Are you receiving enough employee referrals to fill your open positions? If yes, then you are on track. If not, then you have to focus on your employee referral program (ERP) to make it more successful for year-round inflow of talents.

These days, many people do not want to switch jobs. They prefer sticking to their current ones in fear of uncertainty that is prevailing across the globe. Therefore, reaching out to employees whom job seekers can trust the most is the best bet left for hiring talent.

This in turn helps most applicants to make an informed decision for a said position; they learn about the company culture and actual job environment in advance.

Many studies have proven that a winning ERP for any organization yields success in filling positions faster, better employee performance, more employee satisfaction, longer employee tenure, lesser recruitment cost and great word-of-mouth publicity as an employer of choice. Despite knowing all these gains and program successes, we fail to have a well-running program.

So, let us discuss the ten comprehensive ways of how to make the employee referral program more effective and efficient for achieving all its benefits.

1. Get leadership buy-in and consistent support: Research has shown that a company’s success happens when C-suite executives sponsor and support the ERP and help in spreading the word about it across the company.

You can earn the confidence of your senior executives by preparing and presenting a strong business case to them. Collaborate with senior executives to design employee referral goals (short-term and long-term talent needs), and ensure they align with your company goals.

Compare your other sources of hire (job boards, vendors, career site, social media) against the ERP in terms of cost of hire, time to hire, quality of hire, and employee turnover rate.

Next, do some research of your competitors and learn if they have a successful ERP. Furthermore, do research using primary sources such as journals or scholarly, reviewed articles for added input. Show your senior executives all the metrics and recommend why investing in an employee referral program is the wisest decision.

Once the ERP is approved, arrange quarterly meetings with senior management to measure its performance on a regular basis. This not only helps in optimizing the ERP, but it also builds the involvement of the C-suite year-round.

2. Give identity to your ERP: Have an impactful name or tagline for advertising and promoting your ERP. For instance, Refer A Friend, Sharing Is Caring, We Love Referrals, Spread The Word, Unleash The Power, Refer And Earn are some of the names to consider. You may include the tagline in your email signature for constant reminder of the program with your employees.

3. Communicate consistently with your employees: Regular communication with your people is the key to elevating employee engagement.

• Employees are your valuable assets and may function as your company’s brand ambassadors with their former employers, alumni groups, or any other associations to which they belong, so leverage them to target passive talents for your open positions.

• Provide your employee all the necessary job details they need to spread the word. In turn, this will reduce the submission of irrelevant profiles.

• Send out a weekly, company email advertising open jobs and mentioning rewards that employees can earn. This regular practice of mass communication instills the idea in employees’ minds that your company values referrals the most.

• Educate your employees about how they can refine their LinkedIn profile, expand it, and reach out to their network for referrals.

• If you find an excellent, potential candidate whom you learn that is connected to one of your employees, then you can request your employee to refer the candidate to you. People often trust their friends, and you never know when the passive talent could get interested in your position.

• You can get the potential employees connected with your department heads for filling them in about the role.

• Accept referrals all year ‘round irrespective of the open positions; this builds an ongoing talent pool.

• Always give timely feedback to the referring employees across all the hiring stages to give them a feeling that their support and contribution is valued, or else they may feel that their referrals are lost in dark.

• If you use ATS, keep it updated so the employees can see the progress on a timely basis.

• Introduce ERP during the onboarding process for new hires. Let them know that the ERP is a collaborative effort and shared responsibility of the HR department, the C-Suite executives, the marketing department, and your employees.

4. Reach out to trusted non-employees: Bring in your extended network of friends such as former employees, contractors, vendors, clients, customers, ex-candidates and so on. Open as many sources of hire as possible to expand the volume of your leads.

5. Make your ERP enjoyable: Unlike traditional recruiting techniques, incorporate game like strategies to increase employee involvement. Create a craze around the ERP and keep it lively, fresh, and fun all year ‘round.

• For example, use display boards such as whiteboards or virtual ones (during this COVID-19 situation) to rank all the referrers based on the number of referrals made.

• Hold inter and intra department competitions for maximum referrals and awards points which can be redeemed for cash or non-cash items—depending upon company’s reward strategy.

• Hold quarterly raffles for all the employees who made referrals during the quarter and present the winner with a gift.

• Appreciation for referrers by C-suite executives in all-hands meetings.

6. Allow job seekers to seek recommendations from your employees: Some companies encourage applicants to get references from their employees via a career site or job postings. This allows applicants to enter an ERP which is the most trusted source of hire for any company.

7. Motivate your employees for efforts and hires: Most companies reward their employees on getting hires, while some companies reward for both efforts to refer and hires. The third category includes a few companies who give no rewards, such companies do not get much referrals as many employees lose interest in referring talents.

Furthermore, some companies motivate employees to pursue niche positions by splitting the referral reward into three parts. First, a company rewards employee for referring a name; second, for joining the company; and third, after completing a certain period with the company.

8. Payout rewards in timely fashion: Some research has reflected that employees are motivated to refer more talents when incentives are paid over a shorter period. Do not hold employees’ incentive amount for longer in the hope of evaluating how the referee is performing. It is the interview panel who is to be held responsible for a bad hire and not the referrer.

9. Give away mix of rewards: Studies have shown that the most employees prefer monetary rewards over the non-monetary ones. I would recommend you conduct an online survey to analyze what matters the most to your employees before finalizing on the reward scheme. This not only makes your employees feel valued and involved, but also it gives them a great motivation to refer friends and acquaintances.

Some of the options for rewarding employees for hires are cash awards, gift cards, vacation days, city trips, adventure trips and so on. Whereas, for employees' efforts in giving the names of talent for niche positions (who couldn't turn into hires), rewards can be company logo items, coupons for two for dinner/movie/coffee/spa or music cards and so forth.

10. Easy to follow steps: The process for employee referral should be easy and fast to follow. You can encourage employees to refer by the name and contact number of the referral, and after that your recruiters will take over.

On the contrary, some studies also mention that no doubt, employee referral is the no. 1 source for hiring. There is a caveat that not all referrals are real and in favor of the company. Always take referrals with a grain of salt while reviewing them. Double check if employees are really referring, or just passing the leads for earning rewards.

Also, some unhappy employees may not refer others. On top of that, they may even discourage other job seekers by saying that the said position is not a good fit for them or by bad-mouthing the company brand.

Overall, the benefits of using the ERP outweigh the downside of not boosting the program. Having said that, implementing and consistently maintaining the above pointers can give your company an edge over your competitors.