The Employee Life Cycle

During an employee’s tenure in an organization, they may experience different situations or have varying demands—they may get promoted, apply for leave, or get transferred to another team, for instance. Clearly, hiring employees is just the tip of the iceberg. Managing them requires a lot more work.   In this episode, hosts Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham, along with Cloud Delivery Lead Nigel Wiltshire, take a closer look at the Employee Life Cycle, which pertains to how employee information, separation, and absence are dealt with.   Oracle MyLearn: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Oracle_Edu   Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode.   --------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript: 00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we’ll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let’s get started. 00:26 Lois: Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast. I’m Lois Houston, Director of Product Innovation and Go to Market Programs with Oracle University, and with me is Nikita Abraham, Principal Technical Editor. Nikita: Hi everyone! Last week, we spoke about the Applicant Life Cycle, which is the first in the overall HCM business process life cycle, with our Cloud Delivery Lead Nigel Wiltshire. Nigel joins us once again today to talk about the second life cycle, the Employee. 00:54 Lois: Right. And since we’re walking through HCM business processes, you might want to go back and listen to the last few episodes so you can get an idea of the big picture and the life cycles we’ve already discussed. Nigel, we’re so glad you’re back with us again this week. Thanks for agreeing to be our guide through this series. You know, I’ve never really thought about there being a “life cycle” for an employee. I’m an employee, but I just never really considered myself as part of a cycle. Can you tell us a little bit about how that’s defined? 01:23 Nigel: Hi, and thank you once again for inviting me to participate. To put it very simply, the Employee Life Cycle continues from where the Applicant Life Cycle ends, and encompasses all the tasks that are performed against the employee from start to finish. Nikita: Now when you say, “start to finish,” what exactly do you mean by that? Nigel: Well, the very last act performed in relation to an applicant is for Recruiting to pass the baton over to Human Resources, so that HR can officially create an employee record, and take care of all the needs and tasks associated with an employee. This will typically range from transferring or accepting all the relevant data from their applicant record, expanding that to include their Work Relationship, and managing their career changes. 02:04 Nikita: Sorry to interrupt, Nigel, but what is a “Work Relationship”? Nigel: For each employee, we need to create and maintain a relationship with the business. This serves a couple of purposes.  Firstly, it establishes which legal entity they belong to. A legal entity is the governing body that takes care of all the legislative rules and laws that affect the employee, and from the HR perspective, it is going to control such things as employment laws, working time directives, absence entitlements, and taxation, to list just a few. Secondly, we need to provide the employee with an assignment. This will indicate what their remit is within the organization and will record such details as their Job, Department, Location, Work Hours, Grade, Salary, and much more. Many smaller organizations will operate in a single legal entity, so managing this is not a huge piece of the puzzle, but for larger organizations, especially those that operate globally, this is a major aspect of the company setup. 03:00 Lois: I hadn’t really considered all of that before. Thanks for going through that, Nigel. So, now we have the employee on board. What processes does the Employee Life Cycle encompass? Nigel: Unlike the Applicant Life Cycle that we spoke about last week, which has only one process under it, there are three main processes in the Employee Life Cycle: Hire to Retire, Absence to Productivity, and Employee Separation to Workforce Analysis. 03:26 Nigel: Hire to Retire is the process that encompasses an employee’s whole career in an organization, from when they are hired to when they decide to leave. Of course, within that time frame there are many changes that occur, such as promotions, transfers, and general assignment changes, like a change in work hours, salary, line manager, terminations, to name just a few. A major aspect of this is the need to manage and maintain the organization structure so that reporting lines can be established, and for many larger organizations, this is a regular occurrence and therefore a major job for someone. 04:00 Nikita: OK, so that’s Hire to Retire. What’s Absence to Productivity? Nigel: Absence to Productivity is the process where employees take time away from work, which would mostly be due to vacation or personal time off, but would also incorporate other types of absence such as sickness, maternity, paternity, and jury service, again to name just a few. This process provides the framework and mechanism to record such absences and to monitor entitlements. It also goes as far as analysing the impact on the business and its operational effectiveness. Of course, we can’t always predict when somebody is going to be absent from work, but we can monitor trends and plan for an eventuality. Another aspect of this process comes from the “human” angle. For anybody that has been absent for a while due to illness, injury, or stress, there is a duty of care to help them return to work. This may involve finding the employee a different role within the organization, or simply to gradually introduce the employee back to work, maybe on a part time basis for a couple of weeks. 