Cornerstone – Google Doc test

Employee lifecycle management stages and practices for HR

Every employee’s journey with your company tells a story—one that begins long before their first day and extends well beyond their last. Whether the excitement of joining a new team, going on that amazing team retreat to Bermuda, or being passed over for promotion, each moment shapes their experience.

These moments aren’t random. They’re all part of a longer journey that’ll either feel intentional and supportive or disjointed and chaotic. That’s where employee lifecycle management comes in as a structured process to handle each of these moments with care and purpose in a nurturing environment.

This guide covers each lifecycle stage in more detail and explores how employee lifecycle management software like monday service can support this essential people process.

CTA

What is employee lifecycle management?

Employee lifecycle management is the practice of organizing and optimizing your workers’ experiences at your company. It encompasses every touchpoint, from their first interaction with your employer brand to the end of their tenure and any communication after their departure.

Not every company will commit to this process. But employee lifecycle management allows you to provide a superior experience as an employer. It acknowledges you’re passionate about supporting your people, you want to contribute positively toward their careers, and you have effective processes to manage their entire journey. And by doing so, you’ll reap plenty of organizational performance and productivity benefits.

7 stages of the employee life cycle management process in HR 

To provide a positive experience for your workforce, you’ll need to optimize each of the following employee life cycle stages.

1. Brand attraction

The attraction stage wows potential candidates with a glimpse of what it would be like to work for your company. You might post social media content showcasing your corporate culture or publish a careers page showing what you offer as an employer.

For example, monday.com’s Careers page highlights us as a “Great Place to Work” winner. We also include plenty of testimonials describing what our team members love about working here.

IMAGE

Potential applicants can view our employer value proposition, including our company values: ownership, transparency, impact, accountability, and being data-driven. And to highlight our commitment to DEIB (diversity, inclusivity, equity, and belonging) you’ll see our equal opportunity statement proudly displayed, too.

2. Recruitment

3 in 4 organizations find it difficult to recruit full-time employees for their organizations. SHRM data reveals the top three challenges are:

• A low number of applications
• Competition from other employers
• An increase in qualified candidate ghosting

Employers can improve the candidate experience by optimizing every recruitment stage to ensure acceptance rates are high for every job offer you extend. In practice, this means providing useful candidate feedback, clarity about compensation, and not expecting potential employees to jump through hoops and attend seventeen different interviews to secure a role.

3. Onboarding

Onboarding is just the start of the employee journey and it can be make or break time for some. 29% of starters have quit a job within the first 90 days, highlighting the importance of delivering an engaging, and friendly employee onboarding stage to improve new hire retention. Human Resources and Marketing Officer Christine Al Chadaideh explains,

“From day one to the end of the probation period, guiding new joiners through clear goals, continuous feedback, and cultural integration sets the stage for long-term engagement and productivity. Onboarding is not just a process, it’s an opportunity to build trust, foster growth, and inspire loyalty.”

Onboarding software can help new joiners feel embraced by their new team and engaged in your positive company culture. It should also provide access to everything employees need to ramp up and become productive quickly with minimal effort.

4. Professional development

Employees want and expect their employer to commit to their personal career growth. According to LinkedIn, employee development opportunities are the top strategy to improve retention rates for the 90% of organizations concerned about hanging onto their workers.

Employers can supercharge professional growth by offering mentoring partnerships, training courses, regular check-ins with managers, performance reviews, peer-to-peer learning, and networking events. The right combination will depend on the individual employee and their role.

5. Retention

Only 24% of employees were not considering looking for a new job this year. Companies can reduce their employee turnover rate by investing in retention strategies such as stay interviews, employee recognition programs, team building, flexible work arrangements, and offering competitive compensation.

6. Offboarding

Every employee will eventually move on at some point. It could be for retirement, relocation, or new opportunities on a different career path. But every exit is an opportunity to leave on good terms and maintain positive relationships with former employees.

Exit interviews are one way to gather honest feedback from departing employees and understand any potential issues within the company that may have contributed to their departure. You can use these insights to make improvements and potentially increase future retention rates.

7. Advocacy

Your ex-employees will now have a firm opinion about your employer brand, shaped by all the phases of the employee lifecycle they’ve experienced. Some will whizz through these stages in a few weeks or months (not a great sign), while others will have spent many years in stages four and five.

