Employee Life Cycle Model: Meaning, Importance, Stages, and Advantages

A crucial element that profoundly affects employee satisfaction is employee experience. Employee participation can become difficult to increase if employees are not satisfied. And it all begins with providing the employees with a first-rate employee life cycle. The employee life cycle begins as soon as a person enters a company. The goal of the entire procedure is to give employees the finest working environment possible for the duration of their tenure. But when you halt and think about it, where does the employee life cycle actually begin? You must first understand what it is in order to comprehend how it functions.

What Is Employee Life Cycle Model?

An organisational technique used to visualise how an employee interacts with the company they are a part of is the Employee’s Life Cycle model (ELC). Attraction, Recruitment, Interviews, Onboarding, Engagement, Development, Retention, Registration, Offboarding, Separation and Alumni are the eleven stages that make up this paradigm. Every step of an employee’s experience working for a firm is intended to be covered by the employee life cycle model, which organises that trajectory into a structure and offers a unique engagement approach for every stage the employee enters. For instance, if an organization has a strong and appealing recruitment strategy but has a high turnover rate, it might concentrate on the retention stage in its employee life cycle to come up with an effective solution. It is no accident that the employee life cycle model closely resembles the path the ordinary consumer takes.

The idea behind developing an employee life cycle plan is basically that employee satisfaction is equally vital to customer satisfaction. Big firms which prefer to focus on customer satisfaction and view employee engagement initiatives as one-off projects rather than a permanent corporate culture frequently undervalue the importance of employee engagement. At all administrative levels, you must be able to transform engagement data into useful intelligence if you want to maximise the talent you have on board. It will increase employee engagement and inspire workers by helping them recognise their value to the business.

Importance

The concept of “employee lifecycle management” refers to a cycle that includes how an organisation presents itself, how it engages with applicants, how it onboard new hires, and how it monitors their growth both personally and professionally while employed by the firm. It is essential to monitor and manage an organisation’s employee life cycle because doing so gives staff members a set of procedures they can follow consistently throughout their employment period with the company and enables management to analyse their data. Briefly stated, the employee life cycle model aids in determining each person’s path through the company.

11 Stages of the Employee Life Cycle Model

An effective model for illustrating your employees’ interactions with you is known as Employee Life Cycle. We’ll look at 11 stages in the employee life cycle as opposed to some models’ which only focus on five or six stages, with a heavy emphasis on how to track and enhance the employee experience at each stage:

1. Attraction: The employee life cycle often starts when a potential hire learns about your company for the first time. Although you won’t be communicating with the individual directly during this stage, they might hear about you from a job advertisement, generic research, or some other unexpected event. Even if the attraction stage may be simpler for big brands, well-known local firms, and industry leaders than for smaller enterprises, it can still be a crucial and productive step.
2. Recruiting: You will have your first in-person encounter with a potential job candidate during the recruiting stage. The candidate gains additional knowledge about your company’s culture and the specific position they are interested in. Combining your present workforce and internal network may greatly assist in a successful hiring process.
3. Interview: For both employers and employees, the interview stage is one of the most crucial phases in the employee life cycle. It enables both parties to get to know one another better and determine if they are a good match. While you may concentrate on determining whether the applicant possesses the necessary skills and could fit well inside your firm, the applicant may assess whether the corporate culture matches their needs and whether the role can satisfy their career goals.
4. On-boarding: In the Onboarding stage, new hires are welcomed to the company and assisted in adjusting to their new roles. Collaboration between HR experts, the IT team, and particular department managers may be necessary because of this. These initiatives frequently involve showing new hires around the workplace, assisting them with paperwork, and conducting brief training or explanatory sessions about the organization and his\her new positions.
5. Engagement: Once a new employee has been performing their duties for a while, the engagement stage might start. During this phase, emphasis is placed on promoting company culture and motivating people. Employees may feel more appreciated and find purpose in their work as a result, which could increase productivity and motivate them to stay with the company longer.
6. Development: The development stage deals with assisting an employee in growing their career within your business. It could entail conducting employee evaluations, giving and receiving feedback, and inquiring about the career objectives of the staff. Employee development may be aided by internal promotions and increased responsibilities. Pay raises or other benefits may also be advantageous at this stage.
7. Retention: The retention phase looks into motivating staff to stay on board with the company. It’s frequently advantageous to concentrate on how to keep your highest-performing employees, although engaging and developing staff may also raise overall retention rates. These workers may add far more value to the company and be hard to replace. However, if you pay attention to their opinions, act on their advice, and encourage and support their achievement, you might give them a reason to stick around your company.
8. Recognition: The stage of recognition can increase employee morale. An employee can feel appreciated and valued if they receive praise for a job effectively done. Some may be motivated to thrive by it, and peers may be encouraged to appreciate the accomplishments of their fellow co-workers.
9. Offboarding: Whenever an employee leaves the company, the offboarding phase begins. If an employee gives you notice, it’s frequently advantageous to use their remaining time with the company to develop a strategy for what will happen before they depart and after they do. For example, this may entail assigning duties to others, offering to cross-train, and completing tasks. The individual’s final paycheck and information regarding the termination of their benefits are often given to them during the offboarding phase.
10. Separation: The act of departing from the company is included in the separation phase. It frequently includes the employee relinquishing business property, such as electronics or access cards. It could also involve an interview to understand better their reasons for resigning and discover areas where the company could make improvements. You may also think about organising a farewell lunch or informal gathering to celebrate the employee’s time with your company in order to make a memorable impression and keep the relationship with the employee strong.
11. Alumni: Keeping a positive working relationship between the organisation and the former employee is part of the alumni stage. The employee might, for example, be a source for completing projects or obtaining recommendations in the future to fill open positions. Employees may remain involved with your organization similarly if they maintain relationships with current staff members.

