the ultimate

employee referrals

playbook

The most comprehensive guide to successfully

implementing employee referrals in your organisation

Bill Boorman Presents...

- why referrals?

- before you start: research

- creating a business case for referrals with the lean canvas

- employer brand SWOT analysis

- the referral program funnel guide

- 8 steps to running a successful focus group

- the rewards methodology

- launch and ongoing engagement

- diversity & inclusion

- go it alone or come with us?

what's in the playbook?

a word from bill

Bill Boorman is a board level adviser for

Real Links. He's distilled 35 years of

experience in the referrals arena into this

detailed, hands on guide to implementing

employee referrals successfully.

The purpose of this playbook is to provide those with the responsibility for talent attraction a series of

models and templates that can be used as a foundation to map out a successful referral strategy.

Exceeding your source of hire targets for referrals needs a clear strategy and a plan. I've drawn on my

35 years of experience and combined that with Real Links client feedback and wider market research

to develop the most comprehensive and practical guide to referrals I've ever written.

The aim of a lot of the activities referenced in this playbook is to prompt the questions that need to be

asked, whether you are planning on using technology like Real Links to drive your efforts, or thinking

about implementing a more manual referral scheme.

Our belief is that referrals work brilliantly as a consistent source of hire. And employees can and should

play a part in making that happen.

The role of the talent acquisition leader in achieving this is to be the mobiliser who sets the framework

and makes it happen. We hope you find this useful!

Bill

Recruitment is changing - lots of recruiters are telling us that volume is no longer the

issue. They're seeing a huge surge in applications of varying quality and relevance.

The problem is the time it takes to find the best, most relevant candidates quickly and

efficiently.

Referrals are a key way to reduce the number of irrelevant, cold applications and find

those great candidates. However employee participation with referral schemes is

notoriously low.

This playbook deals with how to plan your referral scheme and how to drive

engagement from board level through to the rest of your workforce. Making

recruiment faster, hiring the best talent and magnifying your brand presence in the

marketplace.

why referrals?

before you start: research

On the following page I've highlighted a series of questions that

will require more than one opinion so make sure you reach out to

all relevant stakeholders and team members and take an hour to

discuss and fill your answers out together. Use the answers to

formulate your referral plan. Whilst some may seem obvious, your

answers will make clear the road to success.

defining what success looks like

Understanding what you're trying to achieve from the outset will help

ensure success. The following questions help us to formulate this in to

some clear objectives:

> What is your current percentage of hires through referral?

> What do you want this to be in 3/6/9/12 months?

> Where are your problem hiring areas (these could be roles, teams or

locations)?

> Do you want referrals for all open roles or concentrated on specific

problem areas?

> Are you introducing referrals to increase volumes of applicants or

reduce volumes and improve quality? We measure quality by the

ratio of applicants to interview and interview to hire.

Always have a clear, measurable objective of

what you want to achieve as a minimum.

Set metrics for every stage of the referral

process:

> Number of employees signing up

> Number of sign ups who refer contacts

> Ratio of referrals to interview

> Ratio of referred contacts to hire

> Use performance to set objectives for these

actions and monitor performance

tips

By answering yes or no, which of these descriptions best describe what you mean when you ask for referrals from your

employees?

> Do you expect a referral to be a recommendation of a former colleague known to the employee where the

applicant is endorsed?

> Do you expect or require referred candidates to be selected by employees on the basis of culture fit?

> Do you expect employees to endorse the applicants skills as competent to perform the job?

> Do you expect employees to only submit referrals once the potential candidate has expressed an interest?

> Are employees required to submit the applicants by uploading a CV or profile?

If you answered yes to any of the above, you are seeking recommendations. This will deliver low volume of a higher

quality. On average an employee will be willing to make no more than 5 recommendations in total. Asking solely for

direct recommendations will make it difficult to increase your percentage of referral hires as candidate numbers are

low.

definition of a referral in your business

> Do you expect employees to have a level of knowledge of the applicant beyond job title/skills before submission?

> Do you expect employees to have a relationship beyond social media connection with any candidate submitted?

> Do you expect employees to have introduced a job to a potential candidate on a one to one basis via a message or

call?

If you answered yes to the above 3 statements you are seeking the traditional view of referrals. Because you are expecting

a relationship and asking for an endorsement, this is likely to deliver lower volumes of referred candidates.

> Do you accept referrals from the connections of employees such as on LinkedIn, where no other relationship exists?

> Do you not expect a referral to be an endorsement of fit?

