From the start of employment to the end of employment. It is a process that can vary infinitely, but common to all of them is that there is a starting point and an ending point.
Therefore, you might as well make it a pleasant journey for everyone. This can be used for well-planned HR processes. They can help you attract the right candidates, ensure high employee satisfaction and retention, support professional and organizational development, and increase productivity.
Employees who enjoy their jobs perform better. They are also more loyal, willing to stay in the job for longer, and then they speak well of it to others. Supporting this well-being by ensuring a good employee journey from start to finish is therefore good business for you and your company.
But what phases do employees go through in the company, and how can HR be of help? You can divide it into many steps, but for the sake of clarity, we have mapped the employee journey down to six overall phases.
1. Candidate attraction
Attracting candidates is important for any company, but it must also be the right candidates. That effort already starts with your employer branding and with the content on your website and career page. And the effort can be strengthened by targeting job advertisements, sharpening job descriptions, narrowing down job titles and by making judicious use of platforms, channels and job agents. In this way, the candidate has a better opportunity to sort through his job search, but also a better opportunity to write a good application that meets your needs.
2. Recruitment
A successful recruitment process can ensure that you attract and hire the right candidates for the relevant positions. If your HR processes do not support recruitment, it can lead to losing qualified candidates or hiring the wrong people for the job. In addition, the screening and interview process must be pleasant for all parties, and the entire process must be knitted together so that not too much time elapses from the application deadline to the invitation to interview to the employment contract being signed. It is a process with many stages, and HR is here with useful knowledge when a well-functioning recruitment process needs to be put together.
3. Onboarding
A good onboarding should ensure that your new employees get a good start in the company. This can be through a gradual introduction to the workplace, colleagues and work tasks. This can be by the manager setting up relevant user systems and obtaining the necessary access before the first working day. And it can be by implementing a buddy or mentoring scheme in the workplace, so that the new employee always has a contact person to go to in case of questions or other issues.
4. Development and Talent Management
Once the employee has settled into the job and the daily routine, you should give them the opportunity to develop skills and competencies in line with the company's goals and needs. Here, HR can help provide an overview of the organization. Which qualifications do you need to develop further, and are there areas of responsibility that call for specialization? You can possibly make a development plan together with the employee, where you talk about opportunities for further education in the form of courses, certifications, or other things. This makes it clear to the employee that there is a future in the company, which increases employee retention. It is also the next item on the list.
5. Retention
A core task for managers as well as HR employees is retaining the employees who create value in the company on a daily basis. There is no doubt that today's workplace has changed quite a bit in a few years and the need for flexibility and homework has increased significantly. It is important that one's HR processes follow the development and that the company has its finger on the pulse in relation to the employee's needs. Here, HR can support the process by setting clear expectations and goals and giving employees the tools to fulfill these. In addition, it is also important to support the developments the employee goes through during his time at the workplace; whether it is maternity or sick leave or a new position in the organization. It helps to ensure that the employee feels prepared for their next phase of the journey.
In addition, well-being measurements are important for employee retention, as they can give companies a deeper insight into employee well-being and satisfaction with their work. Your HR processes must thus be able to support an anonymous collection of feedback from your employees, a secure storage of the data and the possibility to act on the measurement.
6. Offboarding
All employment ends at one point or another. Here there are both legal and administrative matters that must be taken care of. Access to the company's systems must be closed, tasks must be handed over, and an assessment may need to be made of how the departing employee can be replaced. It is important to ensure that the knowledge and experience the employee has acquired is not lost.
From start to finish, HR can support the employee journey and create a coherent and positive experience for the benefit of employees as well as managers – and thus also the company.
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