How your business manages the employee life cycle directly influences your ability to satisfy consumers and succeed. Your workforce is an essential element of your operations, and your employees play a massive role in how consumers perceive your brand, products and services.
Understanding the employee life cycle model is key to enhancing the employee experience (EX) and customer experience (CX). These are both key drivers for long-term growth for your company.
Understanding the Seven Primary Employee Life Cycle Phases
To appreciate how the employee life cycle impacts your business’s CX, you’ll need to understand what’s involved in each phase.
Learn more about the main stages of the employee life cycle below.
1. Attract
The first phase in the employee life cycle begins when a prospect discovers your business and gets to know your company, mission and values. You can attract new talent through various channels, including:
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- Social media
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- Job boards
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- Networking events
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- Job fairs
If your brand’s messaging aligns and resonates with an individual, that person may consider applying for an open position. To attract top talent in your industry, your job descriptions should be clear and attractive and should highlight your business’s unique selling points.
2. Recruit
Recruitment refers to the process of hiring the best candidates for your business’s job openings. It involves the following tasks and responsibilities:
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- Reviewing resumes and cover letters
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- Conducting interviews
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- Assessing candidate qualifications and skills
During this phase, clear communication and good organization are paramount. If your business’s recruitment efforts are inefficient, you may miss out on great hires who could have made wonderful contributions to your operation. A well-executed recruitment strategy is key to enticing and securing top talent.
3. Onboard
The next stage in the employee life cycle is onboarding, where a new employee is integrated into your organization. Your business will share the following information with new hires:
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- Job duties
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- Daily responsibilities
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- Code of conduct
The objective of onboarding is to help new employees blend in with your corporate culture and truly become part of the team. One way to do this is to identify and communicate your company’s core values, such as the importance of offering quality CX.
Fresh hires need to understand how they fit into your organization. Effective onboarding sets the stage for a positive employee experience.
4. Develop
Once employees complete the onboarding process, they enter the development stage. During this time, they expand their knowledge and sharpen their skills to optimize their contributions to your business.
Development plays an important role in job satisfaction, so tailoring these plans to suit the unique needs of both your company and your team can be very beneficial for worker retention efforts.
Your company can improve employee experiences and demonstrate your commitment to your workforce by providing ongoing training opportunities that support career advancement.
5. Retain
Retention is the next phase of the employee experience life cycle. The work is not over once your team members get comfortable with their job functions. Now, your business must take steps to keep employees happy and engaged.
Building a healthy company culture that emphasizes respect, collaboration and efficiency will help your workers feel more satisfied in their roles. One of the best ways to support higher employee retention rates is to empower your workers to strike a sustainable work/life balance.
6. Offboard
Offboarding refers to the process of transitioning employees out of your organization when they leave their roles. A respectful and professional approach to this stage is essential to ensure your workers have the best possible experience working for your company during their final days and beyond.
You can use the offboarding phase to gather valuable feedback about your operations through exit interviews and surveys.
7. Advocate
The final stage of the employee life cycle is advocacy. Ideally, this phase involves your current and former employees championing your business and its mission. They can advocate for your brand, which contributes to a positive company reputation and encourages other great talent to apply for your open job positions, bringing the life cycle full circle.
The Importance of Employee Life Cycle Management for Positive Customer Experiences
How your company manages employee life cycles directly impacts worker performance and satisfaction—two factors that have a significant influence over brand perception and CX. Happy employees lead to happy customers.
Taking a strategic approach to worker life cycle management can provide the following benefits to your business and its consumers:
Boosted Employee Motivation
Proactive and strategic employee life cycle management helps your team feel more valued. When individuals feel your company respects them and their work, they will be more motivated to deliver excellent service.
Effective management practices help your business keep its workforce engaged and on top of its game. Motivated employees are more likely to go above and beyond for consumers, contributing to more positive brand interactions and improved consumer satisfaction.
Consistent Service Quality
By prioritizing training and development initiatives, your business can foster a happier, more engaged workforce that delivers more consistent service quality to consumers.
Setting clear expectations with your employees and giving them the resources they need to s쳮d at every stage of the employee life cycle will empower them to deliver exceptional experiences, time after time.
Efficient Problem Solving
Empowered, properly trained employees will contribute to more efficient—and creative—problem-solving efforts for your business. By carefully and strategically monitoring the employee life cycle, you can give your team members the resources and confidence they need to spearhead consumer issues and find resolution faster.
How your employees handle issues throughout their workdays will directly shape the customer experience. Quicker, more thoughtful problem solving will benefit consumers and their perception of your brand, resulting in increased satisfaction, trust and loyalty.
Improved Communications
The way an employee interacts with a consumer reflects on your business as a whole. Effective employee life cycle management practices will give your team the skills they need to foster positive and productive conversations with consumers (and co-workers).
Through training and feedback, you can help your employees understand the best way to address customer needs and inquiries. When your team is well versed in carrying out clear and engaging interactions with consumers, team members can provide your clients with more seamless and favorable experiences.
Contact CSG to Supercharge Customer and Employee Experiences
If you’re looking for new ways to enhance and elevate employee and customer experiences at your business, turn to the solutions available from CSG. We want to help you tackle your challenges head on with dynamic customer experience solutions and consulting services.
CSG Xponent, our customer engagement solution, improves contact center interactions–and EX–by providing proactive agent guidance that makes it easier for call center agents to assist customers.
Our team will provide your team with the agent desktop, payment, and bill explanation tools they need to reduce call volumes and efficiently assist customers, reducing your customer service representatives’ workload and stress levels. Want to learn how to implement bold strategies to enhance CX with the help of the experts at CSG? Contact us online to get started today!
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