The employee lifecycle is the set of stages a person moves through with an employer, usually attraction, recruiting, onboarding, development, retention and separation. Each stage has its own legal deadlines and its own records to keep.
| Stage | A useful measure | A legal duty in this stage |
|---|---|---|
| Attraction and recruiting | Applicants per opening, time to fill | Consistent, job-related hiring criteria |
| Onboarding | Days to first solo shift | Form I-9 Section 2 within 3 business days, new hire report within 20 days |
| Development | Skills certified per quarter | Pay any required training time as hours worked |
| Retention | 90-day and 12-month turnover | Accurate time records, overtime, leave laws |
| Separation | Exit survey themes | Final pay on time under state law |
The employee onboarding process guide covers the stage most companies get wrong, and turnover rate shows how to measure retention.
EZTime digital HR forms let you send, sign and file employee documents online.
A commercial cleaning company with 150 employees hires 60 people in a year. Of these, 21 leave within 90 days, a 90-day turnover of 21 / 60 = 35%. People who stay past 90 days rarely leave in the first year.
The data points to onboarding, not pay. Exit notes show the same story: new hires were sent to a site alone on day two, without knowing the building or the checklist.
The company adds two shadow shifts with an experienced cleaner, a site checklist on the phone and a check-in call at day 30. The next year it hires 55 people and 9 leave within 90 days, about 16%. The legal steps in onboarding, the I-9 and the new hire report, did not change. The experience around them did.
The lifecycle model only helps when each stage has a named owner and one or two measures that are reviewed on a schedule. In a small business the owner may be the same person for several stages, which is fine as long as the measures still get looked at.
| Stage | Typical owner | Review |
|---|---|---|
| Recruiting | Hiring manager with HR | Time to fill each month |
| Onboarding | Site manager | 90-day turnover each quarter |
| Development | Team lead | Skills certified each quarter |
| Retention | Site manager with HR | 12-month turnover and exit themes |
| Separation | HR or payroll | Final pay on time, every case |
Keep one record that follows the employee through every stage, so the hiring source, onboarding dates, training and exit reason can be connected later. That is how you learn which recruiting sources produce people who stay.
A home care agency hires 80 caregivers a year from three sources: online job ads, employee referrals and a local training school.
When it links hiring source to 12-month retention, referrals stay longest: 14 of 20 referral hires are still there after a year, compared with 18 of 40 hires from online ads. The agency adds a referral bonus paid after 90 days and shifts part of its online ad budget to it. The exit interview questions it asks leavers now include where they first heard about the job.
Usually attraction, recruitment, onboarding, development, retention and separation.
It shows each stage as a process with its own measures and legal duties, so you can find where people are lost.
It depends on where you lose people. For many hourly employers, it is onboarding, because many leave in the first 90 days.
Some models add an alumni stage, because former employees can refer candidates or come back.
HR usually owns the model, but each stage needs an operational owner, such as the hiring manager for recruiting and the site manager for onboarding.
Track exit reasons, whether final pay was on time, and whether leavers would recommend the company or come back.
Digital HR forms, e-signatures and a digital employee file with expiry reminders, plus announcements by location, department or role.