four action steps to kickstart your employee referral program
Post on 14-Sep-2014
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Companies track revenues, costs, profit and a number of key performance metrics. With more companies embracing the business value of employee engagement, the need to measure and monitor engagement as a key performance metric becomes critical for measuring success and improving results.TRANSCRIPT
RAISING YOUR EMPLOYEE
REFERRAL PROGRAM RESULTS
TO 50% OF ALL HIRES
“50% is the new ERP target”
© Dr John Sullivan
1 www.drjohnsullivan.com
2
4 Action Steps to Kick Start an
Employee Referral Program
Strategic action #1
Prioritize and focus your ERP effort
Strategic action #1
Focus ERP efforts on high priority jobs including:
Mission critical jobs and business units
Revenue generating jobs
Jobs with a high previous referral success rate
Hard to fill jobs
“Sudden” key vacancies
Tip – begin with a shortlist of targeted jobs and
then add positions
Prioritize the employee with the closest relationship
Accolo uses a referral community For every open job, it selects a few employees
based on the likelihood that they will know the right person
As a result, Accolo has averaged 8 referrals for
every job (#1)
Be careful
Homer will refer
people also
Prioritize your employees
Focus on referrals from top performing employees
Why? Because referral hires from top performers…
produce nearly 3 times more profit… compared…
to a referral hire from a below average performer
Seek out and prioritize referrals from top
performers
But also… warn, restrict or ban employees that
routinely make weak referrals
Source: “The Value of Hiring through Referrals” (source: UC Berkeley by Burksy, Cowgillz, Holman and Housman
http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/bo_cowgill/papers/Referrals.pdf)
Strategic action #2
Do not overemphasize monetary rewards
Strategic action #2
Use “help the team" motivation (not $)
The most effective referral motivation approach
emphasizes the opportunity to work alongside
great people… because the team wins more
frequently… when it has the best players
Strategic action #2 You can build a “help the team” mentality… by emphasizing these benefits to employees
Higher quality hires will improve business results and thus raise employee stock value and bonuses
It’s part of the responsibility of being a team player
You will be recognized for “helping the team”
You will learn more from higher-quality new hires
You won’t have to work alongside slackers
Note: A feedback loop is required to tell employees whether they made a “junk” or a “star” referral
Also show them the correlation between improved business results and a higher % of ERP hires
2 examples… referrals don’t require $ bonuses
Reached and maintained a +70% referral rate
with no $ rewards
Edward Jones reached 55% with no bonus
Strategic action #3
Be proactive in seeking out referrals
Strategic action #3
Why you need to be proactive?
“Great people know great people”, however most
employees are extremely busy…
so to maximize your referrals… you will need to proactively approach your top referring
employees
Here are 3 proactive ERP tools to consider
“Proactive” referral tools
A) Give me 5 – Proactively approach top employees Ask them to identify and then contact the… Best manager they ever had Best team leader Best idea person or innovator Best person that "runs into" burning buildings Best problem solver Best sales person that beats you Best student in college that was so smart Best mentor Best technical skilled person Best international talent Best customer service person
“Proactive” tools
B) Reach out to job references for referrals
Identify top performing hires from last year
Call their references that said accurate things
Thank them
Ask them “Do you know anyone else as good?”
Ask them to be a future reference source
“Proactive” tools
C) “Most wanted list” for relationship building
Executives identify… a list of gamechangers
and potential “magnet hires” at the beginning of
the year
Employees are asked to seek out these highly
desirable individuals and to build a relationship
with them over social media (Relationship recruiting)
When they eventually agreed to consider becoming
a referral… speed hiring is required
Strategic action #4
Broaden the program
and expand it’s eligibility
Strategic action #4 Broaden the program
Add on-boarding referrals – proactively ask new hires for referrals during on-boarding (Eli Lily)
Add college referrals – the college population is well connected through social networks, so add a referral sub-program for college hires and interns (Endeca, Intuit)
Add referrals for executive positions – advanced ERP’s also cover openings for executive positions
Focus on boomerangs – encourage your employees to target your best corporate alumni (also allow them to make referrals)
Strategic action #4
Broaden the program
Add internal movement referrals - have a
referral program that is designed to encourage
internal movement. The best practice firm Booz
Allen has a “Career mobility” team (Also MS,
Cisco)
Expand program eligibility
Expand eligibility
Executives are encouraged to refer - a “white
glove treatment” recruiter can be assigned to
encourage executives to make referrals (Deloitte)
Managers and HR are made eligible – managers
and those in HR are also well connected, so they
should be eligible to make referrals (Accenture)
Note: you can help minimize conflicts of interest by
offering the option of contributing any ERP reward to
charity.
Expand eligibility
Expand eligibility to non-employees
Open up referrals to non-employees including
Family
Contingent workers
Consultants and vendors
Customers
Board members
Corporate alumni (Internosis, Clearlink, CACI, Verinon)