I’ve been working closely with the DWCA (Digital Workforce Catalyst Alberta) program, leading expert webinars on the full employee lifecycle.
What started as helping facilitate sessions has become an unexpected education. Recruitment is just one piece of the employee journey—and understanding the full picture makes me a better recruiter.
What Is the DWCA Webinar Series?
The Digital Workforce Catalyst Alberta program supports small and medium-sized tech and tech-enabled companies in Alberta with expert-led education on people and culture challenges.
The format is intentionally practical: 1 hour total, ~15 minutes of expert content, followed by live Q&A and discussion. The audience is SME leaders who don’t have big HR departments and need actionable guidance they can actually implement.
What Topics Have We Covered?
We’ve had great conversations across different stages of the employee lifecycle.
Employee Separations
Hailey Adlard led a session on terminations—how to handle them with clarity, care, and proper process. One of the hardest parts of the employee lifecycle for most leaders.
Performance Improvement Plans
Lindsay White presented on PIPs—how to support employee growth while managing performance issues professionally. Balancing support with accountability.
This matters for recruitment because performance issues often trace back to hiring misalignment. If you’re constantly putting people on PIPs, you might be hiring wrong in the first place.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Wilma Li recently led a powerful session on DEI—what it actually means in practice, how it helps businesses, and real workplace applications.
This connects directly to recruitment. Diverse candidate pools. Inclusive hiring practices. Reducing bias in screening. Equity starts with who gets interviewed.
Why Does the Full Employee Lifecycle Matter for Recruitment?
Great recruitment doesn’t end at the job offer. What happens after someone starts determines whether the placement succeeds.
How Do Terminations Connect to Hiring Quality?
If you’re firing lots of new hires, you’re probably hiring the wrong people. Performance issues are often visible during interviews if you know what to look for.
Better hiring leads to fewer terminations.
What Do Performance Issues Reveal About Recruitment?
Early performance problems often trace to unclear expectations set during hiring. The job description doesn’t match reality. What “success” means wasn’t clearly communicated.
Recruitment sets these expectations. When we get it wrong, performance management has to fix it. Better to get it right at the start.
Why Does Understanding the Employee Journey Make Recruiters Better?
When you understand what happens after the hire, you make better hiring decisions.
You assess for long-term fit, not just immediate qualifications. You set realistic expectations. You screen for things that matter to retention, not just technical skills.
Technical expertise alone isn’t enough. Understanding the full employee lifecycle helps you evaluate what else matters.
What Have I Learned from Teaching These Webinars?
Participating in these sessions has changed how I think about recruitment.
I used to think great hiring meant: qualified candidate, good interview, accepted offer, done.
Now I understand that great hiring means: right person for role, clear expectations set, smooth onboarding, strong performance, good cultural fit, long-term retention, and eventually a positive exit.
Recruitment is just the beginning. The full journey matters.
How Are All Employment Stages Connected?
You can’t separate recruitment from employee experience. They’re interconnected.
How you hire affects onboarding. Onboarding affects early performance. Performance management affects retention. Company culture affects whether people stay or leave. How you handle exits affects your employer brand and future recruitment.
It’s a cycle, not a linear process.
What Questions Should Recruiters Ask?
These webinars taught me to ask different questions during recruitment:
- If this person struggles in 6 months, will it be because they’re wrong for the role or because we set wrong expectations?
- How will this person handle feedback and performance discussions?
- Are we hiring for today’s needs or tomorrow’s growth?
Better questions lead to better placements.
Why Are We Looking for More Expert Partners?
Xavier Labrecque and I are looking for subject-matter experts who want to contribute to Alberta’s business community through DWCA webinars.
What Topics Would Future Webinars Cover?
We’re interested in any stage of the employee lifecycle:
- Onboarding
- Training and development
- Compensation
- Employee engagement
- Change management
- Conflict resolution
- Mental health and wellness
- Remote work management
- Leadership development
- Succession planning
Anything that helps SMEs manage their people better.
