How Social Media Can Improve Employee Engagement In Your Employee Referral Program

  • Added:
    Sep 04, 2014
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How Social Media Can Improve Employee Engagement In Your Employee Referral Program Photo by Savio Vadakkan

Employee referral programs only work if employees are engaged enough with the organization and the referral program. If they themselves are not satisfied or happy with either the organization or their referral program, there is little chance of their referring others to go through the same difficulties they are facing. Many a times, even though they are reasonably satisfied with things at the workplace they simply will not bring themselves to make the effort an employee referral program requires.

Engaging employees with the referral program and ensuring they remain engaged and committed to its success is therefore critical and requires well planned effort in organizing events, campaigns, raffles and other activities to keep the referral excitement alive. These programs have had some success in keeping employees engaged with the referral program  in short bursts, but something bigger is needed to keep employees engaged on a consistent basis with the referral program. In this context, social media has come as a lifesaver for referral programs. With everyone leading an active social life virtually these days, social media can shore up engagement in the referral program like nothing else can.

The best way to use social media for increasing engagement is to allow employees access to social media platforms at the workplace. This allows employees to share exciting work events, photos and videos on social media allowing others to see what a great place to work it is and raising up your brand profile by several notches. Employees love the buzz their posts generate and are encouraged to workas great brand ambassadors. They are more than happy sharing job opportunities across their social connections as well as answering queries regarding the company and the job and recommending the organization to people who are as yet unsure whether they should apply for the open position. Social media usage requires guidelines to define what information is good to share and what is not, but once the rules are clearly set, social media can work wonders to help employees feel empowered and engaged with the organization and the referral program.

You could introduce social media rewards to recognize employees who have successfully used social media to generate employee referrals. For instance encouraging connections of employees to refer by offering them rewards as well is a good way to keep employees engaged with the referral program while spreading the word among their connections and connections of their connections regarding possible job openings.

In the ultimate analysis, so greatly hooked is everyone to social media these days that the more you use social media to run your referral program, the more engaged your employees are likely to be with the referral program.

Author's Profile

Savio Vadakkan is the Marketing Professional at ZALP, a unique social recruiting software. ZALP enables organizations to automate and streamline every aspect of their employee referral program and integrates it with the potential of social media recruiting to get quality referrals.


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