Tiếng Việt
(Read Part 1 on the first 2 stages link here)
Stage 3: Onboarding & Introduction
You’ve extended a job offer and your top choice has accepted. This transitions them into the introduction stage, which typically lasts from 90 days to a year. This includes all initial activities to help the employee settle into your company, including orientation and training, as well as ongoing support for several months. It usually ends when the employee reaches peak productivity in their role.
During onboarding, employees learn about your organization and their place within it. It’s an important part of learning how to find their place within your company culture. Successful onboarding can help new employees feel like part of the team faster and can help you retain them.
Improving Stage 3
Having a detailed onboarding plan for new employees can help the process go smoothly. If you already have an onboarding plan, review it to ensure it’s organized, consistent, and helpful. Remember that everyone learns and progresses at different speeds. Keeping the onboarding process flexible will make it more effective for each individual. Some employees may quickly settle in and catch up to speed with their projects, while others may need more nurturing over a longer period to feel at home.
Explore ways to make the onboarding process more meaningful and educational. You can seek out continuous support options for new employees, such as weekly one-on-one meetings with supervisors or assigning mentors to your new employees. Providing documents describing the role, company structure, as well as the organization’s values and goals can also be helpful.
Feedback from newer employees can also help you improve this process. Ask employees who have been with your company for a year or two what could help them settle in better. Use their feedback to expand your onboarding program.
Most importantly, ensure that all new employees feel welcomed. Introduce them to their peers, involve them in team activities, and check in regularly to ensure their needs are being met.
Stage 4: Development
As a team member enters the development stage of the employee lifecycle, they have become acclimated to the job and are ready to learn more. Providing and encouraging career development opportunities can improve employee satisfaction while enhancing their skills, making them stronger employees. Employees learn and develop at different rates and have different interests, so customized development plans will be most effective.
Improving Stage 4
To enhance the development stage, create training and development policies for your company. Include internal and external training opportunities. Reimbursement of tuition fees is also a useful benefit to encourage your team to pursue learning opportunities.
You can also support development by establishing career path trajectories for members of your team. This encourages your employees to consider their career goals and plan to achieve them. It can help identify any new skills and knowledge each individual needs to advance. Regular meetings to assess their progress toward their career goals can provide continuous motivation for development and learning.
Stage 5: Retention
Retaining employees helps you maintain a cohesive, efficient team. You also invest a lot of money in recruiting and training new members of the team.
In the retention stage, your goal is to keep your talent with the company by improving their job satisfaction. Things like company culture, managerial interactions, salary, benefits, and the value of the work they do play a crucial role in retaining employees. This is an ongoing process throughout the employee’s time with your company.
Improving Stage 5
Creating a positive work environment and providing your employees with challenging, meaningful tasks can help with employee retention. Your company needs to maintain competitiveness to prevent talent from going to other companies. Ways to improve retention rates include:
- Motivation: Understand how your team operates best and what drives them. Use that information to encourage efficient work and continued development.
- Feedback: Request and listen to feedback from your employees. Knowing that you’re listening to what team members have to say can encourage them to stay.
- Transparency: Be transparent about the company’s goals, challenges, and projects. This makes it easier for employees to support those things and makes them feel trusted.
- Autonomy: Empower employees with autonomy over their workload. Micromanagement can hurt motivation and make the work less meaningful.
- Support: Provide technology and support employees need to perform their jobs well. This helps them complete their tasks efficiently and reduces frustration.
- Improving culture: Continuously strive to improve your company’s culture and create an inclusive environment.
- Flexibility: Offer flexible working options, such as remote work or flexible schedules. This helps employees meet job demands while balancing personal life.
- Recognition: Employees respond positively when they’re recognized for their hard work. Establishing a formal recognition program helps you consistently appreciate and reward employees for what they do.
- Opportunities: Give employees the chance to try new things and progress into different roles. This can prevent boredom and encourage them to stay.
Stage 6: Resignation Decision
Eventually, many of your employees will leave, whether it’s because they found a new job, retire, or address personal issues. Offboarding is the period from when an employee decides to leave until their last day. It involves all the wrap-up tasks you need to do to facilitate their departure. It also includes how you handle finding a replacement and ensuring their workload is covered during the waiting period.
You might think you don’t need to improve the offboarding process since the employee is leaving, but it can affect both the employees staying and leaving. Having a smooth offboarding process makes it easier to transfer workload to others. It also shows how you feel about your employees. If you treat them well even when they’re leaving, it shows you care about them. If it’s a negative experience, it sends the message that you only care about what the employee did for your company.
Improving Stage 6
Conducting exit interviews can help you learn more about why your employees are leaving. You can identify issues within your organization, such as lack of support or low pay, that you can improve to retain current employees.
You might be disappointed about losing talent, but keep the departure positive. Express your gratitude for the employee’s contributions and wish them luck in their new endeavors. Treating employees poorly or being angry with them when they end their tenure can overshadow the positive aspects they experienced while working for your company.
Predicting employee departures helps make the transition smoother. This allows you to fill vacancies faster with a new employee with suitable skills and talents. Continuously recruiting, even when you don’t currently have open positions, can also speed up the recruitment process.
Inform the remaining team about the temporary task transition and hire a replacement. Involving them and updating them on the progress can reduce stress during the transition phase of the employee lifecycle.
Stage 7: Post-Departure
Former employees can still have an impact on your organization after they leave. If you’ve created a positive employee lifecycle, they can become unofficial brand ambassadors even when they no longer work for you. They may introduce your company to others they know who are looking for a new job.
You may also easily rehire if you have opportunities in the future. An employee might leave to pursue education or address a personal issue. They might come back to your company if their situation changes. Even an employee who leaves for another company could eventually return if you have better opportunities later.
Improving Stage 7
The best way to improve this stage of the employee lifecycle is to make all the previous stages positive and memorable. Employees are more likely to become advocates for your brand if you give them a positive experience from the first interaction to the last.
Keeping in touch with former employees can also be beneficial. Those connections can encourage them to introduce others to you, Talking to them about new opportunities with your company is also easier if you stay in touch.
Effectively managing the employee lifecycle will benefit you and your employees. Review what you’re currently doing at each stage and make small changes that can improve the overall employee experience and your reputation as an employer.
(Image Source: AIHR)
(Don’t forget to read Part 1 about the first 2 stages here)
