Implementing a Referral Program for Employee Recruitment

Understanding that employees are an organization’s most valuable assets is crucial, but equally important is recognizing the significance of their networks for effective recruiting.

By utilizing an intelligent employee referral program, enterprises can tap into a new talent pool filled with potential best-fit candidates, which ultimately helps in filling critical roles faster.

However, once an organization has chosen its referral platform, the question is how to move from the first step of implementation to harnessing the power of their employees’ networks.

What is an Employee Referral?

An employee referral occurs when an existing employee recommends someone from their professional or personal network for an open position within their organization. To encourage and reward employees for successful referrals, many companies have implemented employee referral programs.

These programs typically offer incentives such as monetary bonuses, recognition, or other rewards for employees who refer candidates who are subsequently hired.

By fostering a culture of employee engagement and participation in recruitment efforts, organizations not only enhance their chances of securing top talent but also strengthen the bonds within their workforce.

Employee referrals serve as a symbiotic relationship, benefiting both the organization by acquiring valuable talent and the employees who contribute to the growth and success of their workplace.

Launching Your Employee Referral Program

Employee referral programs can be the unsung, untapped heroes of your talent acquisition strategy. This streamlined approach to securing top-tier candidates not only expedites the hiring process, it also empowers your employees to become an active part of the recruiting process — strengthening their relationships with their teams and the organization as a whole.

However, there are multiple steps to take to ensure your program reaches its full potential:

Step 1: Determine Your Program Objectives:

Before you launch your new program, it’s important to craft clear objectives that will guide program requirements and implementation. Answer these questions to kickstart this process:

Are you looking to fill specific roles?

Do you want to enhance diversity?

Are you searching for new ways to bolster recruiting processes?

Is this program designed to foster engagement among employees?

How will you incentivize or motivate employees to submit referrals?

Step 2: Choose the Right Platform to Support Your Goals:

Depending on your answers to the above questions, look for specific employee referral tools that will make achieving your goals simple. Choosing a streamlined platform will give you the functionality you need as well as the commitment to continued evolution, meaning the platform will evolve alongside your business.

Implementing an intelligent, AI-driven platform is one of the best ways to ensure that your solution is scalable and open to continuous improvement based on user feedback.

Additionally, pairing a streamlined and intelligent referral program with monetary rewards, recognition, and exclusive perks can further inspire active participation from your teams. We recommend choosing a referral program that’s easy to access through your company’s internal communication platform or a dedicated portal.

Regardless of the platform you choose, keep in mind that the smoother the process, the more likely your team will enthusiastically recommend qualified individuals.

Step 3: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate:

It’s not enough to invest in an employee referral program, implement it, and then let it run its course. Your teams need to communicate with your employees to set expectations, answer questions, and promote feedback loops to ensure the program’s success. 

You should establish a framework for communication that includes pre-implementation and post-implementation messages to cover your bases. We recommend promoting your program in the following ways:

• Include it in your regular newsletters

• Empower managers to talk about it during team meetings

• Send dedicated company-wide emails to raise awareness 

Depending on your current stage of implementation, the content you share will change from general education to highlighting success stories of referrals getting hired to emphasize the benefits of employee referral programs.

Step 4: Highlight Success Stories and Be Open to Feedback:

While you may kick off feeling assured that your program is primed for success, setbacks can occur. But don’t get discouraged! 

Employee referral programs are just like any other business initiative — they are fluid and subject to change based on external factors. If you go into this process knowing that it should be iterative based on feedback and performance, it will help you maintain a growth mindset. 

Best Practices for Supporting Your Referral Program

There are multiple ways to leverage referral programs. Employees get rewarded for connecting their organization with potential best-fit talent while recruiters and managers can access a pool of talent that’s full of warm leads and quality candidates. 

Let’s take a closer look at best practices for recruiters and managers who will be leveraging the referral program to fill open roles faster.

Best Practices for Recruiters

Recruiters should be over the moon about having access to a new talent pool. But successfully streamlining referrals to employees isn’t a process that happens overnight. Here are some best practices to keep in mind to foster the continued success of your internal recruiting efforts: 

• Build a base of engaged employees to accelerate your efforts to fill open positions

• Work with hiring managers to identify hard-to-fill roles opening for the year

• Set up internal campaigns for referrals to keep them top-of-mind

• Collect testimonials from referred candidates and share those in internal campaigns 

• Create a referral spotlight for your jobs to quickly find and connect with qualified talent

Best Practices for Managers

An effective referral program is supported by multiple teams and departments throughout your business. Managers play a key role in connecting with employees regularly to promote open roles in their networks. Here are some best practices to help keep individuals engaged: 

• Identify jobs with low referral rates and collaborate with your teams to develop new strategies for increasing referrals

• Locate referral hot spots by location or job category 

• Celebrate successful efforts and conduct knowledge-sharing meetings to create internal best practices

• Work internally to promote referral bonuses and incentive programs 

How to Drive Adoption Through Communication

Over-communicating before, during, and after the implementation process is not only a best practice but is highly effective. 

There are two great ways to ensure your workforce has the information they need to seamlessly adopt and engage with your new referral program: through dedicated emails and FAQs. 

Crafting Informative Emails

Through dedicated communications, you can keep everyone in the loop by sharing high-level details about the referral program, while letting employees know what’s coming soon. 

Specifically, focus on sharing emails that highlight your reasons for investing in a referrals program and your vision for the future.