Imagine your company is a planet, populated by your workforce. And I am one of billions of inter-planetary space travellers looking for a planet to settle on and work.

Your planet is broadcasting signals, sending people into space and establishing satellite outposts to try and persuade other travellers to trade with it, or come and settle.

I pick up some of your broadcasts, speak to some of your people – or other travellers who’ve visited or traded with your planet – and form a favourable impression of your planet (brand). I move into orbit and notice that some of your signals are appealing to me to come and work on your planet (talent brand).

I decide to enter your atmosphere. My journey to your planet could be quick and smooth (my recruitment experience); or it could be bumpy and take ages – to the point that I might have second thoughts, fire my rocket boosters and go to explore other planets instead.

If I do land on your planet, I am greeted by a welcoming committee (onboarding experience). Then I am sent to work on part of your planet. I might move around a bit to different areas and do different things with a variety of your citizens (work experience).

At some point you are either going to ask me to leave if you no longer need my skills and expertise, banish me for doing something wrong or failing to perform, or I’m going to pick up signals from another planet that seems more appealing and decide to blast off (leaving experience).

As I travel through space I will tell the people I meet about your planet, or I may even start broadcasting my own signals about my experience.

In short, my experience of your world has been coloured by everything from those first signals I picked up to how you dealt with me when I was leaving.

Now let’s consider who and what is responsible for my impression along each step of my journey:

Brand	Marketing, advertising, PR, websites, branches, employees, former employees, customers and former customers
Talent Brand	HR, recruiters, careers website, recruitment advertising, employees and former employees, social media, word of mouth, etc
Recruitment experience	Careers website, HR, social media presence, job boards, employee referrals, recruitment agencies, outsourced providers, university careers offices, etc
Onboarding experience	HR, L&D, line manager, colleagues, intranet, senior leaders, IT/facilities, etc
Work experience	Line manager, colleagues, functional/department head, HR, L&D, senior leaders, Finance, IT/Facilities, internal communications,
Leaving experience	Line manager, colleagues, HR, PR/news.social media

 

All of these elements contribute to the employee lifecycle experience, but there is no single owner of the experience who can manage it all. In fact, in my experience, different stakeholders in the employee lifecycle provide employees with very different – even contradictory – experiences. These range from the original promises made to candidates versus the actual work experience; to the official ‘corporate’ induction process versus the line manager’s induction process.

Therefore, to manage and control the process as effectively as possible – to stand the best chance of creating a long-lasting and positive experience for both the organisation and the employee – doesn’t it make sense for each stakeholder to draw on a common, underlying employment value proposition?

If such a thing were to exist in the organisation, and all the stakeholders attempted to create an experience for employees based on its principles, then greater alignment would exist between the promise makers (branding and recruitment efforts) and the promise keepers (HR, line managers and fellow employees).