The Employee Lifecycle: 10 Moments That Need Modern Agreement Tools

Digitise the employee lifecycle with modern HR technology - 10 important moments that can be improved with digital HR solutions.

The employee lifecycle covers the full relationship between an organisation and each employee. Throughout an employee's lifecycle with an organisation, there are several critical touchpoints, and each of those moments requires documentation that updates the details of the relationship between employer and employee. The human resources team are the gatekeeper of those documents and employee lifecycle management should be prioritised. The most important moments of an employee's career involves having to complete paperwork, and how the process is managed can really affect the employee experience.

A well-integrated agreement platform can help provide better experiences through the most important moments of someone's career. Here are 10 important moments in the employee lifecycle that digital HR can improve:

Employee Offer letters

When companies use responsive signing to make it simple for employees to agree to a job offer from any device, they demonstrate that they'll be easy to work for. Providing a new employee with a digital offer letter is an easy way to show that your company is committed to modern technology and early HR interactions provide key moments to establish a positive relationship with new members of a team.

New employee paperwork

In the time between offer letter completion and a new employee's first day at work, there are several critical documents that need to be completed. 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 and it's also helpful for HR teams to be able to onboard employees remotely.

Onboarding documentation

For most employees, the first day of work is full of paperwork and administrative tasks. On average, each new hire is assigned 3 documents and 41 tasks to complete. Each document needs to be signed, uploaded, stored and located again - that's a lot of possibilities for a bad experience but digital onboarding can make the experience as simple and fast as possible.

Benefits selection

Pensions, insurances and other benefits are important to employees. HR teams owe it to their employees to provide a transparent benefits process. Employees need a simple means of locating documentation about these benefits when they need them most. This is also critical for new hires and during open enrolment periods for benefits too. 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 organised set of relevant documents to new workers will get them off to a great start and help to improve their productivity in their first few days and weeks on the job.

Employee goal-setting

Part of any great company's routine for new employees is agreeing to goals for their professional development. A common example of this is sales professionals agreeing to quarterly or annual sales targets, but it's beneficial for employees from every team to commit to achievements. To make goals better for employees, the documentation needs to be easy to locate and integrated into the systems that employees already work in so progress can be constantly monitored. HR teams can use templates to help employees across all teams commit to goals with increased visibility. Digital tools help to engage employees in the goal-setting process.

Performance review

Once the employee goals have been set and they've been given a chance to meet them, it's time to review the progress they made. While some organisations do a broad performance review annually, others might conduct theirs monthly or quarterly. When conducting a performance review, employees and their managers need clear visibility into personal and team commitments and results. These performance review documents serve employees best when integrated into other HR platforms.

Salary/bonus adjustments

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

Ongoing policy updates

There is a wide range of circumstances that may require communication from a central HR team to individual employees. Sometimes these updates need 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 filters messages based on relevant criteria and integrates with other systems to add information to make the messages more personalised.

Exit process and The Great Resignation

Around the world and in the UK workers are quitting their jobs in record numbers, the phenomenon is being dubbed 'The Great Resignation'. The UK Office of National of Statistics found that job-to-job moves reached a record high in the UK between October and December 2021 - driven by resignations. There are several reasons for this trend, but one of them is working remotely. A Microsoft Work Trend Index suggests that 70% of workers want to be able to continue to work remotely beyond the pandemic.

However, whether it is 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 organisation is to have all of the appropriate paperwork organised 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. Of course, providing positive employee experiences can hopefully help prevent resignations.

Read our HR Guide to Managing the Hybrid Workforce to learn more about the opportunity hybrid working offers for organisations to streamline their own technology.