Awesome & AutomatedGetting the Most Out of Your

Employee Referral Program (ERP)

2019 GR8 People Inc. All rights reserved.

Awesome & AutomatedGetting the Most Out of YourEmployee Referral Program (ERP)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

03: Introduction04: A Closer Look: Why Employees Don’t Refer06: 5 Steps to an Awesome & Automated ERP07: Step 1: Assess Your Needs09: Step 2: Create the Program Guidelines12: Step 3: Develop a Promotion Plan14: Step 4: Track. Measure. Maintain.15: Step 5: How & Where to Automate16: Conclusion

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IntroductionIt’s no secret that when it comes to attracting quality candidates, speeding up hiring and onboarding, and improving engagement levels—not to mention numerous other positive outcomes—Employee Referral Programs rock!

Given their strong track record of success, it makes sense that referrals are often a go-to strategy for hard-to-fill positions.

So Why Do Companies Get in Their Own Way?

LinkedIn reports that even though companies consistently identify employee referrals as the best source of quality hires, budgets are often limited. Other common factors getting in the way include:

• Undefined or unclear program guidelines• Lack of promotion, including both the initial

program launch and efforts to maintain awareness• Difficulty tracking and managing the ERP properly,

particularly the status of referred candidates

What this leads to is an environment in which employees are not engaged in referring GR8 talent.

Yes, you heard it right:

48% of companies identify ERPs as the top

channel for quality hires

But only 9% of their budgets are invested in a

referral program

LinkedIn, 2017 Global Trends Report

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A Closer Look:Why Employees Don’t Refer

Why Employees Don’t Refer

I have absolutely no idea how our program works or how to find out more.

I don’t know what to look for or the right way to reach out to people in my network.

I’ve referred before and never heard back from HR. Worse, the person I recommended didn’t either.

I’m too busy to sort through my contacts and look for people who are a good match

for my company’s current openings.

(Sound familiar?)

5 Steps to an Awesome & Automated ERPThe good news is that you can turn skeptical colleagues into passionate advocates by adopting long-established best practices and leveraging technology designed to make referral programs both more efficient and user-friendly.

T a k e note! We’ve identified five specific stepsthat you can follow to take your ERP from just so-so to awesome and automated, and, in the process, transform it into one of your best sources of exceptional talent.

Considerations: Current Situation & Program Goals

If you had a referral program in the past, what were the basic parameters? What worked? What didn’t? Reach out to both hiring managers and employees who made referrals to gather additional input.

Which positions or areas are you struggling with most today? Have you ever tried to generate referrals for those positions or areas previously? If so, what were the results? If not, why not?

What might affect the program in the future? Take into account your organization’s business strategy and how it will impact your talent needs, as this will also influence the design of your program.

What will success look like? Think beyond “attract more candidates for hard-to-fill positions” or “increase our overall talent pipeline.” Rather, you need to identify metrics that are both specific and attainable so that you can track and evaluate the effectiveness of your ERP against each metric, such as:

Step 1: Assess Your Needs

Whether you’ve had a formal ERP in place previously or not, your first step is to assess your organization’s needs. Here, the focus should be on understanding your current situation, establishing program goals and thinking through resource allocation.

% of hires made through referrals % of referrals hired Program participation rate

Average time to hire Average cost per hire % reduction in turnover

Step 1: Assess Your NeedsConsiderations: Resource Allocation

Having the right resources in place to create, launch and maintain a referral program is essential to its long-term health. Here are several questions to explore as you examine resource allocation:

● Who will own the ERP? Don’t just say that it’s an initiative owned by talent acquisition. Decide who is ultimately responsible for the program’s success. This individual may not be the person who oversees the day-to-day aspects of the ERP, but he or she will ensure that the ERP is created and implemented according to plan, as well as managed, measured and maintained effectively.

● Who will support it? You’ll likely have a team of people who assist at various stages along the way. Identify who will be involved during each phase and what the specific roles and responsibilities are of each team member and set clear expectations. For example, some people may need to contribute to the project through tasks and assignments while others will function as reviewers and approvers of the work.

● What is the required time commitment? Once you’ve identified everyone who will support the program and what their roles will be, you can estimate the staff time required for success so all team members can anticipate how to manage their time accordingly.

● How much will this cost? Finally, document all elements that will require a dedicated budget. First, you’ll need a budget for any rewards that you include in your program, whether that means cash payouts, giveaways or both. You’ll also want to consider potential costs associated with program communications, such as an onsite launch party, printed posters or mailings to employees’ homes. Think about the technology you might need, too, such as a dedicated ERP automation platform. Try to anticipate as much as you can for prior approval so that your program guidelines, promotion plan and maintenance efforts don’t result in unforeseen expenses that might limit your ERP success.

