Here Is How You Can Change Your Employee Perception Towards Your Referral Program?
An employee referral program thrives on the ability of employees to refer high caliber people for job openings within the organization. The act of referring people from within their social and professional connections is purely voluntary on the part of employees. Organizations use a variety of incentives, monetary as well as non monetary to encourage employees to refer. But very often, despite the best incentive programs, the employee referral program fails to take off as employees do not take the trouble to refer people. More often than not this is due to wrong perceptions in the minds of employees regarding the employee referral resulting from inadequate or poor communication regarding the program and its benefits.
Employee misconceptions, if not corrected urgently can kill your employee referral program as nothing else can. One popular misconception that employees generally have is that the process of referring a candidate would be a difficult and time consuming process. Another perception that generally gets built over time is that since only the employee whose referral is eventually hired is rewarded; going through the referral process is not worth the time and effort. But the biggest cause for wrong employee perception regarding the referral program is lack of feedback on candidates referred by employees.
However, even if the referral program has failed to build the right connection with employees, all is not lost. It is possible to rebuild positive perceptions in the minds of employees for the employee referral program by using the recent technological tools available like Zalp with of course sufficient planning and marketing.
Below are some quick tips to help you remarket your employee referral program for more positive employee perceptions:
The 1st step towards rebuilding perception is to give your referral program a new name and logo with a catchy tagline. Make sure the logo is prominently displayed in all communication related to the employee referral program.
The next step is communication of the program. Communicate the employee referral program and its benefits in as many employee forums as possible. Rope in senior management to communicate how employee participation in the referral program is crucial to build organizational strength. Keep the program and its communication as simple as possible so that the referral tool is easy to understand and use.
Conduct workshops to take employees through the employee referral platform so that they are fully aware of the steps involved in referring someone. Incorporate social media referral tools into your referral program to make it simple and easy for employees to share job openings and upload profiles of people they would like to refer.
Lastly and most importantly, build a compelling employee and candidate experience around the whole referral program. Ensure that all potential points of interaction between the organization and the employee related to the referral program are designed to make employees feel valued and important. Feedback should be provided to employees on their referrals within 24-48 hours of being referred. Similarly, employees should be kept updated regarding the status of their referral throughout the interview process and the final outcome and the reasons should be shared with employees as soon as possible.
Rewarding employees for participating in the program is just one aspect of a good employee referral program. The whole program as such should be geared towards making employees feel so great about participating in the program that they act as ambassadors to get more employees to participate in the referral program.