> Do you accept connections, names or contacts from employees with no further action required by the employee?

If you answered yes to the above 3 statements, you are seeking social introduction. These offer greater reach, higher

volumes but a broader variety of quality. However, the higher volumes will have a positive impact on your percentage of

referral candidates hired.

Action points:

> Be clear in communicating what you want (it might be all three) - a recommendation, a referral or a social introduction

> Allow the employee to say whether it's a recommendation, referral or social introduction

> Ensure you communicate the difference between each type of referral

the service level agreement (SLA)

> Method of submission (make this as easy as possible)

> Response and review time. Typically we agree to review referred candidates within

48 hours.

> Feedback or answers to both the employee and the referred candidate (avoid the

black hole).

> Rules for any rewards. Make these clear and as simple as possible (we cover this in

the next section).

> Your expectation for submissions: recommendations/referrals/social referrals/shares.

> Privacy and control of message. It's important to stress: Frequency of messages; how

you will use contacts in the future; who has control over sending messages and a

promise of no spam.

Document your SLA

Monitor performance and

take corrective actions

Respect the pledge you

make to your employees

Make sure any asks of

employees are reasonable

in terms of time and as

simple to execute as

possible.

tips

If you want employees to start referring, you are going to have to make commitments to them over areas like candidate

experience. It is best to define expectations of all stakeholders in a simple service level agreement you can measure.

Typically we would include the following:

develop your business

case for referrals with a

lean canvas

To help get clarity around your thinking and build a business case

to present to your management team, Lean Canvas is a one-

page business plan template created by Ash Maurya. It’s

designed to create a snapshot of your business challenge (in this

case employee referrals), distill the essence of your referral

scheme plan and break it down into key parts. Check out the

example on the next page which we've tailored to help you

build a referrals business case.

Problem

What are the primary

challenges your talent

acquisition team faces with

recruitment at the

moment?

It's likely that time to hire

and cost per hire are high

on the list which is where

referral will be an attractive

solution when presenting a

business case back to the

board. Some key things to

cover when presenting to

the board might be:

- Reduced cost and time to

hire through referral

- Better quality candidates

- Higher retention rates

- Huge brand amplification

from advocacy

Cost structure

What are the fixed and variable costs to launch your referral scheme? Consider

the cost at each stage from marketing and collateral creation, the

implementation of technology to help you run referral effectively, launch costs,

the costs of rewards etc.

Real Links pilot program

We understand getting buy-in at board level can be challenging. Real Links run

a cost effective pilot programmes so you can test the approach in your

business before you commit. Enquire here.

Employer value

proposition

Your employer brand and

value proposition are

critical not only to

attraction but to getting

your employees to

advocate for your brand

and workplace externally.

Key Metrics

List out the key metrics and

explain clearly how you will

define success from

employee referral. Consider

including the marketing

department in these goals

as increased social sharing

from employees will be

important for general brand

presence so it's useful for

the board to see that.

High level concept

Think about how referral fits

into your wider recruitment

strategy. Will it achieve

reduced spend in areas like

recruitment and advertising,

or work alongside it?

Competitive

advantage

What aspects of your brand

(both consumer and

employer) separate you

from your competitors.

What you're looking for here

are the hooks that will get

your employees promoting

you and their connections

applying to you.

Channels

Within your organisation,

how do your employees

mostly communicate at

the moment? List

everything you can think

of, this will help with

comms planning later on.

Employee segments

Consider where your most

immediate hiring needs are.

If this is specific teams or

departments, focus on

getting referrals right for

them first so you don't waste

time in areas with less of a

hiring requirement.

Early adopters

Who in your organisation do

you think would be the best

test case for employee

referrals. It makes sense to

pilot your program with a

small group before rolling it

out widely.

Solution

In this case, the solution

we're assuming is a referral

scheme. A clear

explanation of what referral

is and why it's a great

solution is critical.

employer

brand

SWOT

analysis

Use a SWOT to work out the

strengths and weaknesses of

your employer value

proposition when compared to

your competitors. This is critical

to building employee

advocacy.

Why do your employees love working for you? What parts of the

company culture do they value? What strengths do you have that the

competition don't?

Strengths

Be honest about attrition rates, why do employees leave, what don't

they like? What areas can you improve on? What does your company

lack? What things do your competitors do better than you?

Weaknesses

Identify all open opportunities to improve your employer brand. Whether

that's looking at ideas from competitors, benefits package

improvement, cultural improvements or even the introduction of flexible

and remote working.

