In most models, there are six key employee lifecycle stages. Each one follows along in order with very little chance of varying. You won’t onboard someone before you’ve recruited them, for instance.
- Attract
- Recruit
- Onboard
- Retention
- Development
- Exit
Let’s unpack each one in more detail.
Attract
What’s the first thing people hear about when they learn about your organisation? Your employer brand is often your first point of contact with potential new hires, but it’s often an underrated part of the HR lifecycle.
What kinds of benefits do you offer? What reputation do you have locally as an employer? Do you take the time to put your company out there as an employer?
If you’re struggling to fill roles, it may be worth looking at your benefits offerings, and which recruitment channels you’re using.
Recruit
This is the most well-known phase of the employee lifecycle, which means it tends to get the most attention. However, some key parts of it are often neglected. While you won’t hire the vast majority of people who reach your recruitment phase, they still need to come away having had a good experience. This will strongly feed into your employer branding.
No matter what phase of recruitment you’re dealing with, trying to stay communicative, respectful and timely is vital.
Onboard
You can’t realistically expect a new hire to know all this ins and outs of your company the moment they arrive. Onboarding is how you’ll get them up to speed on the nuances of their role and how your company works. You can use a buddy system, personalised welcome days and a clear training plan to support this.
To find out more about how onboarding works, check out our complete glossary page.
Retention
Once your employee is working with you, some employers take a step back and start neglecting employee life cycle management. This can lead to hires becoming disengaged with the company, and feeling like the grass is greener elsewhere. Offering employees more flexibility, growth opportunities and a strong sense of purpose will help retain them.
Development
Without opportunities for growth, employees will start to leave. Development is where you’ll build out talent management strategies that put your employees first and gives them a clear action plan to grow their careers.
Exit
Occasionally referred to as ‘separation’, this is the process your employee goes through when they leave your organisation. In some cases, this will be as a result of retirement, but realistically this will more often be someone finding a new job.
Always take the time to have an exit interview. An employee will almost never be more candid with you than they are in these conditions, as the fear of reprisal is almost entirely gone. The feedback they give will be incredibly powerful.
There will be some cases where someone leaves under more hostile conditions. You need a strategy to deal with those situations just as much as you do the more positive exits.