How to Get the Most Out of Employee Referral Programs

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Your guide to employee referral incentives

Employee referrals work. The logic behind their success is readily accessible. Your current staff understands your company culture, and is invested in the success of the business–therefore, they’re unlikely to provide a recommendation that isn’t at least worth considering.

How to get the most out of employee referral incentives

Unfortunately, a company’s H.R. needs aren’t always center consciousness for employees. Referral incentives, when executed mindfully, not only remind staffers to keep their eyes and ears open, they also provide motivation to do so.

The problem is, not all incentives are effective. The following tips can help bring your crew into the hiring mindset.

Keep them in the loop.

Obviously, if your staff doesn’t know you’re hiring, they’re not going to provide any referrals. Furthermore, if they aren’t aware of the incentives, they might not be as driven to participate in your referral program.

Company-wide emails or other notifications can help keep everyone informed. It’s also important to show your plan in action. When your staff sees how their co-workers are benefiting from making referrals, they’re much more likely to want in on the game.

Inspire friendly competition.

Whether it be on an individual level, or between departments, contests are fun ways to keep your staff engaged in the recruiting process.

Reward their efforts.

Of course, your employees should want what’s best for the company, however, recruiting most likely doesn’t fall into their job description. Referral bonuses can be cash, vacations, gift cards, etc.–just make sure it’s something of value to your staff.

Are rewards necessary?

Unfortunately, there’s not an easy answer to this. When Google doubled it’s referral incentive it made little if any notable impact. Their employees were already eager to provide referrals simply because they believed in the company and liked working there. The Internet search giant also found group meetings involving 20-30 employees and recruiters to be highly effective at garnering referrals.

Keep everyone connected.

With busy schedules and overloaded minds, researching how to notify H.R. about a candidate can be a deterrent. Make sure to establish a submission email, or internal forum, that’s visible and easy for employees to access.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

While employee referrals are certainly valuable, they typically should only be viewed as one prong of your recruiting efforts. In addition to seeking out other avenues, your recruiting strategy should encompass research, hiring, and onboarding.

Mankuta | Gallagher offers employers state of the art recruiting tools, from organization research, to pipeline recruiting and talent mapping. Connect with us today to find how our 20 years of identifying top talent can help take your recruiting to the next level.

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