Employee Life Cycle approach in managing the HR function will help us create a business case for effective management and resource allocation for the function . At an organizational level it will help us to present a robust model for the function and explain neatly how best HR could be aligned to various business processes. Thus it enables us to take both a micro and macro view of the HR function & business and create focused linkages between the two. Employee life cycle would encompass all the activities associated with the employee’s tenure in the organization from selection , recruitment , on boarding , development , learning and separation . In fact our blog is based on the principle of viewing and managing the HR function from an Employee Life Cycle (ELC)point of view. For an HR practitioner this approach can be a vital tool to determine the kind of inputs that need to be given to the employee based on the stage in the employee life cycle to ensure his/ her optimum performance, maintain motivation levels and ensure that suitable developmental inputs are given to the individual. Of course in larger organizations it might be difficult to give individualized attention and there invariably large scale systems driven initiatives would be useful in creating or providing inputs to the employees using an Employee Life Cycle(ELC) approach. There are both individual and organization specific factors that affect the nature of initiatives and inputs using the Life Cycle approach .The individual specific factors are :
- Demographic profile i.e. details like age , gender etc
- Educational qualifications
- Tenure in the organization
- General aspiration and engagement levels
The organization specific factors that affect the Life cycle approach are :
- Nature of the industry
- Stage of the organization
- Organizational goals – long and short term goals
- Socio economic conditions
- Percentage of jobs , roles that can be categorized as bulk jobs ie that are done by majority of employees i.e. a sales driven organizations , organization having maximum programmer/software developers , organization with a majority percentage of employees involved in the manufacturing process
| Individual specific factors | Organization specific factors |
|
Demographic profile |
Nature of the industry |
| Educational qualifications | Stage of the organization |
| Tenure in the organization | Organizational goals – long and short term goals |
|
General aspiration and engagement levels |
Prevalent Socio economic conditions |
| Highest concentration of jobs in a particular category |
Table 1
The Employee Life Cycle is to be used in any organization keeping the individual and organization specific factors in mind . In a large MNC it can be used to draw a region specific plan followed by country and unit specific plan . The priorities and variables might change from region to region but the key drivers and philosophy behind the initiatives would be largely uniform and driven by the core thought processes prevalent in the organization and the HR function .In the ITES/BPO /IT industry in India characterized by a projectised environment , relatively younger workforce who can be easily molded and trained the Employee Life Cycle(ELC) approach calls for a unique set of initiatives and processes. The HR strategy and approach has to be designed in such a way that it should ensure steady sourcing amidst the high attrition rates, evolution of industry specific employee engagement activities , launching various platforms for quick recognition , keeping compensation and other benefits competitive et al .
At this juncture we posit a model based on the Employee Life Cycle and Organizational Life Stage . We propose that different Organizational Life Stages call for varied interventions at each stage of the ELC. The table below further explains this comment .
Employee Life Cycle and Organizational Life Stage Model
| ELC Stages | Emerging organization | Mature organization |
|
Recruitment |
Maximum thrust |
Moderate thrust |
|
On Boarding |
Extremely crucial activity that is being defined |
Established activity |
|
Retention |
To evolve individual and sometimes organization specific initiatives |
Systemic initiatives for retention |
|
Development |
Evolve individual specific plans . Plan and implement the approach for developmental activities |
Use of more sophisticated systems and existence of a well defined philosophy |
|
Analytics |
Importance to base level metrics i.e. number of hires vis a vis applicants |
*Metrics defined for all ELC stages *Use of more advanced measurement systems |
Table II
Thus the ELC approach is both a well planned and flexible route that can add great value to the organization . It is the HR practitioner’s and organization’s viewpoint that can help yield greater or leaser value with the aid of this approach . We can add rigor to the model with a) live examples from a cross section of the industry b)link the interventions to the actual value they are able to bring to the create – both tangible and intangible c)make a conscious use of the model in the planning and budgeting phase .
The HR architecture would thus be vastly different in a mature organization as compared to an emerging organization as the Employee Life Cycle stages would vary a lot and hence the building blocks of the HR framework would be different . The importance given to each stage of the Employee Life Cycle would vary depending on the organizational stage. A start up would demand lot of importance to the recruitment and selection stage whilst a more mature organization with a stable recruitment process will imply that adequate attention is given to the retention and employee development stage. The Industry Life Cycle too will affect the functioning of the Employee Life cycle. When the industry as such is going through the throes of change the organization and consequently the HR function too has to realign its focus and provide employees with the tools to operate in the New World . A good example to prove this point would be the case of all the old economy companies in post liberalization India(after 1991). In all the traditional growth sectors like pharmaceutical , automobile etc there was a huge thrust on Change management with BPR(Business Process Reengineering ) , TQM(Total Quality Management ) , Downsizing/ Rightsizing being the order of the day and thus the focus of HR shifted to employee communication , learning and development and closely partnering businesses to implement the change initiatives . Thus a whole host of internal and extraneous factors have the potential to shape the Employee Life Cycle approach. Further the ITES(IT enabled services) sector HR practices and approach would be different from Old Economy companies . Thus both the nature of the industry and the organizational life cycle would affect the functioning of Employee Life Cycle approach.
The Employee Life Cycle approach is an effective way to delineate even complex HR processes and strategy . All the HR initiatives and goals can be categorized under the various stages of the Employee Life cycle . This will act as a ready reckoner to indicate the kind of resources , time, energy we plan to spend on the various stages . It will further help us evolve a focused HR plan and align that plan with speed to the larger organizational goals . The ELC approach is very dynamic and open to imbibe and implement various influences. Hence it becomes a very practical tool for the HR practitioner to capture the external forces, organizational stimuli and link them to the overall HR strategy .
AV
No Comments Yet
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
