“Don’t be stupid. Don’t change. You are who you are for a reason.” When a friend passionately uttered these words on a zoom call, I paused. I took a sip of chai and stared into the oblivion. Friends with good intentions often tell you just like you need to hear it.

Money is a limited motivator when it comes to the employee referral program. It is a nice way to say ‘thank you’ to the employee. But, it’s not the foundation on which employee referral programs are built. A lot of organisations find this surprising.

Aug 20, 2020. It was 11.30 pm at the night. Our phones did not stop ringing. When a customer calls you at that time, it usually means that all hell has broken loose. And, all hell did break loose. None of us had slept. Our WhatsApp channels were swamped with messages until 1.30 am. And the messages and calls continued throughout the day.

When was the last time you changed your belief?

Employee referral program is one of the best ways to recruit talent. Why are employee referrals so powerful? Because, they drive two key factors - Productivity and Retention. This makes referrals one of the most efficient ways to impact top line through HR practices.

Corporates drive referral programmes on social media.

Ever wondered when and how employee referrals came into being? Around the 4th century B.C., there were a lot of jobs to be filled in the Roman army, yet there were not enough candidates and many were poorly qualified. Staffing an army where wars were common wasn’t easier. They needed a consistent pool of soldiers and other support staff like carpenters, doctors, and engineers to keep the army going.

We often get this question, should we really run a referral program for roles that require no experience. Employee referral is a very solid channel when it comes to driving productivity, attracting high quality hires. It's a great channel for retention. Given the benefits on offer, it makes absolutely no sense to exclude any kind of positions from the employee referral program. Rather, deploy some best practices like the ones listed below to manage the employee referral program for junior positions.

Poof! Gone! He/She is not picking up my calls any more. Aunt, Uncle, Mother are in the hospital. Or god forbid, in the mortuary.

Employee challenges or escalations tend to be around two major things - payroll and employee referral statuses. An employee holds the referral process fairly close to their heart. They have taken the efforts to find good talent and believe that the candidate would be a good fit for the organisation. Employees tend to get emotionally vested with their friends whom they have referred for a particular role and as a result expect to be kept in the loop around their candidature.