The Critical Role of Leave in Building a Strong Employee Lifecycle
In the intricate dance of the employee lifecycle, key milestones often dominate the headlines. For the sake of the Google algorithm and just to make sure we’re on the same page, the seven stages of the employee lifecycle are typically viewed as the following:
Of course, all of these stages are well and good and should be given ample attention, but there’s one significant part of the employee lifecycle that lurks in the shadows until it rears its head in a major way.
A leave of absence.
Whether it’s for the birth of a child, recovering from a serious illness, or taking care of a loved one, a leave of absence is often needed for one of the most pivotal times, not just in an employee’s tenure at your organization, but in their entire lives.
How an organization handles such events can make or break the employee experience, leaving a lasting impression that defines how connected and valued employees feel and rendering the ways in which the other lifecycle stages are managed insignificant.
Why Leave Management is a Crucial Touchpoint
During a leave of absence, employees are not merely stepping away from their daily tasks. Oftentimes they’re navigating significant life changes and frequently they’re doing so for the first time.
These moments can run the gamut of emotions for your employees. From excitement to devastation to utter confusion. The truth is that these moments amplify how employees perceive their organization’s care, empathy, and efficiency.
Studies have shown that employees are 10x more critical of their organization during life events, but they’re also far more likely to feel connected to the organization if their leave is handled with empathy and precision.
Whether positive or negative, this amplification of perception positions leave management as a foundational moment in the employee lifecycle.
Unlike other milestones, a leave of absence goes beyond processes and policies; it touches the core of an employee’s personal life. Further, leaves of absence can be unpredictable in their timing, scope, and scale.
“This is real life, rubber hitting the road,” says Jennifer Henderson , Tilt CEO. “Babies, death of parents, injuries, medical, military…these things are highly emotional and highly impactful to that one person’s life. An organization has to pull events like this out of the regular employee lifecycle rhetoric. It is not that kind of milestone.”
When leave management is handled poorly and confusing processes, delayed responses, or a lack of empathy prevail, it can erode trust and undermine employee loyalty completely.
Conversely, when organizations demonstrate genuine care, clear communication, and streamlined processes, they build a sense of security and belonging which serve to strengthen that foundation and create resilience among the employee population.
Modern Leave Management to Improve Employee Lifecycle
As an HR leader, it doesn’t take long to recognize the ways in which traditional leave management solutions fall short.
They often rely on manual systems, spreadsheets, or rigid policies that fail to account for the nuanced (and changing) needs of employees. These methods not only risk errors but also create unnecessary stress for HR teams and employees alike.
Modern leave management solutions, however, are transforming this critical touchpoint to turn what could be a relationship fracture into a rock-solid bond.
By leveraging technology, organizations can:
By adopting these modern approaches, your organization can shift from simply managing leave to creating a supportive framework that strengthens the employee lifecycle.
Employee Experience: The Core of the Employee Lifecycle
The employee experience. So important. So ambiguous.
If employee lifecycle touchpoints are the waves at the surface, the employee experience is the entire ocean below.
If your broader focus on employee well-being aligns with your leave management strategy, the benefits ripple across the organization.
On the other hand, if your organization touts caring for your employee population only to fall short when they need you most, that contradiction can be a tsunami of bad news (last ocean metaphor…promise)
When you emphasize a stress-free and empathetic leave of absence experience, employees return to work feeling valued and respected, fostering greater engagement, productivity, and loyalty.
The numbers back this up too.
In Tilt’s 2025 Leave Benchmark Report, organizations that leveraged dedicated leave management software instead of relying on spreadsheets gained the capability to provide more leave to employees, saw a 22% uptick in employee OKR performance, and roughly 10% increase in employee retention after returning from leave.
All this to say that leave matters to the employee experience in a major way.
The HR experience matters as well. You likely know all too well how maddening it can be to administer a leave of absence. They’re complex, they can change mid-leave, different states have different laws, and on and on the headaches will go.
Modern leave management tools like Tilt free up valuable time you’d otherwise be spending nose-deep in spreadsheet purgatory or calling up a carrier to extract information from the depths of their database abyss.
Tilt allows HR the freedom to focus on strategic initiatives rather than getting bogged down in administrative tasks. This shift not only elevates HR’s role within the organization but improves your own employee experience as well.
Making Leave a Priority at Your Organization
As an HR professional, you have the power to ensure that leave management becomes a seamless, empathetic, and efficient process for you and the employees you support.
In doing so, you help solidify the employee lifecycle foundation by establishing a level of trust with your employees that during life’s most pivotal moments, their organization supports them completely.
The path to a thriving employee lifecycle begins with acknowledging the profound impact of leave, and taking the necessary steps to handle it with care, precision, and timeliness.
The policies and systems you have in place to manage leave is reflected in the experience of every employee who has a significant life event and needs to step away.
Leave isn’t just an administrative checkbox, it’s about real people. And when people feel valued, the entire organization thrives.
See Tilt in Action
Register for our live demo this Thursday, February 20th to see how Tilt is transforming leave management for companies nationwide. We’ll walk you through the ins and outs of our solution and show you how Tilt can help turn leave into a cornerstone of employee experience.?
Guiding the session are Jessi Johanson , VP of Sales, and Lyndsey Haag , Head of Partnerships—two powerhouse leaders who know Tilt inside and out.
Snag your spot here. We hope to see you there!?