Opportunities

Identify any potential threats. Do your competitors pay better? Do they

have a more engaging product or service? Is their culture better? Use

the information you gather to build a strategy to remove those threats

to attracting great talent.

Threats

a referral program

funnel

Visualise each stage of the employee referral journey

and build a plan of action for each stage.

Running cross functional focus groups is a critical starting point for any referral

scheme. More information on running successful focus groups follows in this

playbook.

Focus groups

Rewards methodology

Communication

strategy

The referral journey

Hiring jams

Stigma

Most employees aren't motivated by the rewards on offer. These are usually

monetary which we've seen often don't work in isolation. There's usually a long wait

for referral bonuses to be received and smaller actions leading up to a referral hire

aren't rewarded.

A strong communication strategy is key to referral success. Employees get frustrated when

they don't get updated on the status of their referred candidate and they often don't

understand process. This means they're unlikely to engage in the future. An accessible

dashboard is an easy fix to keep employees up to date on their activity and rewards.

Most referral schemes aren't structured and they're not automated. This leads to

inconsistency in communication and often a poor candidate experience for the

referred individual and poor employee experience as the one who referred. This is

a common issue when it comes to participation.

Something Real Links has seen work really well are hiring jams. Invite teams to beer and

pizza sessions and go through their social connections with them and help them look

for the important attributes in their network that fit for particular roles. They should

always be rewarded for joining these sessions to encourage future participation.

One of the very common problems we seen with low engagement from employees with

referral schemes is the perceived stigma. Employees feel responsible if they refer a

candidate and fear if there are problems with them it reflects badly. Using the term

'introduction' works well, and regularly remind them the final hire responsibility lies with HR

& the hiring manager, so the employee will never be stigmatised for referring.

8 steps to running a

successful focus group

The biggest mistake we see employers make when it comes to

referral programs is not engaging their workforce before they build

it. Motivations vary hugely. If you don't ask your scheme will fail

before it's even started.

Don't try to fit too many discussion topics into the allotted time. Select two and focus on them.

This could be a simple as 'what would motivate you and why?' and 'challenges with the current

referral scheme'.

1. Choose your discussion topic carefully

Be clear beforehand on which questions are most important to create actionable information.

2. Plan your questions and prompts in advance

Once you know your questions and discussion prompts create a questionnaire with space for

notes. Organise into most to least important.

3. Create a questionnaire with space for notes

Identify the best person in the organisation to take high quality notes to ensure findings are

clear. Also ensure you audio or video record the session.

4. Appoint a notetaker

It's critical to gain feedback from a wide cross section of your organisation. Motivations will differ

by department. Large organisations can probably run focus groups by department, for smaller

ones a cross functional group may be more realistic.

5. Participant selection

To warm the group up, start off by asking a simple, open question. As the conversation starts to

flow you can begin to get more specific.

6. Kick off

Topic(s)

Planning

Questionnaire

Notes and recording

Participant Selection

Kick off

Equal opportunity for input

Analyse results and feedback to all

7. Get equal input from the group

Be mindful that everyone's opinion is important. If you feel the discussion is being led by one or

two outspoken members, prompt quieter members for their input.

8. Analyse and feedback

Compile and analyse all feedback, look for common themes. Feedback to everyone on the

results to ensure they feel their input was valued.

rewards methodology

Most businesses automatically gravitate to monetary rewards for

referrals, which we know from experience often don't work. Small,

incremental rewards that are given at each stage of the referral

journey are far more effective and drive participation and

engagement. However, the other thing we now know is that every

business is different. Their teams are different, their markets are

different and it means that your rewards methodology has to be

bespoke, which is where focus groups are so important. We've

included two examples on the following page to give you an idea

of how different rewards methodologies can be structured based

on employee feedback and the market they operate in.  

start by asking these questions

> What rewards do you offer now for referrals? Does this return the

success you want?

> What is the time between the action you want: A referral and

paying a reward?

> How many employees who refer candidates achieve the reward?

> Are you best served offering smaller rewards for each referral, as

opposed to a bigger hire reward?

> What rewards would motivate employees to refer?

> Are the rules for qualifications for rewards clear and simple with

limited admin?

Use gamification. What makes games

addictive is simple rules and instant rewards.

Make your referral process addictive by

design.

Use focus groups to find out from employees

what would motivate them to refer.

Generate competition through points and

league tables to keep employees engaged.

Raffles can supercharge a campaign. Keep

mixing these up to keep employees referring.

Keep the rules for qualifying clear and check

understanding.

