Enhancing the employee lifecycle: strategies and insights

Employees are the heart and soul of any organization. To keep things running smoothly, your business needs to ensure that your employees are happy, fulfilled, and satisfied throughout their entire tenure with your organization.

Businesses can track employee experience (EX) by measuring touchpoints at each stage of the employee lifecycle. Enhancing the employee lifecycle leads to better business and an improved workplace.

The employee lifecycle is a cycle of five stages representing an employee’s journey at your company: recruitment, onboarding, growth, retention, and offboarding. 

Effectively managing the employee lifecycle is pivotal in enhancing the employee experience. Collecting data and turning it into actionable insights can help improve every area of EX, from recruitment to offboarding.

Related reading: HR quickstart guide: Employee surveys from hire to retire

Let’s explore each stage of the employee lifecycle and detail what you can expect in each:

The recruitment stage of the employee lifecycle involves finding, attracting, and hiring suitable candidates for a role. Employee touchpoints in this stage range from job advertisements to sharing your employee value proposition. 

Companies want to make the recruitment process as easy as possible. Collecting data at this stage will help streamline the process. Companies can use key metrics to measure the recruitment phase of the employee lifecycle: 

This information empowers HR teams to identify weaknesses in their recruitment process and enhance their strategy. 

Related reading: The recruiting manager toolkit

Once you’ve found the ideal candidate for a job, it’s time for them to move through your onboarding process. Employee onboarding teaches employees everything they need to know about their new role and your company culture. 

Reviewing your onboarding process with employee feedback will help identify inconsistencies or difficulties. Alleviate these pain points to create a concise and effective employee onboarding. 

Here are some common metrics to measure employee onboarding: 

Monitoring these employee onboarding metrics allows HR teams to assess the effectiveness of their onboarding processes and create a seamless experience for new employees. Since this is often a new employee's initial interaction with the company, a well-executed process can leave a positive impression.

Related reading: New hire onboarding survey

Employees working for your business should always have opportunities to grow their skills. You should offer professional training courses, paid courses, or similar development opportunities for ongoing learning. 

Collecting information about the growth stage of an employee’s lifecycle will help your business determine if it's doing enough to support the upward trajectory of its workforce. 

The most common metrics to measure an employee's growth phase include: 

HR teams should pay close attention to the growth opportunities their organization presents to employees. Without offering growth opportunities, your employees may start disengaging from their work.

Related reading: Creating feedback-driven employee training

The retention phase is for experienced employees who have been with your company for a considerable time and have a comprehensive understanding of your organization's inner workings. 

Employee engagement and job satisfaction surveys allow you to collect qualitative data on how these employees feel about your company. By gathering this data, you can identify strategies to close experience gaps, create a better work environment, and lower employee turnover. 

Measure the retention phase of the employee lifecycle with these key metrics: 

Organizations can use the insights from these metrics to create, track, and measure retention strategies that improve employee satisfaction. 

Related reading: Job satisfaction: what is it and why to track it

Offboarding is the final stage of the employee lifecycle, where the company bids farewell to an employee who has decided to leave. 

This stage provides a valuable forum for discussing how your employees felt while with the company. Use exit interviews or exit interview surveys to facilitate the offboarding process. 

These are the most common metrics to measure the offboarding phase of the employee lifecycle: 

HR teams can use these metrics to collect information during the offboarding stage of the employee lifecycle. This data will help your teams improve areas employees felt frustrated with while at your business. Understanding why the company loses employees and the reasons behind that choice can go a long way toward beginning to fix those problems. 

Related reading: Exit surveys: questions & templates

By understanding each stage of the employee lifecycle and what employees think or experience during that phase, your business can:

When you improve the employee experience, everyone wins. From your HR team and the employees themselves to your customers, happier employees help your company thrive. 

Related reading: Unlock employee experience feedback: How SurveyMonkey uses feedback to shape their workplace experience

The best method to improve each step of the employee lifecycle is to collect data directly from your employees. An internal perspective will help you improve processes and refine your employee experience. 

Surveys are an excellent method for collecting the qualitative and quantitative data you’ll need to understand your current employee lifecycle model. Let’s explore the leading methods of gathering insights to improve each stage of the employee lifecycle:

Measuring the recruitment stage will help you create a flawless candidate hiring process. As this is most people’s first point of contact with your business, you must stand out.

Here are the best ways to gather insights during the employee lifecycle recruitment stage: 

Armed with data from these surveys, here are three strategies for improving the employee lifecycle recruitment stage:

Becoming a highly desirable employer takes time, effort, and listening to your employees.  Survey your employees and find out what they think about your brand. Find out:

As you adjust based on the feedback you gather, perform ongoing tests of your messaging to see if talented candidates know your company’s mission, values, and perks.

Prime your recruitment engine by first understanding what makes your potential candidates tick. For instance, you can use surveys at recruitment events to learn about candidates, gaining deeper knowledge about them than you would by simply acquiring their contact information.

Remember, your candidate’s time is precious, so each question should have a purpose. Here are five questions that can help you connect with target talent and what you should learn by asking them.

SurveyMonkey research reveals that 45% of HR pros consider recruiting and retention a top priority, just below their number one choice of employee performance management (also at 45%). Refining your recruiting experience can improve how you interact with your new candidates.

Whether or not they’re hired, send every candidate a candidate experience or recruitment satisfaction survey after they’ve made it to a certain point in the interview process. 

Send a similar survey to hiring managers so that you can collect feedback from key stakeholders in the process and make sure your recruiting team meets the needs of the business. Ask your hiring managers things like: 

These questions will help uncover how effective your recruitment stage of the employee lifecycle is. 