04:59 Nigel: The third and final process in the Employee Life Cycle is Employee Separation to Workforce Analysis. Now, although employee terminations are very much part of the “Hire to Retire” process, there is a much more robust and complex process that is usually put into place. So, you shouldn’t really think of it as simply the employee leaving and being replaced. Lois: What do you mean by that, Nigel? 05:20 Nigel: Lois, the manner in which the employee leaves is quite important. For instance, many organizations issue their employees with equipment, such as laptops and mobile phones, especially with a lot of employees working from home. So, we need a process that makes it quite clear as to how and when that will be returned. Lois: They could also have security badges and keys that need to be returned. Nigel: Exactly. And to deal with this, many organizations adopt an off-boarding process, which on the face of it is almost the reverse of the onboarding process the employee may well have been through. 05:49 Nikita: OK, that makes sense. And what happens after the employee leaves? Nigel: What happens? We are left with a gap in the workforce, and this vacancy may need to be filled. So, we would initiate a recruitment campaign and the Applicant Life Cycle would be triggered. Now, before a decision is made, many organizations go through a period of analysis to establish whether the employee does in fact need to be replaced. In some cases, it would be a “no brainer” based on the job the employee was performing, but in others it may be that a simple reorganization would fill the gap and negate the need to hire a new employee. So, like I said, it’s not often a simple case of employee leaves, employee gets replaced. 06:31 Have an idea for a new course or learning opportunity? We’d love to hear it! Visit the Oracle University Learning Community and share your thoughts with us. Your suggestion could find a place in future development projects. If you are already an Oracle MyLearn user, go to MyLearn to join the community. You will need to log in first. If you have not yet accessed Oracle MyLearn, visit mylearn.oracle.com and create an account to get started.  07:00 Nikita: Welcome back. Nigel, you’d mentioned that the hiring of an employee in included in the “Hire to Retire” process. But why would hiring an employee be part of this life cycle? Surely, that’s part of the Applicant Life Cycle, right? Nigel: Yeah, I can see how that could be confusing. It really boils down to an organization’s processes. A lot of larger organizations will have a dedicated recruitment team who will most likely use an applicant tracking system to manage their recruitment campaigns. And as I was saying earlier, the final act would be to hand over the successful application to the HR team, who will take it from there. In that regard, the “onboarding” of the employee, which could be seen as part of the Applicant Life Cycle, is often set and monitored by the HR team. What we also have to consider is that smaller organizations may not have the luxury of having a recruitment team, nor have the resources at their disposal, such as an applicant tracking system. Therefore, the whole process of recruiting is swallowed up within the HR team’s process. However, the fundamentals will be the same: recruit, onboard employee, manage employment, terminate, etc.  08:04 Lois: Let’s move on to some more specifics about an employee record. For instance, some organizations recognize and measure employee seniority. Why do employers do this and how does it affect the employee? Nigel: Great question, Lois. Measuring seniority is a way for the employer to keep track of how long an employee has been in a given situation. This mostly involves measuring the number of years and months from when the employee is hired. The reason why they do this can be varied, but a couple of examples of this would be things like bonuses and vacation, i.e., the amount that you are entitled to could depend on how long you have been with the organization. Some organizations also like to track when the employee started so that they can recognize loyalty and provide the employee with a thank you gift at certain increments such as 5, 10, 25 years. 08:50 Nikita: So, other than measuring seniority from the employee’s start date, are there any other times an organization would start counting? Nigel: Absolutely. Some organizations like to know how long somebody has been in a particular role.  For example, an employee may have been at the company for 25 years (so that would be one continuous seniority period), and within that time they may have moved jobs two or three times, therefore, additional periods of seniority would be measured for each role performed. 09:17 Nigel: In addition to that, some organizations recognize previous service as part of the employee’s seniority. For example, let’s say the employee has recently joined the organization. You would think that their seniority would be quite low, but they also served 10 years with the organization previously, which is also being taken into account. Now the impact could be that their entitlements, bonuses, and so on are set at the level of a 10-year employee, instead of an employee who has literally just joined the organization. 