Employee referrals have proven to be one of the top ways for organizations to acquire top talent. Benefits of an Employee Referral Program (ERP) Whether your organization is tuning up or just beginning to put an employee referral program in place, here are a few important keys to success to help launch and promote your employee referral program (ERP).

1. Guide to a
successful
Employee Referral Program
zalp.com

2. Questions
to ask for
Successful Referral program
• Why should your company go for a referral program
• Whom to invite for participation in the program
• How to ensure continued engagement and interest
in the referral program
• What results to reward
• How to build momentum and increase participation
over time
Nearly 3 in 10 employers have caught a fake
reference on a job application
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

3. Why should you
go for a
Referral program
• Employees hired through referrals have the highest
retention rate -46% vis-a-vis 33% for employees hired
through job portals
• Rated #1 for diversity hiring
• 1 out of every 5 referral gets hired. Saves time spent on
recruitment efforts
• Highest quality of hires among all recruitment channels
Referral employees have a better cultural fit and turn
out to be better team members
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

4. Whom to invite
to Participate
In the Referral program
• Current Employees
• Past employees
• Network of past and present employees
Referrals are 5 times more likely to be hired
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

5. Successful
Employee Referral programs
• Mobilize participation by rewarding employees with both
cash and non- cash incentives
• Ensure continuous flow of communication on the
employee referral program to ensure top- of-the-mind
awareness
• Harness the power of social media
• Take feedback and review effectiveness for continuous
improvement
• Introduce gamification within your referral program to
boost participation
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

6. Mobilizing participation by
Incentivising
referral
Cash Incentives
• Cash rewards are decided based on
• industry and company size
• position for which the candidate is being referred.
• Skill set required, for E.g. some skills may be hard
to find in the market or conversely might be in
great demand in the industry
• Cash incentives should be paid out in 2 tranches
• Half the amount when the referred employee joins
the organization
• Remainder should be paid out when the referred
employee completes the mandated probation
period and is confirmed
Offering employees socially responsible gifts like
donations to their favorite charities also acts as a
powerful motivator
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

7. Mobilizing participation by
Incentivising
referral
Non- Cash Incentives
• This is now increasingly being used by company’s to
build engagement and motivation for the referral
program
• Recognize employee contribution in employee referral
programs through
acknowledgement at public
functions, badge of honor, personalized notes etc
• Award non-monetary benefits like an extra paid
vacation day, reserved parking space, time out with
significant other etc.
Offer a small incentive for the very act of referring an
employee
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

8. Ensure continuous engagement with
Communication
Communication plays a very important
part in building understanding among
employees regarding :
• Why should they refer - referral program and its
associated benefit
• How to go about Referring a Candidate
• What to expect, the process steps once you have
referred a candidate
Participation is likely to spike when employees are
made to experience that their contribution makes a
difference
• The referral program should be communicated in
various ways during the entire employee life cycle
starting from onboarding and induction right through
appraisals and team events, going down to ensuring
exiting employees act as brand ambassadors to refer
candidates
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

9. Ensure continuous engagement with
Communication
Build a Buzz around the referral program through
Promotional Events – Contests, Competitions and
Jackpot Prizes
Conduct periodic contests and competitions, bumper
draws and reward the winners with coveted prizes like
tickets to a popular match / event, opportunity to
participate in events / conferences, electronic gadgets
etc
Generate competition within departments and teams –
the team that generates the most referrals converted
into hires within a given time period is awarded a team
prize like a day out at a resort etc
Employees should not only be aware of your referral
program, but also excited about it.
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

10. Ensure continuous engagement with
Communication
Ensure job opportunities are communicated and
updated regularly and displayed in prominent
gathering places so that it becomes a topic of
discussion among employees
Build comprehensive job descriptions for open positions
containing all relevant information to reduce the
number of queries for employees
Conduct an employer branding exercise and build the
referral program around it. This will help you and your
employees sell the company to potential candidates on
the key differentiators of your company as an ideal
employer.
Not every referral will turn into a hire, but each
referral contributes to the notion that your
organization is an employer of choice.
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

11. Ensure continuous engagement with
Communication
Maintain a consistent messaging across all recruitment
efforts to promote a unified brand. Ensure that
employees have the material available to sell the
employer brand to potential candidates
Ensure that your referral site is easy to access,
navigate and extremely user friendly. It will help to
have the site architecture displayed at prominent
notice boards to facilitate top of mind awareness
These initiatives help employees feel valued and
involved in the entire process and subsequently
builds ownership and positive word-of-mouth for
the program
One of the most important aspects of a successful
referral program is to ensure that employees are
regularly updated regarding the status of their
referred candidate. This can be through an automated
system where the employee can log in to check the
status or it can be through mails to employees
informing them of the status of their candidates.
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