Onboarding will be an individual's first set of interactions as a new employee at your company. Streamlining the onboarding process will help your employees adapt to their new workplace as smoothly as possible. 

Here are some survey templates that you can use when collecting data on the onboarding stage of the employee lifecycle: 

You can refine your early-employee processes with a comprehensive understanding of how your onboarding impacts the employee experience. Here are three strategies to enhance the onboarding phase of your employee lifecycle: 

While teaching new hires about your company’s culture and values is important, so is helping them get to work as soon as possible. The more quickly you can onboard employees, the more quickly they reach productivity. 

However, speed is only one part of the equation. You need to ensure that your onboarding programs are effective so that you can set employees up for success. 

Related reading: SurveyMonkey Enterprise helped Dennemeyer build an employee-centric culture

Check-in early and often with your new hires. Consider following up at chosen intervals (e.g., 30, 60, and 90 days) to see if they still feel the onboarding process adequately prepared them for their jobs. 

This approach lets you quickly and easily identify if new employees need additional help and plug any holes in the hiring process.

Here are some questions to consider asking: 

Considering that only 27% of employees think their career progression opportunities are excellent, all companies should spend more time on this section. While working at your company, the best employees will learn, improve their skills, and grow, benefitting everyone.

Send these surveys to employees to track engagement, performance, and growth:

Here are the top strategies to improve the growth phase of your employee lifecycle:

Learn what people at your company think about your career development options.

Are they satisfied with the level of job training and education? Do they feel like their skills and expertise are being put to use? Do they see a chance to grow themselves professionally? Use a career development survey to find out. 

You can also use quizzes to assess the effectiveness of your learning and development programs. Measure how much material employees absorb and analyze the data to determine whether specific topics require more attention. 

Ongoing feedback is key to guiding employee development. One effective method for gathering data is a 360-degree review, also known as a “multi-source assessment,” which solicits employee performance feedback from supervisors, coworkers, peers, and subordinates. 

Ask for employees’ opinions about management’s approachability, communication, trustworthiness, performance, and more with a management performance survey. 

It’s especially important to emphasize confidentiality in 360-degree feedback surveys so your employees and leaders get the helpful input they need to continue growing and bringing their best selves to work. Hearing positive feedback from their teams in this manner can be incredibly motivating for employees.

Many businesses offer employee scholarships to foster professional development or grants to engage your team in innovation. 

Collecting and reviewing applications is important to making the process fair and transparent, and conducting post-award reviews provides for program accountability. 

While attracting top talent is vital, engaging and retaining your best candidates is the next best step. Building happier and more productive teams starts with focusing on compensation packages, feedback schemes, and employee engagement strategies. 

Here are the top surveys you can use to measure employee engagement, productivity, and job satisfaction:

Your employees are a vital asset. No one knows your employee lifecycle quite like your employees. 

Here are some strategies you can use to enhance retention in the employee lifecycle:

Building a workplace culture prioritizing belonging and inclusion is the best way to attract and retain diverse and talented people, create a sustainable, high-performing workforce, and support employees. 

If the idea of measuring inclusion feels daunting, our new inclusion and belonging survey template can help you understand what you’re doing well and where there’s room for growth. 

According to SurveyMonkey research, almost half (48%) of HR pros say DEI has significantly impacted hiring top candidates. This impact increases at companies where HR plays a leading role—55% of HR pros say DEI has significantly affected hiring. 

When employees engage with their work, they’re more fulfilled and motivated. An engaged employee who feels aligned with your organization’s goals performs better, helps attract top talent, and stays longer. 

What keeps employees engaged may be less obvious than you think. In a recent study, SurveyMonkey found that the most critical factor in U.S. workers’ overall happiness at work is feeling their work is meaningful. This ranked even higher than being paid well.

The first step to building an engaged workforce is asking for regular feedback across the employee lifecycle and taking action to create a better workplace. But, employee engagement goes beyond the individual experience. 

Engaging your employees requires continuous investment in programs that improve culture, provide meaningful feedback, offer opportunities for learning, and instill a feeling of belonging.

In a highly competitive labor market, compensation packages are a significant factor in attracting and retaining talent. 

Companies can use an employee benefits survey to check in with employees about the benefits and perks they receive. Not only will this help you design benefits and perks they genuinely want, but it will also help you understand employee stressors. 

Offboarding is a necessary step in an employee's journey. A positive send-off that benefits both the departing employee and the business is the ideal end to an employee's tenure. 

Here are some surveys you can use to improve your employee offboarding process: 

With employee feedback, try these strategies to close experience gaps: 

The end of an employee’s time with your company can be as important as the beginning. When an employee leaves your company, finding out why is essential. Done right, exit surveys help you build a more attractive and fruitful culture so employees stay longer and feel more engaged. 

As you gather feedback, package critical insights so you can share them sensitively with the appropriate audiences. Look for emerging patterns that signal the need for a deeper dive, either on a functional or company level.

Even with the best intentions, companies might collect the proper feedback but do it at the wrong time. It might be too late to ask employees for their thoughts during a review or exit interview. 

Stay interviews have gained popularity as a way to improve employee retention and engagement. In these interviews, employees can share what they value about their jobs and their company and what they think can be improved. 

A stay interview survey collects this feedback before in-person meetings and can give employees a sense of safety compared to asking the same questions face to face.

With the right format and questions, you can get candid, actionable feedback to understand how the company is doing and where you can improve. 

A clear vision of every touchpoint an employee moves through with your business will help you assess satisfaction, fulfillment, and opinions on compensation across the employee lifecycle. 

Turning data into actionable insights will help you create a winning workplace for everyone. Learn how SurveyMonkey can help you boost employee engagement and satisfaction.