Employee engagement is crucial for the long-term health of an organization. It has a positive correlation with employee productivity and morale, as well as the employee referral rate.
However, most brands tend to engage their employees mainly during Onboarding or Retention. And this is where they fail to unleash the full potential of building employee engagement throughout their lifecycle.
Broadly speaking, the main stages of an employee lifecycle are
- Attraction: When they become aware and interested in your organization.
- Recruitment: When they apply and get interviewed to become a part of your organization.
- Onboarding: When you officially introduce them to the culture of your organization.
- Retention: When you incentivize them to continue being a part of the organization.
- Development: When you assist them to learn and grow within the organization.
- Separation: When they inevitably move on from the organization.
Think about it. What’s the one thing that’s common among all these stages? The interaction of the employee with the organization!
This means that each of these stages is an opportunity to leverage the interaction with the employee to further strengthen productivity, profits, and your Employer Brand.
And this can only be done by crafting employee engagement initiatives relevant to each stage of the lifecycle.
Here are a few insights to help you get started:
Attraction Stage:
This is where your Employer Brand makes its first impression on the candidate. And the two most crucial pillars of this first impression are having a well-defined Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and effective Employer Brand Communications.
A relevant EVP based on the desires of the employee market and its communication to the external world in effective ways — be it through your Careers page, social media, or PR — is core to engaging the potential talent with your brand.
Employee referrals can also help attract good-quality candidates. But remember, it all goes back to the potential applicants gauging your organization’s culture and reputation in the market. So having your employees be passionate advocates of the brand can go a long way.
Recruitment Stage:
This is when the candidate decides to apply to your organization. This means you have made the right first impression! Now is when you get to directly interact with the applicants.
Here, it is crucial that you personalize the engagements for each candidate. It can be as simple as personalizing mailers and as extensive as crafting a value proposition that will work best for them.
All in all, the best way to engage potential candidates during this stage is to be cognizant of their needs and discover how good a match they can be for your organization through open conversations.
Onboarding Stage:
This is when your organization and the employee have decided that this will be a good match! Now, it is your responsibility to engage them in ways that seamlessly invite them into the workplace while introducing them to the culture, mission, vision, and values of your brand.
It comes down to creating comprehensive and memorable ‘first touch’ experiences for the employee. From their first day at the virtual/physical/hybrid office to their initial interaction with their team
Any engagement initiative during this stage needs to be crafted to instill comfort, share information, and provide opportunities for peer interactions.
Retention Stage:
Now that you have successfully onboarded the employees, it is time to help them build a true connection with their team, their work, and the brand as a whole. So they feel good about making a long-standing commitment to the organization.
This is where your employee engagement strategies will need to revolve around reward and recognition, team building, and employee well-being initiatives.
Using surveys, polls, and frequent feedback can also help understand their needs and restructure your offerings to align with their expectations.
Development Stage:
Career growth prospects are one of the most important aspects of an employee’s work life. During this stage, employee engagement initiatives must focus on providing the right training, resources, and opportunities that help employees maintain their career trajectories and reach their short-term and long-term goals.
Providing mentorship programs, access to career coaches, and having a repository of skill-development materials can help you go beyond training sessions to instill a culture of learning and development.
This will also enable your employees to feel consistently engaged and motivated to deliver better results and innovate for the organization.
Separation Stage:
It is very important that the employee leaves the organization on a good note.
Having a good offboarding experience can help engage the employee during this last touchpoint. While sustaining the favorable impression of your employer brand.
Here, it becomes important to reflect on what went right and what went wrong so you can course correct. Also, do not forget about the employees who will be losing a teammate. Providing support to them during this transition will be essential.
Having a holistic Employee Engagement strategy that delivers for each of these lifecycle stages can help you build a truly engaged workforce. Who at all points feels connected with the brand and dedicates their full potential towards the work.
Do you think you have a suitable engagement plan in place?
Reach out to us at talktous@dfrens.com to asses and deliver on your transformation needs.