Whether they’ve had a negative or positive employee experience, these people may now influence your recruiting process and ability to attract and retain fresh talent. They’ll spread the word about your company culture, talk to potential applicants or even shout out on social media about their time with you. When things have gone well, some may return to you as boomerang employees. But less satisfied people will dissuade others from joining your crew.

POLL

How does employee lifecycle management software work? 

Employee lifecycle management software is a digital workspace that organizes all the data, workflows, and people involved throughout the employee lifecycle. It brings together disparate HR processes and tools into a single platform to ensure consistency and operational efficiency. Here’s what you can expect from this type of platform:

Centralized data management

Job one with any type of HR software is to collect and store employee data in one centralized location. For example, you might use it to store:

• Resumes
• Job descriptions
• Recruitment ads
• Performance evaluations
• Training records
• Career development plans
• Employee feedback
• Employee survey data (for example, exit surveys)

Keeping everything organized is important for data security, and collaboration, allowing HR, recruiters, managers, and senior leaders to gain access to the details they need.

Process mapping and workflow automation

You’ll define workflows for every lifecycle event, from your recruitment phase through to offboarding. Automating these processes ensures everything runs smoothly, which enhances the employee experience.

For example, you might use onboarding software to trigger a series of predefined actions, like sending welcome emails, assigning training modules, and scheduling orientation sessions.

Integrations with other HR tools

Connecting your lifecycle management software to the rest of your HR tech stack extends its value. For example, you may wish to integrate it with any existing applicant tracking systems, payroll software, and performance management platforms in your ecosystem.

By doing so, data will flow freely between your systems, eliminating the need for manual input in multiple windows and reducing the chance of human error.

Task notifications

Your employee lifecycle management software ensures the right tasks are assigned to the right people at the right time. You might use triggers (such as certain deadline dates or box-checking) to send automated notifications to employees, managers, and HR teams for tasks like evaluations, policy updates, or contract renewals.

5 benefits of employee lifecycle management software

Any type of software requires an investment. Even free platforms require time and personnel to set everything up so it matches your internal processes. But with the right employee lifecycle management platform, you’ll receive numerous benefits that translate into an excellent return on your investment. These include:

Streamlined operations

With all your data and processes in one spot, HR teams no longer need to juggle multiple spreadsheets and email chains or manually track employee progress. Everything is easy to track, everything gets done on time, and there’s much less room for errors or confusion.

Improved employee experience

With your processes running like clockwork, your employees are more likely to be engaged and satisfied. They’ll receive timely communication on things that matter to them, like when they can expect to receive their new work laptop or the date of their next performance review. No more waiting around or second-guessing, just clear processes that your company follows to the letter.

Reduced turnover

Of course, when your employees are happy and well-informed, you’ll also notice fewer problems with employee retention. Although it’s natural for your talent to move on at some point, optimizing the employee lifecycle may encourage more of your people to seek their next career move within your organization rather than beyond it.

Enhanced decision-making

Your software also enables HR to identify any pain points in the employee lifecycle and then take action on them. For example, if you notice an increasing number of workers handing in their notice shortly after their annual appraisal, you’ll know to double down on improving your performance management processes.

Cost efficiency

Consolidating the entire employee lifecycle under one roof minimizes the resources you’ll need to make things happen. Instead of paying for multiple tools, you’ll invest in one. By dealing with only one vendor, you’ll only have one customer support team to liaise with and a single solution to bring your people up to speed. It’s unified, efficient, and cost-effective.

How to choose the best employee lifecycle management software for your organization

The employee lifecycle you offer at your organization will likely be different from anywhere else. The size of your company, your industry, your company culture, your approach to the career development stage, and so much more will shape the exact talent experience you offer. It follows that some employee lifecycle management systems may not be the best fit for your specific talent life cycle model.

Ask yourself the following questions as you research the best platform for your needs:

• Scalability: Does this software have the capacity to grow alongside the organization’s evolving needs? Is it easy to add new users or remove them as required?
• Integration: Will this tool integrate seamlessly with current HR systems like applicant tracking systems, payroll, or learning experience platforms?
• Ease of use: Is the interface simple enough for all team members to navigate and adopt easily? What do customer reviews on third-party sites like G2 say about the platform?
• Customizability: Is it possible to tailor the workflows and features to align with the company’s unique employee lifecycle model?
• Support and training: Does the vendor offer 24/7 customer support or are they only available during working hours in a specific timezone? Is training available during setup, and is there an additional fee?
• Pricing: Does the price align with internal budgets? Does the vendor charge per user, per module, or is there a flat fee for the software?

