On another note

Developing the employee lifecycle to keep

top talent
Gary Cattermole

Gary Cattermole is Director
at The Survey Initiative,
Wix, UK.
Abstract
Purpose – This article aims to set out the best strategies to understand the employee life cycle and how
to employ tactics to keep top talent within an organisation.
Design/methodology/approach – This feature explores desktop data and industry research.
Findings – This feature demonstrates how an employee’s life cycle can be extended in the workplace
and explains the link between the employee value proposition and the employee life cycle to create
successful onboarding strategies.
Social implications – This article also looks at how millennials will stay longer in an organisation that has
strong environmental policies.
Originality/value – This feature offers fantastic insight into an issue that is currently costing the country
millions.
Keywords Employee engagement, Organization development, Leadership, Strategy,
Talent management, Productivity
Paper type Viewpoint

ary Cattermole is a Director at the award-winning employee research consultancy,

G The Survey Initiative. Here he explains the employee life cycle and how with careful
analysis and planning, HRs can retain their top talent and boost levels of employee
engagement.
First up, lets explain the employee life cycle. The cycle has six key stages: attraction,
recruitment, onboarding, development, retention and separation. In basic terms, an
employee is attracted to an organisation thanks to its brand or reputation. An employee will
apply for a position within a company and if successful will go through an onboarding
process. A company will then look to develop that employee and retain their top talent over
many years, keeping the knowledge and experience within the company. Naturally, there
will be a time when the employee either seeks pastures new or retires.
We often say that our biggest asset is our people, so can you imagine the cost benefits,
skills and expertise that could be retained in an organisation if we really got to grips with the
employee life cycle. If we can pre-empt when an employee might become disengaged,
desire a promotion or look elsewhere for a job, we can create effective HR strategies to re-
energise engagement and employee satisfaction. By careful management, HR teams can
save thousands on recruitment, training and development, as well as keep skills and
knowledge within the company. At the moment we know employee engagement levels fall
significantly between 2 and 5 years, and with the average hire in the USA only lasting four
years[1], industry needs to consider what we can do to keep top talent.

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 “One of the key techniques to prolonging your employee life
cycle is by ensuring you recruit the right employees in the
first place”.

Attraction and recruitment

To get to grips with the employee life cycle, organisations need to analyse why their
employees are attracted to their company and why they decided to leave; here “joiners”
and “leavers” surveys are essential in discovering the employee’s journey. Once the results
of these surveys have been collated, there are normally a few trends that appear. Many may
show that the new recruit was excited about joining such a well-reputed company, and
although the salary may have been excellent, the experience of working for the company
did not live up to expectations. One-to-one interviews are even more insightful at
discovering why these expectations were not met. Naturally, all communication should be
undertaken via a third party to ensure a true picture is really obtained – leavers are unlikely
to give an accurate account unless they know their feedback is 100 per cent confidential.
Once this data has been obtained, HRs should analyse the results and modify areas of the
employee journey to ensure they do not continue to lose top talent early stage.
One of the key techniques to prolonging your employee life cycle is by ensuring you recruit
the right employees in the first place. Here a strong employee value proposition (EVP) is
vital to ensuring you can match the right people to your organisation and to the right roles.

Employee value proposition

In basic terms, an EVP is what employees gain in return from working at your organisation.
This will include salary, benefits, career development and company culture. Do not just look
at what salary you are offering and assume because you pay the most, everyone will work
their hardest and want to join your organisation – there is much more to the employee
experience than pay. Take a look at your recruitment. Do managers take on new recruits
because they have the skills, but also ensure they are a good fit with the company’s ethos?
Do you oversell in the hope of bringing in top talent? Do your job ads match up with the
employee experience? Do you assess each employee to ensure you have a strong mix of
skills to create a strong team – no one benefits from too many leaders! Getting your EVP
right will ensure you are employing the best people for your organisation, and satisfied
employees will stay a lot longer in their role.

Getting your employee value proposition right

Recently, I reviewed the culture of Netflix[2],[3]. They claim their culture is “unusual” and it is
certainly upfront. Here are their five areas that they feel make them stand out:

1. encourage independent decision-making by employees;

2. share information openly, broadly and deliberately;

3. are extraordinarily candid with each other;

4. keep only our highly effective people; and

5. avoid rules
They also describe their culture in 4,000 words on their website, and by the end of it, you
are pretty clear that they expect the best, you are going to need to be open and honest, be

VOL. 18 NO. 6 2019 j STRATEGIC HR REVIEW j PAGE 259

 judged on your outputs, and although they will understand a dip in your performance, if you
are not up to scratch, you are out!.
This may seem harsh, but they are open and upfront about what they want and its clear
what their expectations are. Their business journey has been phenomenal and must be
attributed to their staff, who have signed up and understood Netflix’s EVP.

