarify roles and employee contribution, and align employees with the overall mission of the company.

Interested on how can you implement workflows that boost employee engagement throughout the Employee Life Cycle and improve productivity? We are here to help. PeopleAK offers several services focused completely on developing your business and improving job satisfaction one talent at a time.

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