Your guidelines should address which positions qualify for the program, who is eligible to refer, your process for managing referrals, and how you will recognize and reward those who refer qualified candidates to you. These are the basics, but it’s quite possible you will think of some additional guidelines that are unique to your company.

QUALIFYING POSITIONS

Some organizations include any and all openings in their ERP, while others focus on specific positions or hiring challenges like the following:

• Hard to fill • High turnover rate that creates a continual need to

recruit candidates• Full-time or skilled professional openings

Be transparent with employees regarding why a role is qualified. Explain that the program reflects current hiring needs and available talent pools.

REFERRER ELIGIBILITY

Corporate structures and work arrangements have changed dramatically in recent years, which means your organization may employ large numbers of contract workers and freelancers. Include these workers in the program, too, as opening an ERP up beyond direct employees will provide access to a much broader candidate pool.

Other potential sources of referrals include corporate alumni or vendors with which you have long-standing relationships. Think through all the relationships your organization currently has with individuals who can advocate on your behalf and decide which of the sources you may want to include in the program.

Step 2: Create the Program Guidelines

Step 2: Create the Program GuidelinesManaging Referrals: Communications

Among your most important discussions as you create your guidelines is how your company will manage the referral process. There’s much to address because the experience of both your referrers and their referrals can make or break your ERP, not to mention your employer brand. One option is to create a service level agreement that clearly stipulates the standards for all aspects of program management, such as:

• Recruiters will contact referred candidates within “X” number of days of receiving the referral. Ideally, your organization is reaching out to referrals immediately as this acknowledges the value of both the referral and the source of that referral. You should also determine how fast you can move them through the pipeline and try to stick to that timetable, knowing it’s in your best interest to move top candidates through the hiring process quickly.

• Referrers will be notified during each step of the process: referral received, referral contacted by HR, referral’s hiring process status, offer made and offer accepted/declined. These communications are an absolute must, and if you don’t make them an essential component of your ERP you will alienate those who refer and diminish the likelihood of future referrals.

• Referrals who aren’t offered a position will be given the opportunity to talk directly to a recruiter to better understand why he or she wasn’t selected. No boilerplate emails that read, “while your background and experience are impressive, we’ve moved forward with candidates who more closely match the position description.” These generic emails are among the biggest complaints that job seekers have today, and if you use this tactic with candidates who are referred the damage to your brand will be significant.

• Quality referrals who aren’t offered a position will be asked to stay in touch. Invite these individuals to join your talent network so that you can nurture the relationship until another relevant opportunity is available.

Step 2: Program Guidelines

Rewards and Recognition

Organizations often assume that you have to offer sizeable bonuses for every hire for an ERP to be successful. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. According to ongoing research compiled by LinkedIn, the top reasons employees make referrals are:

35% to help their friends

32% to help their companies

26% to be seen as a valuable colleague

This doesn’t mean that rewards and recognition shouldn’t play a role in your program!

In terms of recognition, there are endless ways to call attention to successful referrers. Go beyond company-wide emails, too. Send a quarterly e-newsletter that welcomes all new employees and highlights those who referred new hires.

Communicate your ERP results in real-time on your organization’s intranet. Have the CEO recognize referrers during your company’s annual meeting. Your CEO can also send a personal thank-you note to any “super referrers” as a special way to acknowledge that they continually play a major role in attracting talent to the company.

Once you’ve agreed upon all the policies and procedures, document your new guidelines and get the buy-in you need throughout your organization to move forward with your next step: Developing a Promotion Plan.

Step 3: Develop a Promotion PlanYou’ve assessed your needs and ironed out all of details to arrive at final guidelines for your Employee Referral Program. Now it’s time to plan how you will promote it through an initial launch and a strategy for ongoing promotions.

The Launch Plan

Your launch plan should accomplish three things: raise awareness among all potential referrers, clearly explain how the program works and begin generating referrals immediately. Remember to make a big splash and have fun—the more enthusiastic you are about the ERP, the more enthusiastic employees will be to participate.

Need a few ideas to get started?

