Building an employee referral program can convert what is often a fragmented and under-utilized referral process, into a valuable streamlined program. A successful referral program empowers your workforce to easily and compliantly refer top talent from their networks, helping to develop the foundation for your company’s next generation of future leaders. Below are three key benefits of a referral program.
- Reduces overall cost-per-hire. Bypass the time and hard costs of sourcing every job requisition from scratch, paying to post on dozens of job boards, or engaging with outside recruiters. Use the in-house, no-cost, best resource you have— your employees and their spheres of influence.
- Speeds-up sourcing. Referrals are a pre-vetted candidate pool that provide your talent acquisition team with candidates who are more likely to be a top cultural and skill fit for your organization. Interviewing individuals with similar backgrounds means being able to devote your limited and valuable time focusing on competency, capabilities and work history, rather than questioning if they will get along with the team.
- Strengthens company culture. A referral process further facilitates employee engagement. Employees who are recommending jobs at your company are also serving as the company’s brand advocates. This can lead to higher retention and less employee churn, by empowering employees to refer those they have previously worked with and trust, creating a stronger, more unified culture.
To build a long-term employee referral program, begin by laying a solid foundation that starts with an easy-to-understand program that can grow more complex over time. The below steps outline how to position your department for success, before unveiling the program to your workforce.
Establish goals around the program.
Set specific goals around your referral program objectives, to be able to quantify and report on the program’s success (i.e. hire X% of referrals per team; increase employee referral candidates by X%). Goal metrics provide the rest of the leadership team with greater visibility into the program and its successes, helping the referral program become a company priority—not only a talent acquisition team focus.
Communicate progress.
Continually communicate goal progress to key stakeholders in the company to keep them invested in the process, and to hold your team accountable. Demonstrate the goals and metrics early and often to create a transparent process that invites collaboration.
Invest in referral technology.
Ensure the software you chose integrates with your company’s existing ATS to source and hire top talent within employees’ networks. Referral technology enables companies to hire top talent and lower the cost-per-hire, while:
- Ensuring global compliance. Referral technology mitigates legal risks associated with many multinational companies’ stringent employee referral policies. The rules around candidate referrals differ drastically between nations, and referral technology ensures global compliance.
- Automating employee incentives. Using technology to track the incentivization process allows employees to view referral bonus amounts accumulated over time, helping facilitate engagement and retention.
- Streamlining interdepartmental communication.Automating employee incentives can reduce time-intensive, back and forth communication between the workforce, talent acquisition, human resources and payroll departments.
- Increasing transparency. Referral software provides a transparent view into where referred candidates reside within the application process. Allowing employees to access this information saves talent acquisition departments time from responding to referral status inquiries.
- Expanding reach of talent pool. Referral technology generates unique social media tracking links, specific to each employee. This allows employees to share the position with their networks, or to directly send jobs to a specific potential candidate with a trackable link that indicates they are the source of the referral.
Are you looking to roll out a company-wide referral program? Learn how Yello Referrals can help facilitate a seamless process.
