Are you struggling to fill jobs at your company? Before you pay for yet another job ad, consider how you can get more employee referrals, so you can hire someone and save money.
Offer incentives
One of the best ways to increase the rate of employee referrals is to set up a referral program. You can offer a bonus to any employee who refers someone that you hire. The bonus may be something small like a gift card, or it could be an extra hundred dollars on their next paycheck.
Offering incentives, especially financial ones, can encourage employees to refer their friends to work for your company. Without a monetary offer, some people may refer their friends. However, giving people money can get them to refer even more potential employees to your business.
Add referrals to applications
If you want to increase the rate of employee referrals that you can track, add a referral section to the application form. That way, when someone applies, they can state who referred them. This will help you track referral bonuses to pay current employees.
However, it may also show that more people are referring new employees than you think. You could be getting a lot of employee referrals. But if you don’t ask candidates about those referrals, you may never know that’s a big source of new talent.
Use software
You can also use different software to track referrals through the hiring process. The right programs can help you track the rate of employee referrals over time. Then, you can see if your new bonus program is working or if you should improve it.
Think about other programs you use, such as your labor management system. After you do that, you can figure out ways to integrate your current software with the new programs you want to use. That way, you can save time and make technology easier on everyone.
Provide a good work environment
Another amazing way to increase your employee referral rate is to make your workplace enjoyable. If people don’t like coming to work, the last thing they’ll do is tell their friends to apply. But if your current employees enjoy their job and office, they might refer friends.
The better you can make the experience at work, the easier it will be to get referrals. And you’ll have an easier time keeping those new hires on board. Both of those things can help you save money on having to replace people all of the time.
Send out employee surveys
Before you can increase referrals, you should send out surveys to current employees. Make the survey anonymous so that employees can feel free to say all of the good and the bad that they want to see. Then, you can learn what you can improve on to make work better.
Once you implement those changes, you may start to see an increase in employee referrals. If people start enjoying work more, they may be more inclined to want to tell their friends. Then, you may notice you get more applications from people who know your current employees.
Promote from within
When you’re looking to fill a higher-level position, find a current employee to promote. You can do this to make sure the new manager will be a good fit. However, you can also ask the person you promote who they think would be a good replacement.
They may suggest someone in their department already. You can also ask them to suggest people from outside the company. Then, you can contact those people and get a good employee referral, and you can fill that lower-level role in less time.
Finding new employees takes a lot of time and money. Getting employee referrals is an excellent way to lower those costs, but you don’t always have control over the rate of referrals. Consider doing a few things to get your current workers to recommend the company to their friends.
