Finding good candidates can be hard work. Especially when there is a high demand but a lack of qualified people. However, there are some straight forward ways to find skilled candidates, one of them is to implement an employee referral program.
Here’s why they’re so important for a company:
Cost
Having an employee referral scheme usually means you have to compensate the employee who referred the new hire to your company. That is a cost but what’s the alternative? Paying for slots on jobs boards and spending hours writing job ads, screening applications and managing candidates? That’s much more expensive.
Better candidate quality
Your employees know that the performance of their referred candidate reflects on them. They don’t want to get in management’s bad books by recommending their unreliable friend with a bad work ethic. For this reason employee referrals produce a better quality of candidate.
Improved retention
Sometimes a new hire doesn’t fit in with the company. Maybe it’s the culture or the team members but with a new hire that was employed through an employee referral program you can be sure that they have a friend to guide them and a friend they can share their problems with. This is going to improve retention especially in the first several months when retention is most difficult.
Encourages Word of Mouth in Employees
If you incentivise your employees to recommend the company to their qualified friends and family, they are much more likely to spread positive word of mouth in their community. If you want a great reputation, employing a referral scheme is a great way to do it.
Overall there are a ton of benefits to integrating an employee referral plan into your recruitment strategy. This has been a series of blogs for companies looking to increase their ability to attract the best candidates to their business. To read our other blogs on this topic click here to read about how to recruit on social media.
