Find the single stage most holding back the others, so the work fixes the cause rather than a symptom.
The five stages follow the employee lifecycle. An upstream weakness constrains everything downstream, so it is fixed first. The rule: your binding constraint is the lowest-scoring stage that sits highest in the lifecycle order below. The one override: an acute compliance gap in the foundation is a risk addressed immediately regardless of sequence. If two stages are tied, the one higher in the order is the constraint.
| Order | Stage | Why it sits here |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (most upstream) | Hiring and selection | The wrong person in poisons onboarding, performance, and retention no matter how good they are. |
| 2 | Onboarding and integration | A good hire not made productive is a good hire wasted; onboarding sits on hiring. |
| 3 | Performance management | You manage the performance of people already hired and onboarded. |
| 4 | Compensation and retention | You retain people you have hired, onboarded, and managed; retention sits on the rest. |
| 5 | HR infrastructure and compliance | The foundation that systematizes the lifecycle. Exception: an acute compliance gap is addressed immediately. |
| Stage | Your level (1 to 5) | Lifecycle order |
|---|---|---|
| Hiring and selection | 1 | |
| Onboarding and integration | 2 | |
| Performance management | 3 | |
| Compensation and retention | 4 | |
| HR infrastructure and compliance | 5 (compliance gap = immediate) |
You cannot retain what you hired badly, or manage what you never onboarded; the upstream constraint caps everything below it. Carry the constraint and all five scores into the Prioritized HR Action Plan.
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