Learn all about monday service employee lifecycle management software by taking a free trial.

CTA

Introducing monday service: your versatile employee lifecycle software solution 

monday service is an enterprise-grade platform built on the monday.com Work OS. Powered by smart automation and AI, it’s designed to transform your internal service operations from reactive to proactive.

monday service enables teams to deliver exceptional support experiences efficiently using our out-of-the-box HR solutions to power every aspect of the employee lifecycle. This frees up time for your people teams to spend attracting and developing talent rather than tinkering with software. Here are the key features of monday service ready to streamline your HR processes and elevate your organization’s service delivery.

• Self-service employee experiences: AI supports workers (or job seekers) with quick answers to common questions. For example, a new hire might reach out, requiring simple guidance about the company’s expense reimbursement process. The monday service knowledge base will dish up a step-by-step guide to answer their query.

IMAGE

• Streamlined communication between all people-facing teams: Banish workplace siloes by keeping your HR, finance, IT, and recruitment teams on the same page. monday service includes automated follow-ups and replies to speed up communication between all stakeholders so you can focus on delivering an exceptional employee experience.

IMAGE

• Scalable people processes: monday service grows with your increasing headcount and organization’s evolving needs. Our no-code platform allows you to easily adapt your processes to match your lifecycle stages, with no professional developer required.

IMAGE

• Lightning-fast implementations: Busy people teams aren’t usually tech experts and don’t have the time to set up or adopt complicated systems. monday service offers an intuitive interface that promises a faster-time value for your HR pros and your employees.

IMAGE

• Easy integrations: monday service syncs with your favorite communication tools and brings your HR and tech support processes together. Employees can log a single request, and monday service will automatically route it to the right team.

IMAGE

3 tips to track your employee lifecycle

A platform like monday service is a rocksteady foundation you can use to start improving the employee experience. Use the following tips to extract the most value from the software.

Use real-time data

Retrospective data is useful. It helps you review, reflect, and make a better plan for the future. But there’s nothing like real-time data snapshots to take action and start improving things immediately. For example, you might notice a concerning trend in your employee satisfaction ratings after the first 90 days of employment. With real-time data on hand, you can identify potential issues and address them before it’s too late.

Conduct regular check-ins

Technology is no substitute for human connection. The best way to tap into the employee experience is to speak to your people throughout every stage of the lifecycle. Gather regular feedback from employees about important touchpoints like the recruitment process, performance development conversations, and offboarding.

Use your software to collect, store, and analyze the feedback. From here, you’ll use this intel to better understand their needs and make improvements where necessary.

Implement clear metrics at every stage

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Instead of working off gut feelings, track metrics at every lifecycle stage to understand if your employee engagement strategies are connecting with your people. For example:

• Employee attrition rate
• Time to fill open positions
• Employee satisfaction ratings
• Percentage of employees promoted from within
• Number of current employees participating in professional development programs
• Diversity and inclusion metrics like gender and ethnicity distribution at each stage of the lifecycle

Support the entire employee lifecycle with monday service 

Employee lifecycle management is the cornerstone of an effective HR strategy. By leveraging monday service, you can streamline processes, boost employee satisfaction, and create a thriving workplace culture.

CTA

FAQs

What are the top 7 stages of the employee lifecycle?

The seven stages of the employee lifecycle are attraction, recruitment, onboarding, professional development, retention, offboarding, and advocacy.

What are the key points in the employee life cycle?

Each of the touchpoints involved in the employee lifecycle is critical to the overarching success. The initial attraction phase, along with recruitment, and onboarding set the tone with a strong first impression. But if companies take their finger off the pulse with professional development and retention, they’ll soon be involved in offboarding their workers and worrying about what they might say about their time there.

What is the HR life cycle model?

An employee life cycle model is a representation of the different stages an employee goes through during their time with a company.  HR teams use this model to guide their strategies for effectively managing employees and creating a positive employee experience.

What is employee life cycle career management?

Employee life cycle career management involves providing career advancement opportunities. This includes setting clear expectations and goals, conducting regular performance reviews, and offering support and guidance in achieving career aspirations.