The employees are the most important resources of any organisation without which an organisation cannot achieve its goals. The employees are the only active resource of an organisation without which other resources like land, computers, vehicles among others are inactive. The other resources cannot act on their own towards achieving goals of an organisation. It is the employees who apply the inactive resources in various proportions that lead to the achievement of goals of a given organisation. The employees therefore play a key in the success of any organisation. They are the ones that link the organisation with the outside world. They are the ones who build good business relationship with customers and other key stakeholders that make the organisation achieve its goals. It is important to note that employees join the organisation through a recruitment process and they do not to stay in the organisation for ever as time comes when they have to leave. Does the process matter at all? Yes the process matters for the success of an organisation. It is the process of attracting, developing and retaining employees until they leave an organisation that enhances its capacity to succeed in a competitive world. It is important therefore for management to appreciate the importance of employee life cycle of in organisation in order to remain competitive. The employee life cycle within a given organisation includes the following 6 important stages.
Attracting employees
Good quality employees do not simply work to any organisation looking for employment. They are attracted by organisations. Successful organisations have deliberate strategies of attracting good quality staff to join them. Attractive organisations have invested in building their good image and they also offer a competitive incentive package that enhances its capacity in attracting potential employees. Therefore attracting employees is a deliberate effort and cannot be left to chance.
Selecting the good employees
Selecting right employees among the many that have applied is not quite easy for any organisation. It is highly likely for an organisation to select mediocre staff if the selection process is not properly planned. An organisation must have an effective process of identifying and selecting the right staff from among the many that have applied for advertised jobs. The first step is to prepare a short list using a short listing criteria developed based on job specification for the advertised vacancies. The short listing process should be managed by competent and qualified staff and not simply left to junior staff without any close supervision. It is the candidates on the short list that are subjected to further interview process. Why bother so much about the interview process? It is the interview process that helps an organisation to identify those staff with talents that will it enable it to achieve its goals. The interview process should help an organisation in identifying talents or lack of talents in candidates. The aim is to select candidates that are talented. It is no longer adequate to base the interview process only on the job application and accompanying curriculum vitae. The candidates may leave out vital information in the application. An organisation should therefore have a comprehensive staff selection process that meets its requirements.
Transitional period
The first few days a new employee is with an organisation is very important. It is during this period when a new employee is introduced to an organisation’s culture and way of working. The new employees have to be inducted into a new organisation. The period of induction should vary from organisation to organisation depending on their size and complexity. The induction could take a few hours in case of small organisations or a number of days for big organisations. The big organisation should have a formal induction program that normally takes a number of days to roll out. Some good new staff may leave the organisation during this period if it is poorly managed.
Measuring employee performance
Employees are recruited by an organisation to help it in achieving its goals and objectives. The continued existence of an employee in an organisation therefore depends on the contribution of that employee to the achievement of the goals of an organisation. An organisation must therefore have a reliable tool to measure employees’ contribution to an organisation in order to avoid disagreements that may lead to good employees leaving an organisation. The employees that consistently meet their targets through a reliable measurement tool should be encouraged to stay in an organisation. This means those that are not consistently meeting their performance goals must be advised to leave the organisation. It is frustrating to performing staff if the organisation does not perform optimally because of existence of non-performing staff in the team.
Development of staff
The performance of staff depends on their capacity to perform given activities in accordance with guidelines spelt out by an organisation. Staff can only perform if they are given the skills to perform the assigned tasks through a capacity enhancement program. Capacity to perform is not always given, it has to be developed. An organisation must therefore develop its employees if it has to remain competitive on the market. An effective capacity building program can be both internally and externally rolled out. The internal program may include class room type of training in addition to on job training. The internal program is always supported by externally arranged training program that enable employees to exchange ideas with other participants from other organisations.
Staff leaving the organisation
Time comes when existing staff have to leave an organisation one by one for a number of reasons. Does it matter when employees leave an organisation? Yes it matters because it is very expensive to recruit and develop staff and then let them go. An organisation may fail to achieve its goals because of departure of well developed staff. Therefore the departure of staff from any organisation for whatever reasons have to be properly managed as it may have an impact on the performance of an organisation. The staff leaving the organisation have to be taken through the employee exit process that includes the holding of formal exit interviews. The exit interview is necessary in obtaining the actual reason the staff is leaving the organisation with the aim of taking corrective action basing on the results of the interview. The departure of a key staff quite often calls for commencement of the recruitment process to identify a new employee that will fill the vacant position.
Author
John Muhaise Bikalemesa
Director: Big Drum Advisory Services Limited
johnmuhaisebikalemesa@yahoo.com