Onboarding and development

The first few weeks and months are a real challenge on your EVP. Does your proposition
meet your new employees’ expectations and do your new employees meet your
expectations? Here, to avoid a very hasty exit, you will need to have strong induction
processes in place.
In fact, unless a new recruit is bombarded with work and not given enough support in the
first few weeks, most employees are at their most engaged when they start a new role.
Many organisations now have rigorous onboarding systems in place; the biggest trouble I
find is there is little connection between the onboarding phase and development. For
example, we work with a large advertising agency and their graduate recruitment and
induction programme is exemplary. All graduates know they have done exceedingly well to
join the scheme and the remuneration and support matches their excitement. However, as
soon as they have completed their first year, the mentoring scheme comes to an end
alongside all other onboarding practices, and although they have been trained to “go
alone”, many have felt bereft and quickly left the company, as they have felt unsupported or
not sure where their career is heading. Thankfully, the company has picked up on this
problem thanks to thorough leavers’ surveys and one-to-one interview procedures and is
working to boost their development scheme for graduates, but this is just one area where
you can lose top talent, and employees who have received extensive investment.
When it comes to development, it is my firm belief that people fall into two separate camps.
You either have the ambitious career ladder climbers, or you have the employees who are
happy to “do a good job” but do not want the stress and responsibility. This may seem
rather an over-simplistic view of the workforce, but I feel there is too much emphasis in
many companies, especially in the manufacturing sector, where the board are looking for
staff to be more entrepreneurial and productive, the leaders often considers the career
ladder types to be the most engaged. However, not everyone in the majority of
organisations can be that entrepreneurial. If your organisation is mostly process-driven and
employs factory floor staff, for example, many of these employees will not have an
entrepreneurial flair as part of their skill set, but that does not mean they should be judged
harshly because of it, or are any less engaged, proud or motivated to do what they do than
any other employee. Organisations need their core workforce to do their jobs and to do
them well. We cannot all be “queen bees” and we cannot all run our companies like Apple
with an uber flat structure and a blame-free employee policy. An employee engagement

“An employee engagement policy needs to be effective at

ensuring each individual within an organisation is working
as productively as they can this could mean, manufacturing
two cars a day or developing hardworking strategies for
new business”.

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policy needs to be effective at ensuring each individual within an organisation is working as
productively as they can – this could mean, manufacturing two cars a day or developing
hardworking strategies for new business. But, the unit of production must be measured by
the job type; process-driven roles should not be seen as less-engaged just because they
are not so creative in output.
Employee engagement surveys should be created to identify metrics that give blue-collar
workers the opportunity to prove they are highly engaged, loyal and do a great job, such as
absence staff turnover, productivity, otherwise the senior team in an organisation may be
overlooking one of its best assets: the workers. Naturally, if a group of workers do not feel
appreciated it is the quickest way to breed employee disengagement, and this hardworking
group will soon be looking for pastures new.
As we have already stated, there is a natural dip in employee engagement between 2 and5
years; however, if employees are given the opportunity to develop either by training,
promotion or secondments, employees will remain loyal and hardworking. So, we know the
stats and we know the solutions, so it is not too tricky for HRs to create a development plan
that ensures its top talent gets the opportunity to reach its full potential at their organisation.
Research has also proven that if an organisation invests in its people, then employees are
much more loyal and show higher levels of engagement. A recent poll also stated that
millennials are far more loyal to organisations that invest in the environment[4]. Naturally, the
environment should be a top priority for all organisations, but if you have a high proportion
of young workers, ensure you communicate your environmental policy with them clearly,
and if it needs a boost, engage with your staff to see how you could develop green policies.

Retention and separation

Statistics show that if an employee stays in an organisation longer than 4-6 years, where
employee satisfaction levels are traditionally very low, they begin to resurge by 8-10 years.
Naturally, many employees have risen through the ranks by this stage and may feel very
engaged with the organisation, as they can see the impact of their actions, but these
statistics are also true for lower ranking employees. It would appear that loyalty and
contentment has become strong in this group of employees, and this is ideal for keeping the
status quo but remember all organisations do need to continuously move forward, so from
time-to-time, a shake-up in the workforce can be healthy and very productive.
Employees along the employee life cycle will look for new challenges elsewhere, or for the
roles that better suit their needs. Wherever possible it is always advisable to work in
partnership with top talent to offer them something that meets their needs. For example, a
high-flying female or male may seek fewer hours when they become a parent, so be flexible
to meet their needs – they will remember that you were there for them, and this will
engender strong levels of loyalty within your workforce.
Some employees will stride out into ventures new, but may be disheartened when they
realise that the grass is not always greener elsewhere and may want to return. Always
consider an open door for top talent to return; you have put a lot of investment into their
careers, so do not write-off returners as they can come back invigorated with fresh ideas to
share and insider knowledge on the competition!.
Extending the employee life cycle for top talent in an organisation makes good business
sense. Undertaking employee research and developing strategies to meet your own
business and employee’s needs are essential at keeping one stage ahead of the employee
life cycle.
To discover more about employee engagement and the employee life cycle, visit www.
surveyinitiative.co.uk.

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 Notes
1. www.bls.gov
2. www.jobs.netflix.com/culture
3. www.forbes.com/sites/brettonputter/2018/12/04/netflixs-company-culture-is-not-for-everybody-
and-thats-exactly-how-it-should-be/#142a64761880
4. www.hrreview.co.uk/hr-news/younger-workers-would-stay-at-company-longer-if-it-was-actively-
lowering-its-environmental-impact/

Corresponding author
Gary Cattermole can be contacted at: gary.cattermole@surveyinitiative.co.uk

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