Article
One: Referral Schemes: Top Tool in the War for Talent by Jamie
Barber
Part three
In Part Two of this series we started to look at ways to maximise the added value from your Referral Scheme initiative. Part Three takes up the story.
1) Build an award-winning process
Make it easy for your pool of referrers to find out about open vacancies, including those staff based out of the office or on maternity leave. Even more importantly, make the process of submitting referrals as easy and painless as possible. However, if you decide that you will allow referrals to be made ‘generically’ (i.e. not for specific vacancies) bear in mind that your Recruitment Consultants will need to spend considerably longer matching referrals to open vacancies. You may also want to investigate the implications of ‘push’ versus ‘pull’ at your Agency. Some firms have recently highlighted potential problems in referrers simply submitting CVs directly in to Agencies (the ‘push’) as it is possible that no consent will have been sought from the referred candidate. However, as long as you can direct your referrals through a ‘declaration’ phase where they can physically authorise you to process their data (the ‘Send to a Friend’ feature on many workflow systems) then you should be able to sidestep this issue.
You should also ensure that you have some system of tracking the referral process. This will give you an idea of the quality of referred candidates and their success rate (and therefore a rough Return on Investment figure) as well as ensuring that no two referrers claim the same bounty. Having a robust process in place will also help your Recruitment Consultants to contact referred candidates quickly, even if just to acknowledge receipt of their application. Keeping both referred candidates and referrers completely up-to-date is a key objective if you want to maximise positive feedback and spread the message among your referrer pool that you value the efforts they have made. A spreadsheet may be adequate for small companies, but larger organisations may need to look at more adaptable system solutions.
2) Think about what makes referrers tick
A common misconception is that Referral Schemes have to be expensive because bounties for successful referrals must be financial (and large). While it would be foolish to underestimate the lure of the pound signs, there are other options open to you if you think creatively and try to understand the motivations of your workforce. Sporting enthusiasts may be more driven by tickets to a high profile sporting event. Those with substantial commitments outside work might prefer the option to claim extra paid holiday. You could potentially even make use of company assets – how about an all expenses paid luxury weekend in the Chief Executive’s company penthouse suite? Be imaginative and you may find Referral Scheme bounties cheaper than you think.
Part Four of this series will give ideas on how to create a ‘buzz’ around the initiative as well as indicating the competitive advantage to be gained from implementing a Referral Scheme.
Jamie Barber is a senior
consultant for IntroNet, a UK based HR solutions provider,
specialising in customised resourcing solutions and consultancy
services. You can contact him directly at jamie.barber@intronet.com
or on 0207 255 2572, alternatively visit www.intronet.com
for more information.
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