Over the years, careers have evolved from the traditional straight line to a cycle, also known as employee lifecycle. An employee learns about your company, applies to join, joins, develops to become an essential part of the team, works for the company for some time, and eventually leaves.
By supporting your employees through their lifecycle, you can create a win-win situation that benefits everyone involved. A positive atmosphere can help reduce staff turnover, improve employee loyalty and the reputation of your company.
It's interesting to see how people's perceptions of careers have changed. In the past, employees were more grounded and would change jobs as part of their career trajectory. Nowadays, employees are switching careers whenever they feel like they want to pursue a new passion.
What can you, as the employer, do to retain some of this talent? What can you do to attract the best talent out there? You can start by analyzing your company's average employee lifecycle and figure out ways to improve employee experience and, ultimately, retention.
How Can You Optimize Employee Lifecycle?
The primary goals of employee lifecycle management are to attract and retain top talents. You also want to optimize their performance, reduce absenteeism and improve customer engagement. All this is possible if you optimize employee lifecycle stages through the following ways.
Improve Employer Appeal
The first stage of any employee lifecycle model is attraction. You need to attract talent to your company, and it's not through ads or job posts. Think about what the employees who work or have worked for you would say about the company.
Would former and current employees recommend your company to job seekers? If the answer is maybe or no, think of ways to improve your reputation. You can start by implementing the following:
Offer Incentives
In 2021, U.S. fast-food chains experienced a labor shortage. Job applicants used the shortage to demand better wages as most fast-food chains were offering minimum wages. This led to companies such as McDonald's, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Target, CVS Health, Walmart, etc., announcing increased wages and other benefits.
Typically, better wages and health insurance have been the go-to incentives for most employers, but you can do more. For example, instead of offering group health insurance, opt for personalized policies.
Group policies look good on paper, but they don't provide the kind of health insurance your employees need. Remember your company comprises employees of different age groups, health statuses, and income levels. A one-size-fits-all policy will not work for such a broad demographic.
Other benefits that you can offer include remote work and education. If your employees can work from home with the same level of productivity or even better, allow them to do so. For those that can't work from home, offer a commute allowance to offset the transport cost and time.
Employee Recognition
Recognize and appreciate employees for work well done. You can offer monetary recognition, gift cards, a point-based reward system, or unforgettable experiences. Also, when recruiting new staff, prioritize your employees, especially for leadership positions.
Improve the Recruitment Process
Start by delegating the recruitment process to a competent HR manager. Also, ensure that the recruitment process is transparent and informative for all involved.
One of the problems that plague recruitment processes is responsiveness. For example, if a job seeker applies for a position in your company, it would mean a lot to them if your HR department were to acknowledge that they've received the application.
Once the HR department has reviewed the application and concluded that the individual isn't what they want, be sure to notify the applicant. This will give them closure and pointers on how to improve their application. The individual may not get the job, but they'll likely sing praises about your company to other applicants.
Another way you can improve the recruitment process is by prioritizing diversity. Building a team of diverse employees has been shown to improve employee retention rate and performance.
Once you recruit new employees, ensure that you train them and define their roles in the company. Let them know precisely what their job entails and what they need to do. This will help avoid confusion and frustrations.
Improve the Offboarding Process
Although you'll want to retain your employees until retirement, they'll eventually leave. Try to make an exit as smooth as possible. Remember, this employee can become an advocate for your company even after their exit.
Also, ask the existing employees how you can improve the employee experience lifecycle. Ask about their challenges, inconveniences and how you can address them.
Reasons to Optimize Employee Lifecycle
By improving the employee engagement lifecycle, you'll notice two main benefits: reputation improvement, and talent retention.
It costs about $4,000 to hire a new employee. These costs include recruitment technology, job sourcing, background checks, etc. Keep in mind that the $4,000 doesn't include the cost of training your new hire.
Once you train the new hire, they'll acquire business-specific expertise. The skills and expertise that they develop over the course of training and work experience make them more valuable—the battle switches from hiring to retaining top talent.
Consider the number of resources needed to recruit and train a new hire. Existing staff will need to help out the new additions; thus, resulting in a productivity dip. These new additions are bound to make errors as they learn, which translates to lost resources. Now, imagine using all the above resources only for the employee to quit within a month.
You'll have to start the process from job posting to screening and eventually hire. After you hire, you'll need to repeat the training process with a new hire. If they also leave, you'll repeat the process with a new hire.
By optimizing the employee lifecycle, you can keep your employees happy, engaged and extend their stay at your company.
Successful businesses thrive off consistency in all areas. If it's employees, they have a high retention rate, which translates to less time and resources spent on new hires. They can focus their time and resources towards product or customer service improvement.
If you haven't optimized your employees' lifecycle, you should start doing so today.