CREATE AWARENESS EXPLAIN THE PROGRAM GENERATE REFERRALS ASAP

● Host a launch party to announce the program and explain how it works

● Develop a CEO video that speaks to the program’s importance

● Write about it for the company blog● Post information in common areas and on digital

billboards● Announce it on your social channels, especially

LinkedIn● Call attention to it on your company’s intranet, ideally

on the home page

● Host lunch n’ learns, tailoring them for hiring managers vs. referrers—conduct virtual meetings for employees who work remotely

● Create an FAQ flyer that can be distributed via print and online

● House a section for your ERP on the intranet that is complete with all guidelines and tips for referrers, as well as stats regarding the program’s success

● Ask for on-the-spot referrals from employees during your launch party

● Offer additional incentives for referrals received in the program’s first 30 days

● Offer employees one-on-one appointments with recruiters to review their networks together

● Provide a template that employees can use to reach out directly to potential referrals in their networks

Initial Launch & Ongoing Promotions

Many of the channels outlined for the program launch can be used to regularly promote all aspects of your ERP, from new positions that you’re seeking referrals for to acknowledging those who make successful referrals. However, here are a few additional thoughts on how to keep your promotions fun and fresh:

• Create an annual reminder that the program exists. Come up with a new theme each year that reflects your employer brand.

• Provide text that employees can cut-and-paste to add the job to their social networks.

• Host referral happy hours to generate on-the-spot referrals from your employees, as well as other external sources of referrals like corporate alumni and longtime vendors.

• Capitalize on the enthusiasm of new recruits by asking them for referrals during onboarding and orientation sessions.

Step 3: Develop a Promotion Plan

Step 4: Track. Measure. Maintain.

With your ERP successfully off the ground (GR8 job!), it’s time to focus your efforts on evaluating your progress. You should be tracking all the metrics that you identified during your needs assessment, as well as tracking other aspects that can provide additional insight into what’s working and where improvements need to be made. More specifically:

• Track key milestones in the hiring process, such as phone screens, interviews, offers made and offers accepted. In addition to triggering automated communications with employees about these referral milestones, you’ll have the data needed to ensure that you are living up to the service level standards that you’ve set.

• Monitor the number of referrals who are added to your talent network. If you’re seeing that referrals who haven’t yet been hired aren’t joining your network this may be an indication that something is broken in your process of managing referrals or that they aren’t being invited to join consistently.

• Conduct regular satisfaction surveys with key audience segments. This includes hiring managers, referrers and the candidates themselves. Your surveys can help make sense of what you’re seeing in your tracking metrics and associated data.

Aim to review your findings at least twice each year—more frequently if you are managing a high volume of referrals—and use your reviews to inform program modifications that will improve the participant experience and ERP outcomes.

Step 5: How & Where to AutomateManaging an ERP to its fullest potential can require the smart use of automation. Here is a checklist of the most common ways that

automation can save you time, nurture candidates effectively, measure ROI and ensure that your Employee Referral Program is awesome:

Email Templates for Job Notifications: Create email templates that allow you to communicate with employees about current openings. You can also create templates that employees can use to seek referrals complete with social buttons for easy sharing.

Automated Role Matching: Since most employees are already pressed for time, look to automation to assist them in comparing a job opening to the experience of people in their networks. Employees can choose whether to use this feature, but those who do will appreciate the time automated role matching saves them in identifying potential candidates for referrals.

Tracking: Most systems have robust tracking features that allow you to know where all referred candidates are in the hiring lifecycle and send automatic updates to both referrals and their referrers. Here again you can leverage templates for your communications at all phases of the hiring process. Automated tracking also gives you insight into which employees continually refer the candidates most likely to be hired, making it easier for you to properly acknowledge their super-charged contributions.

Measurement: Automated tracking means instant access to success metrics, from referred and hired applicants to the social shares of jobs by employees and even the quality of hires made. Many tools include a dashboard where you can view real-time results in one place, allowing you to focus more time on what matters most: your relationships with referred candidates and implementing changes to the program to improve subsequent outcomes.

Rewards Fulfillment: Automation can make program fulfillment a breeze, too. For example, if you use cash rewards, most platforms can integrate with your payroll system so that referral bonuses are deposited directly into your employees’ accounts. If you favor giveaways, work with a vendor that specializes in this area.

Talent acquisition has experienced seismic shifts over the past decade. One aspect that has remained constant is the power of an Employee Referral Program when it comes to attracting quality candidates. Careful planning and the use of automation can substantially cut down on the time required to manage and maintain your referral program while contributing to its overall success. Make it awesome and automated. Your investment will ensure that your ERP is among your most effective strategies for employee engagement, branding your company as a GR8 place to work and bringing top talent into your organization, all at the same time.

Conclusion

Contact us today to experience how GR8 People can revolutionize the way you attract, engage and hire the world's best talent.

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