1. ELSAM MANAGEMENTCONSULTANTS
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Understanding Employment Cycle
Abstract
Recruitment cycle entails the process of attracting, screening and selection of
qualified candidates for required position in the organization. However, the
employment cycle is much detailed to include both recruitment and
termination process. This article provides basic understanding of the
employment cycle for every manager since every manager is a human resource
manager by using people to achieve business objectives.
Introduction
Employment cycle is not only the responsibility of the Human Resource
Management and the staff of Human Resource department but also every
manager in an organization. It involves all the stages that an employee’s career
passes through as they progress in terms of their employment in the
organization. It includes human resource planning, recruitment, selection,
induction, training and development, maintenance and motivation, finally
termination or separation. Human resource manager has to play the duty to
put a system that monitors all these stages for the benefit of the employees
own career and organization at large. In developing various policies and
procedures associated with employment cycle, Human ResourceManager will
take into account established principles of business ethics of social
responsibility, alsoshould take into account specific obligations and
responsibilities that arise out of the relationship between employees and the
employer in the employment cycle. The employment cycle involves six major
steps such as planning, recruitment and selection; induction, training and
development; maintenance and motivation; and termination or separation.
Human Resource Planning

2. Under this, the Human resource manager is required to plan in advance for the
needs of the organization. The planning includes how many employees needed,
when will they be needed, for how long will they be needed, what skills do they
need to have, also rate of payment and terms and conditions of their
employment.
Recruitment and Selection
The following step after planning is selection process which includes selection
criteria, testing, and selection of interview area, interview, discussion,
selection, referee check and letters mainly for feedback to the prospective
candidates. When the selection process is done then the recruitment process
proceed, where the Human resource will do the screening process to the
application and pick the prospective candidates, then call them for interview.
When the interview process is done the prospective candidates will be called to
discuss the renumeration, employment contracts and other agreements. It is
important to notice that the major failure of most organization is the result of
poor recruitment and selection process. The due diligence process should be
followed in order to avoid such pitfall by ensuring that each step involved in the
process is logically and accurately followed.
Induction, Training and Development
Under induction process, the mentor will be appointed who will be dealing with
orientation and familiarization to the employee prior to starting the job.
Training and development may take place to enhance personal performance, it
may be in-house or outsource training which tends to improve employees
performance and promotion while at job. Care should be taken during the
induction process by ensuring appropriate checklist have been developed to
ensure that both the mentor and new employee has understood the job
requirement and details.
Maintenance and Motivation
Human resource manager will need to motivate the employee for the initial
reason of maintain him/her in the employment within the organization this will
be possible by clearly establishing the needs of the employee and understand
how to meet those needs in a goal congruent manner.
Termination or Separation
The employee will tend to leave his/her employment either voluntarily or
involuntarily due to either of the following processes; retrenchment,

3. redundancy, retirement, resignation, dismissal and death or disability.
Regardless of these reasons the management has to follow the legislative
procedures when terminating an employee’s employment or employee leaving
the job voluntarily. Care should be taken to understand the provisions of labor
law in order to avoid embarrassment of unfair termination. Internal and
external communication will help to avoid most imminent pitfalls.
Prepared by Grace Godfrey, Business Consultant at Elsam Management Consultants. You may
contact her for more details through grace@elsamconsult.com