The Employee Lifecycle: 10 Moments That Need Modern Agreement Tools

Throughout an employee’s career at an organization, they will have several critical touch points with their employer. Each moment in the employee lifecycle is documented with an agreement that updates the ever-changing details of that relationship. 

Human resources teams are the gatekeepers of these documents. Since the most important moments of an employee’s career at a company involve completing paperwork, the systems and processes used to manage these documents can have a critical impact on the employee experience. 

A smooth, well-integrated agreement platform is an opportunity to give employees incredible experiences that can improve their satisfaction and solidify their commitment to an organization. In this post, we’ll discuss 10 important moments in the employee lifecycle that can be improved with modern HR technology.

Offer letters

A digital offer letter is an easy way to show new employees that your company is committed to modern technology. Early HR interactions are critical moments to establish a relationship with new members of the team and show them that their organization will make their professional life less messy. When companies use responsive signing to make it simple to agree to a job offer from any device, they demonstrate to prospective employees that they’ll be easy to work for.

New hire paperwork

In the period between offer letter completion and a new employee’s first day on the job, there are several critical documents that need to be distributed and, in some cases, returned. For example, employers may choose to have W-2 and I-9 forms filled out via eSignature before an employee starts working. New hires also need to receive instructions about what to do and expect on the first day. These documents need to be easy for employees to find, read and return if needed.

Onboarding documentation

For any employee, the first day of work is full of paperwork and administrative minutia. On average, each new hire is assigned 3 documents and 41 tasks to complete. Each of those documents needs to be signed, uploaded, stored and located again. That’s a lot of possibilities for a bad experience or mistake. To win over new employees, onboarding needs to be as simple and fast as possible.

Benefits selection

HR teams owe it to their employees to provide a transparent, clear benefits selection process. Choosing the correct insurance plans, retirement contributions and more can be a stressful time. Employees need clear guidance about their options in order to make confident choices. They also need a simple means of locating documentation about these benefits at all times. This is not only a concern for new hires, it’s also critical during open enrollment periods. PowerForms are an easy way for HR teams to give employees on-demand, self-service documents for key benefits decisions.

Role-specific training

One of the best ways to make an impression on new employees is in their initial on-the-job training. They’ll need access to team-specific documents as well as general company wide information. Delivering an organized set of relevant documents to new workers will improve their productivity and get them off on the right foot in their first few days and weeks on the job.

Employee goal setting

Part of any company’s routine documentation efforts for new employees is agreeing to certain goals for their professional development. A common example of this is sales professionals agreeing to quarterly or annual sales targets, but employees on every team commit to certain achievements. To make goals better for employees, the documentation needs to be easy to find and also connected to the systems the employees work in so progress can be constantly monitored. HR teams can use templates to help employees across all teams commit to more standardized goals with increased visibility.

Performance review

Once the employee goals have been set and they’ve been given the chance to meet them, it’s time to review the progress they made. While some organizations do a broad performance review annually, others might conduct the same process at different intervals. When conducting performance review, employees and their managers need clear visibility into personal and team commitments as well as results. These performance review documents serve employees best when they are integrated into other HR platforms including human capital management and compensation tools.

Salary/bonus adjustments

Throughout an employee’s career at a company, their compensation will change. They may earn significant raises or bonuses or just earn an annual adjustment increase. When these adjustments happen, the employee will need to agree to the new compensation package and wait for final signoff from management. When this process happens quickly, employees can receive recognition for good work faster.

Ongoing policy updates

There are a wide range of circumstances that may require communication from a central HR team to individual employees. Sometimes these updates require employees to take action in response. A generic, one-size-fits-all message is often easy to misunderstand or overlook. To deliver the most employee-friendly policy updates, HR teams need a bulk send function that allows them to filter messages based on relevant criteria and integrate with other systems to add information to make the messages more personalized.

Exit process

Whether it’s by choice or as the result of a layoff, no employee wants their exit from a company to be confusing or drawn out. The best way to provide a positive experience at the end of an employee’s time with an organization is to have all of the appropriate paperwork organized into one place for easy reference and completion. By tracking which documents the employee has received and which meetings they have completed in a central location, HR teams can make the exit process as positive as possible.

Read Improving Agreements Throughout the Employee Lifecycle to learn more about how today’s HR teams are using connected agreement technology to improve experiences from hire to retire.