What Makes a Good DWCA Webinar Speaker?
Practical, hands-on experience. You’ve actually done this work, made mistakes, learned from them.
Ability to distill complexity. Can you explain your topic clearly in 15 minutes and make it actionable?
Comfortable with live Q&A. SME leaders ask tough questions. You need to provide real guidance.
Focus on helping SMEs. Your advice needs to work for companies without big budgets. Practical solutions, not enterprise-only strategies.
What Should Potential Speakers Know?
Let me be transparent: We can’t accommodate everyone. This is unpaid volunteer work. The value is in giving back to the community and gaining exposure to Alberta SMEs.
If this feels aligned with your expertise and values, reach out.
How Does This Make DMA a Better Recruiting Partner?
Understanding the full employee lifecycle makes us better recruiters.
We can assess fit more holistically—not just “can they do the job?” but “will they thrive here long-term?”
We can advise beyond just hiring. When clients struggle with performance management or retention, we understand the context. We become strategic partners, not just vendors filling requisitions.
Culture and management quality impact recruitment success. Understanding these connections helps us guide clients better.
What’s the Impact on Alberta’s Business Community?
These DWCA webinars serve multiple stakeholders.
Alberta SMEs gain free, expert-led education, practical tools, and peer networking. For companies that can’t afford consultants or full HR teams, this access to expertise is invaluable.
Contributing experts gain a platform to share knowledge and exposure to Alberta SMEs who might become clients. The value isn’t financial—it’s impact and connection.
For DMA, we gain deeper industry relationships and better understanding of client challenges. And honestly? We learn. Every session teaches us something that makes us better at our jobs.
Job seekers can also learn from this: Companies that participate in these webinars care about employee experience. They’re investing in learning how to manage people better. That’s a good indicator when evaluating potential employers.
The Bottom Line
Recruitment doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s one part of a larger employee journey.
Great hiring is about more than filling roles. It’s about setting people up for long-term success. That requires understanding what happens after they start.
When you understand the full lifecycle, you recruit differently. You assess for fit, not just qualifications. You set realistic expectations. You think about retention from day one.
What’s the Invitation?
For SME leaders: Join future DWCA webinars. Learn from experts. Build better workplaces.
For experts: If you have knowledge worth sharing about any stage of the employee lifecycle, contribute. Help Alberta businesses succeed.
For recruiters: Think beyond the placement. Understand the full employee journey.
For job seekers: Look for employers who invest in employee development and proper processes. Those are the companies where you’ll thrive.
Ready to Build Better Workplaces?
Whether you’re an SME leader navigating people challenges or an expert with knowledge to share, there’s a place for you in this conversation.
To learn more about DWCA webinars: The Digital Workforce Catalyst Alberta program continues to offer expert-led sessions for Alberta tech and tech-enabled SMEs.
To propose a webinar topic: If you’re an expert in any aspect of the employee lifecycle and want to contribute, connect with us.
For recruitment support: If you’re building a great workplace and need help finding people who’ll thrive there: Reach out directly.
Employee Lifecycle and Recruitment FAQ
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Why should recruiters care about what happens after the hire?
Because recruitment quality determines downstream outcomes. If you’re hiring people who struggle, get put on PIPs, or leave within a year, that’s a recruitment problem. Understanding performance management, onboarding, and retention helps you assess for long-term fit, not just immediate qualifications.
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How can small businesses without HR departments implement what they learn?
Start with one thing. Pick the most pressing issue (onboarding, performance conversations, or termination processes) and focus there. Use templates and frameworks from webinars. Get peer support from other SMEs. Incremental improvement beats perfect solutions you never implement.
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As a job seeker, how can I tell if a company has good employee lifecycle practices?
Ask about onboarding during interviews. Ask how performance feedback happens. Look at Glassdoor reviews for patterns about management quality. Companies that participate in programs like DWCA are actively trying to improve—that’s a good sign. Red flags include high turnover, vague answers about culture, and no structured processes.