09:44 Lois: So, bridging their service to include previous employment there. That makes sense. OK, I’d like to explore one of the other processes you mentioned a little further – Employee Separation to Workforce Analysis. In particular, the Workforce Analysis part. Can you tell us what this is and why it’s so important? Nigel: For an organization to be effective, we need to protect its operational capabilities. This can come in many forms, including equipment maintenance, fire and emergency procedures, and also staffing levels. No point having equipment if there’s nobody to operate it, right? 10:19 Nigel: So, workforce analysis is a process that will allow the organization to establish the optimal numbers to run each part of the business effectively and efficiently. It also goes some way to work out how the organization should be structured so that they can deploy employees for optimal productivity. The reason why this process is associated with Employee Separation, is to allow for the analysis of “why” people are leaving. Of course, there will be a certain amount of attrition based on reasons like retirement and redundancies, which, in the main, can be predicted, but what about the ad hoc leavers? It’s a good idea to identify why they are leaving as it may highlight certain flaws in the organization, its processes, or even its management structure, which can be addressed and hopefully, plugged. A lot of organizations achieve this by conducting exit interviews as part of the employee’s off-boarding process. 11:08 Nigel: This process can also be closely linked to the Absence processes so that we can monitor why people are absent. Now, I’m not talking about absences due to entitlement, such as vacation, or absences that can’t be predicted, such as jury service or bereavement. I’m mostly referring to absences due to sickness. Again, it’s not always possible to predict these, but it’s possible to spot trends, and cater to these accordingly. For instance, most people tend to catch a cold and flu during the winter months. Therefore, if this is the case with your organization, steps can be taken to ensure the company remains operational, which may involve being prepared to hire temporary staff. It is also possible to see from the data, how the virus is spreading across the organization and to put measures in place, such as the provision of hand sanitizer. 11:52 Nikita: On the face of it, it sounds like there are a ton of tasks that need to be performed just to keep an employee’s record up to date. Surely this is not all done by one person. Nigel: I guess that would depend on the size of the organization and the complexity of the processes they adopt, but generally, there are three main roles that play their part in the Employee Life Cycle. First and foremost, we have the HR Specialist. This person is an expert who has the skills, knowledge, and experience to maintain employee records and ensure that all necessary processes are launched, monitored, and run as smoothly as possible. They are the intermediary between the employee and the business, and ensure everybody is happy. 12:29 Lois: So they’re a generalist who does everything? Nigel: There are some processes that require a little more specialized knowledge and skills, so it is not uncommon to have specific HR Specialists looking after specific parts of the employee record. A classic example of this is the Payroll Administrator whose knowledge of payroll is very specialized. 12:48 Nigel: Then there’s the employee’s Line Manager. Over the last couple of decades, line managers have increasingly become more involved with the management and maintenance of employee records. Of course, they would not have the knowledge and years of experience that an HR Specialist would have, but would perform simple tasks such as approving an employee vacation request or interviewing potential employees. Over the years, as more and more people become savvy with technology, we have seen this role become more and more involved, to the point where some of the HR tasks are now the responsibility of the line manager, such as initiating promotions, transfers, terminations, salary changes, and many more. This frees up a lot of the HR Specialist’s time to concentrate on more specialized tasks. 13:31 Nigel: And last but certainly not least, the Employee themselves take some responsibility. At the end of the day, HR mostly centers around employee data. Therefore, very much like the line manager role, the employee increasingly is required to take responsibility for that data. Therefore, it is not uncommon these days for employees to enter and update certain data, such as change of address, addition of emergency contacts, absence requests and withdrawals, and many more tasks, which, again, frees up the HR Specialist’s time for more complex tasks. 14:00 Lois: Like I inferred at the beginning, there’s certainly a lot more to this life cycle than it appears on the surface. We just show up to do our work, but there’s a lot happening behind the scenes to track and manage our employment. We’re not even aware of this sometimes. Nigel: Exactly, Lois. 14:16 Nikita: Thank you, Nigel, for your insights into the Employee Life Cycle. To learn more about HCM business processes, visit mylearn.oracle.com. Lois: Yes, and you should definitely consider catching up on the previous episodes of this season so you’ll get the full picture of the business processes for HCM. And don’t forget to join us again next week, where we will be introducing the Reward Life Cycle. So much good stuff. Until then, this is Lois Houston… Nikita: And Nikita Abraham, signing off! 14:45 That’s all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We’d also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.