12. Harness the influence of
Social media
The following steps will help you use
social media effectively to build a
successful employee referral program
•
Social media has now become one of the most
potent tools to use both externally to build a
connect with end users as well as internally with
your employees and their connections
Educate employees on the do’s and dont’s of social
media, what to keep in mind when creating a profile,
protocol of sharing information , online networking,
and converting network contacts to referrals.
• Build your social media recruiting strategy to
create easily shareable content to market your
employer brand. This can include link to interesting
blog posts or articles, posts to Facebook and
Twitter, sharing company updates, major events,
team outings, open positions etc.
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

13. Harness the influence of
Social media
• Training employees on building and managing a
stronger, more robust professional network will in
turn help them refer more and better quality
people.
• Educate employees through workshops on how to
identify valuable contacts, make solid introductions,
establish mutually beneficial dialogues, and
determine if and when they should consider
referring someone to your organization
Its time for you to Stop resenting the time your
employees spend on Facebook
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

14. Continuous Improvement through
Feedback &
Review
Measure and Monitor Program
effectiveness through
• Analyzing new hire matrix
• What percentage of hires come from
referrals?
• What is the turnover rate of referred hires?
• How does a referred hire’s on-the-job
performance compare to that of hires
obtained through other sources?
•
Nothing is constant and hence even the very best
employee referral programs need to be updated to
keep pace with technological innovations, macro
economic changes, changes in workforce dynamics and
company growth curve.
Capturing Employee Feedback on
• Level of awareness on the incentive program
• Ease of using the site
• Incentive Rate
• Suggestions for improvement
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

15. Continuous Improvement through
Feedback &
Review
• Efficiency of Referral Program
• Evaluate and benchmark turnaround time from
when a candidate is referred to when the
candidate is hired. Explore ways to reduce the
time lag to increase the efficiency of the
program
• Analyze employee participation trends (spikes
and drops) in causes for the same
• Track trends in technology and linkage to hiring
The key question to ask yourself is whether you are
getting the best value for your investments in the
program, and what is the scope for improvement
• Cost of hiring through Referral and other
recruitment channels
• Average cost per hire for hiring through the
referral program
• Average cost per hire for hiring through other
sources like job portals or agencies
• Measure ROI
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

16. The Future lies with
Gamification
• Gamification spends will grow to as much as $2.8bn
by 2016
• 70% of Fortune 500 company’s will use game
mechanics at the workplace in some form or the
other by 2014
• Gamification offers the flexibility to recognize and
reward in a small way for committed efforts to
bring in quality profiles that are interview worthy
• Majority of employees today would like to work for
a brand that is perceived to be fun and playful
As per Wikipedia, Gamification is the use of game
thinking and game mechanics in a non-game context
in order to engage users and solve problems
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program

17. About Zalp
ZALP is a unique SaaS (software-as-a-service)
based social employee referral software
designed to help organizations efficiently
source the highest quality candidates through
the most valuable source of recruitment–
Employee Referrals.
zalp.com

18. About Zalp
Empowered with breakthrough features that
tap into the full potential of Social Media and
an extremely user friendly interface, ZALP is
every organization’s perfect Social Employee
Referral and Social Recruiting Software.
ZALP helps organizations boost their employee
referral output by upto 72%
zalp.com
%

19. Why Zalp
7 easy and convenient ways to refer
The success of any employee referral program depends on one primary factor:
Employee Participation
ZALP gives employees not one but seven easy and convenient
ways to make referrals. This ensures increased employee
participation like never before.
ZALP’s social media integrated features make the referral
process for employees not only easy but also fun.
zalp.com

20. For more information, visit
www.zalp.com
To book a free demo, drop a mail to
info@zalp.com
www.linkedin.com/company/zalp
www.facebook.com/zalp03
www.twitter.com/zalptweets
zalp.com
You may also call us for any other assistance
1-866-217- 1267

21. Do you already have an
Employee Referral Program?
Get a personalized indexing report for your organization that helps
you benchmark your referral program against industry leaders and
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ER-i is the first ever initiative on employee referrals that brings together recruitment leaders
from all across the world to set the benchmarks of an employee referral program.
Guide to a Successful
Employee Referral Program