3 ways to instantly boost referrals

As if the war on talent wasn’t hard enough, along came old mate ‘rona, and along went access to international talent.

With ever-shrinking talent pools, and intensifying demand on local headcount growth, now more than ever before, I’m seeing my clients reach out to their own people to help spot and convert. And it’s not surprising really. We all know the huge ROI that effective referral behaviour can bring; a personal connection from the inside means less competition from the outside – a huge amount of the heavy-lifting done already.

But at an organisational level, success with referral is precarious, and therefore tends to be a sleeping bear many are reluctant to poke. The mechanics are usually so inextricably entwined with systems and compliance, any minor chink in the chain throws the cost: benefit ratio completely out of whack.

But whilst what you’ve got may not be perfect, you need bums on seats now. and surely any referral is better than none right? Well it’s likely that the wider employee population just doesn’t share the same level of urgency, and long-term, it sends the wrong message to be continually asking them for a favour instead of referral behaviour being inherent so it’s important to balance the right-now with the long game.

Here are my top 3 ways you can make the most of your referral practices to get immediate results, without a complete overhaul, without compromising future success, and no business case required!

All we’re asking employees to do is refer not recruit. The real measure of referral success is your talent pool getting bigger, not your vacancy list getting shorter.

I get that we want quality referrals, but there’s a plethora of reasons even great referees may not be the right fit right now – that’s no fault or control of a referring employee. Rewarding on the condition the referee is hired is not an effective incentive because it is not actually rewarding referral behaviour. Once they’ve connected us with their contact, our talent pool is one person bigger, that’s their job done, and it should be recognised (even rewarded) then.

We should be minimising the ask of our employees to one quick little step. We should be promoting how simple and positive an experience it is for the referrer. Being clear that just putting us in contact fulfils the request, and then we should be bloody-well thanking them!

And it doesn’t need to cost the world. One of our clients for example included a playful audible animation of balloons and confetti popping on screen when the ‘submit’ button of their referral form was clicked. Simple and cost-effective positive reinforcement. A good agency partner can help you find opportune moments in your current referral process and creative ways to say thanks that won’t need a business case.

If someone was suggesting you for a blind date, you’d want some influence on what they say about you right? So why, oh why do we not help our people with some suggested things to say? As Talent Acquisition, you know what’s going to make your organisation sound most attractive to candidates. Not only that, one of the biggest barriers to referral behaviour is employees just not having the confidence to talk about areas of the business they don’t themselves work in or with.

We need to be arming them with stories to tell, and points to make that ensure we have our best foot forward and all our employees can speak about our career offering regardless of where in the business they sit.

This can be as simple as adding some proof-point stories into your regular internal communications, or providing a link to a video that does all the selling for them, or putting together a ‘Talking about us cheat-sheet’ on your intranet. Even if they don’t use them, simply knowing they’re available may be just the confidence booster your people need.

After being connected with a candidate, I often see the focus naturally sway towards wooing them and away from the referrer. But it’s of upmost importance you pay close attention to the experience you’re giving your referring employee, because that’s what’s going to determine repeat referral behaviour or not.

It’s their reputation on the line. For them to risk that again, they need to have felt informed and secure, that their contact is in capable hands and the risk was well worth the pay-off.  Don’t forget it’s highly likely they’ll be in contact on the sidelines with the candidate throughout. We need to support our referrer to have that conversation as much as we can.

Manage expectations of response timeframes, give interview preparation hints and tips (this is usually information already available anyway so it’s no biggy tweaking to suit a referrer audience), schedule a face-to-face check-in meeting with the referrer. A good agency partner can help you map the ideal referrer experience and suggest small interventions that can have a huge impact on repeat referral behaviour.

So, lean into the referral at your organisation. Map out what the current process is and spot small opportunities to improve the experience for the referrer as much as you can. This is the key to leveraging your peoples’ networks quickly, without the need for a big can of worms to be opened.