Advantages 

By outlining the employee journey in the same way you outline the customer experience, your company will undoubtedly enjoy two major advantages: increased talent retention and enhanced reputation. The ability to allocate resources and efforts to address turnover issues more effectively minimises the time and money lost to turnover costs. On the other hand, better prestige increases the likelihood of hiring more new employees, which leads to a staff that is more engaged and driven.

It allows businesses to regularly acknowledge their staff members and recognize how their peers are more motivated. This method allows an individual to achieve personal objectives while also meeting the needs of the company.

1. An effective employee life cycle approach helps to connect your employees’ performance with that of your company. People that are involved in their work are excited about it and support one another during times of transition.
2. It encourages individuals to think creatively and generate novel ideas, both of which are beneficial to the long-term development and survival of the firm.

Ways to Improve and Measure Employee Life Cycle

Every industry, including human resources, is seeing a rise in the use of technology. You may quickly access dashboards that provide you with a comprehensive view of employee life cycle metrics if you have cutting-edge HR tools in place. In only a few clicks, company dashboards and department scorecards may provide you with data about your employee life cycle. 

Plenty of such data can be gathered in one spot through the use of an HRMS. HR leaders can identify any disclaimer signs of trouble and quickly devise solutions utilising Key Performance Indicators as well as dashboards. Managers can also publicly commend team members for outstanding performance.

The finest HR software allows managers to build employee orientation and offboarding processes and stores comprehensive employee data and performance reports that include potential role changes and raises. Employees can also examine their accrued vacation time, salary, and perks, as well as make any necessary updates to their personal information. Each of these aspects can help to improve the working environment for employees.

You can make your workplace more pleasant, engaging, and productive by simply assessing the employee life cycle, comprehending your present KPIs, and constantly improving. Even if you’re not doing just that, you should start developing a plan to evaluate and enhance the overall employee life cycle right away because a good employee experience frequently leads to a higher bottom line.

Conclusion

An employee life cycle model is an illustrious model. Entrepreneurs^[1] and managers can better understand and anticipate what employees will experience during their employment by keeping track of the employee life cycle. Any stage could be exceptionally favourable or unfavourable, which could have an impact on the entire firm. To construct a victorious workforce, the proper personnel should be found, hired, and engaged. Understanding the average course of an employee’s employment with your business may provide you with a better understanding of how you can attract and nurture talent for your company. The employee life cycle approach is one technique that could be used to assist you in achieving this. In this blog, we have defined the employee life cycle model, outlined its stages, and discussed some of the benefits of applying it. Corphr is India’s topmost recruitment agency that extends AI-equipped hiring solutions to corporate clients.