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Imagine you just won the lottery
but you can’t pick up the prize
for six months. How would that
make you feel? frustrated? A
little cheated?
Most
employee
referral
programs build that frustration
right in. It doesn’t have to be
that way.
Employee referral programs
are a great way to find great
employees.
Your
current
employees likely know talented
people they would like to work
with. Some companies find the
majority of their new talent
through employee referral
programs, reducing the time to
fill and increasing the quality.
Let’s leverage those contacts
to add to your team!
Typical programs are set up like
this: Employees make a referral.
The referred individuals might
get interviewed, might even
get hired. Then the programs
usually require that the referred
new hire work successfully
for some months, sometimes
as long as six months. Then
only the person who referred
the employee who was hired
gets a reward. Rewards can be
pretty high, ranging from $1,000
to $5,000 or more per hired
referral.
That is the delayed gratification
built into most employee
referral
programs.
It
is
frustrating to wait months to
get a reward. Today’s workers
expect rewards and feedback
quickly. Delayed reaction reduce
the effectiveness of employee
referral programs. After a while,
many programs structured this
way will fade away.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Job search is a numbers game.
So let’s change around our
employee referral programs
to support that job search
numbers game!
Let’s reward leads instead
of hires! An employee gets
a reward for every name or
resume submitted, whether the
candidate works out or not.
Here are five advantages to
rewarding leads:
1. Rewarding leads encour-
ages a larger talent pool.
Employees are not going to
refer people who will em-
barrass them so the more
people they refer the better.
2. It gives employees imme-
diate gratification for their
participation.
3. It gets employees more
involved in recruiting. More
eyes will focus on talent
acquisition.
Recruiting
becomes a company-wide
endeavor not just confined
to the HR department.
4. It gives an additional
depth to the relationships
employees have on LinkedIn
if they are also looking for
potential leads.
5. It keeps employees interests
in an age of immediate
feedback.
Rewards for leads can be smaller
and more immediate like smaller
amounts of money, tickets for
a regular raffle, gift cards or
company branded stuff.
Make the program more fun
with a branded communication
program that will keep your
Grow Your Talent Pool
the Fun Way with Employee
Referral Programs
By Katherine Burik
SOAR TO SUCCESS
/
A
ugust
2016
/
Core Business Strategy