In today’s competitive job market, where top talent is getting more difficult to find and recruit, an employee referral program is a simple and effective strategy to recruit new employees.
Traditional referral programs, with no incentives built in, have disappointingly low participation because there is little motivation for employees to refer good people. But with a few tweaks, a referral system can be made efficient and effective.
The first way is considered the simplest but effective and cost efficient way: spreading news of current vacancies via the company’s bulletin board. An incentive to those employees who refer good candidates is a must. Hence, remember to communicate about attractive bonuses to all employees if their referred friends or acquaintances are employed. The simplest form of bonus is cash presented under cheque format to the referrer.
The second way is targeted at employees who perform well. Managers should approach top performers in the company personally and ask them to name the best five people they have ever worked with. Remember that “Like attracts like”. Thus you can be quite sure that people referred by these top performers will be also good performers.
Implementing a program like this can significantly cut costs and hours spent looking for new talent. It is simple and effective, can be done quickly, and can be a good supplement to traditional recruiting methods like advertising jobs on newspapers and on job websites.