Celebrate success.

tips

Referrals usually come with the promise of rewards. Consider the answers to the following questions in structuring

your reward strategy. If employees don't think they are fair, or feel cheated, they will exit quickly.

launchpad

We find the launch plan works best through working

with a smaller focus group to test the assumptions you

have made, and to make sure everything works. We

typically run this over 4 - 6 weeks, checking in regularly.

Once this small scale rollout has been tested and

tweaked, you can either do a full rollout to the

organisation or stagger rollout by department or team.

pre-launch considerations

Use this checklist to plan your launch:

> Are the expectations clearly defined?

>Is it easy for people to follow the rules and rewards?

>Have you made your pledges from the SLA?

>Do you have a high level sponsor to get behind the message?

You only launch once. Do it with

a fanfare. Celebrate successes

and milestones with continual

communication.

tip

By setting metrics for success, you can monitor participation levels of employees, and ask questions as to why things may

not be working out as you planned. The focus group is best placed to set the rewards and rules as to what will motivate

them to participate.

ongoing

engagement

Now you have your plan in place. You need to be

considering how you are going to keep this alive month

after month. In particular consider what

communication channels you're going to use on an

ongoing basis.

Here are some tips that have worked for us:

> Agree the frequency of messages with a clear call to action.

> Continue celebrating success.

> Segment jobs by employees. Don't ask for every job, target your audience.

> Mix up the rewards via your focus group. This justifies new messages.

> Celebrate and share successes.

> Run monthly referral events with dedicated time for referring.

> Introduce spot prizes, double points etc on a monthly basis.

> Think of referrals as campaigns around hiring priorities.

> Make sure you keep thanking folks for participating.

> Find ways to make referrals continuously visible.

> Include the referral ask when new jobs are raised, directly from the hiring manager to their team.

4 communication

pillars to improve

engagement

Communication is arguably one of the most important

aspects of driving long term and consistent

engagement with your employee referral program.

We've outlined the most important pillars of

communication you need to consider when launching

a new referral scheme.

Board Level

At its foundation, your referral scheme needs to have buy in

from the top, and a commitment to the program from

everyone at management level. Team leaders need to

take responsibility to consistently promote the scheme to

their teams. You could even introduce engagement

targets by department and hold team leaders to account.

This is where presenting a strong business case is absolutely

critical to initial buy in.

The Referral Process

Employee Level

Communication Channels

A lack of awareness of the scheme or the roles available.

Fear of referring a poor candidate and it reflecting poorly.

Not being kept updated on the progress of a referred candidate.

There are a few common barriers to engagement with referrals from

employees.

Planning your referral scheme carefully; creating a comms plan before

launch and running educational sessions with employees to explain that

referrals or introductions are just that. The candidate will go through a

thorough screening process so there will be no backlash or judgement if

the candidate isn't hired.

Part of planning your referral scheme is the process itself. As

mentioned, a huge issue when it comes to lack of

engagement is a feeling from employees that there's no

clear process, it's time consuming for them and they rarely

see any reward at the end of it. Automation is key here.

Planning and automating all referral process comms in

advance and building a dashboard where an employee

can quickly see the status of their referees solves this

problem.

Email

Workshops

Short videos

Infographics

Desk drops

Launch events

WhatsApp or Slack Messaging

Not everyone consumes information in the same way. You need to be

creative about how your communicate with your workforce, and cater

for as many preferences as is realisitic. Some examples we've seen work

in the past:

Recruiting top talent

Driving creativity

Helping to break into new markets

A diverse workplace isn’t just desired, it is essential. Diversity has

been proven time and time again to have a wide array of

benefits for any workspace including;

Referrals can present a challenge in a company's efforts to meet

diversity targets as people have a tendency to associate with

people who are like-minded and similar to themselves. However,

there are ways around this. See the Pinterest case study and the

Real Links top tips for a couple of ideas.

diversity and inclusion

The Real Links platform anonymises

candidate data such as name, age, ethnicity

and gender for HR teams.

We use AI generated avatars instead of real

pictures to reduce unconscious bias and

drive recruitment that focuses solely on skills

and experience.

We also provide diversity analytics so you

can easily access a snapshot of your D&I

progress.

tips

We hope this playbook has proved a useful resource to get you thinking about successful

employee referrals and participation.

If you've decided to go it alone we wish you the best of luck. However, we can't deny we

believe that having the support of cost effective referral technology will speed up your

results exponentially and provide the right foundation for long term success.

go it alone or come with us?

ask for help. book a demo