Category: Employee Engagement

Talking Talent: Recruiting and Retaining the Next-Gen Workforce with Kathryn Minshew of The Muse

Posted on by nfuqua

In this episode of Talking Talent, we’re talking about the next generation workforce. For years, this conversation has been about millennials, but now the oldest millennials are in their late-30s and the youngest, their mid-20s. Now, most recent graduates are members of Generation Z.

How do employers attract and retain this new generation of workers? As they enter the workforce and start their careers, what sets them apart? And what are they looking for in an employer?

Joining us to talk about this is Kathryn Minshew, the CEO & Founder of The Muse, a career platform used by more than 75 million people to research companies and careers. In 2018, The Muse was named one of Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World.

Kathryn is also the author of “The New Rules of Work,” a Wall Street Journal national bestseller. She has spoken at MIT and Harvard, contributed to the WSJ and HBR, and appeared on TODAY and CNN. She has also been named to SmartCEO’s Future50 Visionary CEOs and Inc.’s 35 Under 35. Kathryn worked on HPV vaccine introduction in Rwanda with the Clinton Health Access Initiative before founding The Muse and was previously at McKinsey & Company.

Additionally, Kathryn is the host of a new podcast from The Muse called “The New Rules of Work,” which interviews experts and leaders to explore the changing landscape of work. The New Rules of Work launched in November.

Feeling Part of the Team: The Importance of Building an Inclusive Culture in the Workplace

Posted on by skatz

The letter of resignation came as a shock. The departing employee had just started six months earlier and brought the ideal skill set for the position. They received a substantial salary increase from their previous job, and no one had noticed any signs of discontent. When asked their reason for leaving during the exit interview, after some hesitation, the explanation came out: “I don’t feel like I belong here, and I don’t think anyone really understands who I am.” 

When pressed for details, none were forthcoming. One question came up among the leadership team again and again, “How many other employees feel the same way and what changes do we need to make?” This prompted a review of the company’s diversity and inclusion program, which showed some progress in the diversity of its workforce, but no clear way to measure improvement in inclusion.

An Inclusive Culture Enables a Diverse Workplace to Thrive

The term “Diversity and Inclusion” has become so common that it can be easy to miss the different meaning of each word. A recent article in Gallup’s Workplace magazine defines the distinction between diversity and inclusion:

“Inclusion has to be understood as very different from diversity because simply having a wide roster of demographic characteristics won’t make a difference to an organization’s bottom line unless the people who fall into any one demographic feel welcomed. Inclusion refers to a cultural and environmental feeling of belonging.”

Organizations that have successfully established a diverse workforce can reap the proven benefits that it provides, including a wide array of perspectives and experiences.  However, seemingly innocuous practices that are embedded in a company’s culture have the potential to make a segment of its workforce feel unwelcome and alien. But, when the possible problems with these practices are identified, a commitment to creating an inclusive culture can lead to changes that can vastly improve a work environment.

Consider the example of a tech start-up company that was founded by a group of friends from college, all coming from very similar backgrounds. Every year, a company picnic was held on a Saturday or Sunday with two key competitions taking place among the work teams: a relay swim race and a barbecue cook-off, followed by an employee recognition awards ceremony. This tradition continued as the company grew rapidly and employed a diverse range of talent.

While many employees looked forward to the company picnic, others began to quietly dread it. A few of the reasons these employees felt uncomfortable were: 

  • The religious practices and restrictions on Saturdays or Sundays followed by some employees made them feel like they had to choose between “being part of the team” and their faith.
  • Those who were differently abled or unable to swim well felt excluded from the relay race in the pool.
  • Vegetarians would have to excuse themselves from the “taste-test” part of the barbecue competition.

The goal of the company picnic was to build teamwork and show appreciation, but it had the opposite effect on some employees. For some, the timing and activities held at the picnic sent the message that “you and those who are like you do not really belong here.”

When leadership became aware of the distress that the picnic was causing some employees, they took the time to reach out to every employee to get their feedback on the timing and the events held at the picnic. Great care was taken to implement all of the ideas they received that were feasible and each employee was specifically thanked for their input. This effort was an important step in creating an environment in which every employee felt included and valued – in other words, a culture of inclusion. 

Removing the “Identity Cover”

At some point in many job interviews, the job seeker is asked, “Tell me about yourself.”  They will try to respond with details about themselves that they think the interviewer will like. But, as the candidate mentally calculates what to emphasize, they may also be thinking about what information to withhold because of how the interviewer may perceive them. Once a candidate is hired, this stressful mental exercise can continue.  This can be especially true for those who are in some way different from the majority of their coworkers.

An article in the Harvard Business Review notes that, “Employees who differ from most of their colleagues in religion, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background and generation often hide important parts of themselves at work for fear of negative consequences. We in the diversity and inclusion community call this ‘identity cover,’ and it makes it difficult to know how they feel and what they want, which makes them vulnerable to leaving their organizations. The key to inclusion is understanding who your employees really are … In an ideal world, all leaders would be adept at understanding their employees and making sure they didn’t lose any through neglect or ignorance.” 

Employees who feel they need to cover parts of their identities can lead to behavior in the workplace that is driven by fear. Examples provided in the article include a mother who hesitates to put up pictures of her children because she is afraid coworkers will question her commitment to her job; a Muslim who prays in his car because he does not want to experience Islamophobia; and a gay executive who hesitates to bring his same-sex partner to a company event. By masking part of who they are, these employees implicitly feel that they do not fully belong where they work.

The leaders at the tech start-up had no idea that they were alienating part of their workforce at their company picnic. It can be challenging to perceive what aspects of the work environment need to be changed to promote inclusion, especially for those employees whose backgrounds and identities may be unfamiliar to the majority at a workplace. It is for this reason that the proactive approach of implementing an inclusion program is an important first step in creating an inclusive environment.

Inclusivity Checklist

Every organization is different, so the content and structure of a new inclusion program needs to meet the conditions of your organization. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) offers an inclusivity checklist for HR that provides a good place to start:

  • Make sure company leaders understand that inclusion is about ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard, opinions are considered and value to the team is evident.
  • Train managers – and hold them accountable – to show that inclusivity is a core competency.
  • Form an inclusion council with genuine influence and power.
  • Value differences, and create an environment where people can feel comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work.
  • Identify the needs of underrepresented groups, and give them necessary support and resources.
  • Provide workers with a safe space to voice their concerns.
  • Benchmark key aspects of your organization’s culture, and understand the employee experience before making changes to promote inclusivity.
  • Remember that daily interactions are the most telling sign of whether your company has an inclusive culture.

Empowering the Workforce by Example

When Eric de los Santos arrived at Brown University as a scholarship student from Hawaii, he was struck by how different he felt from the other students. As a child of immigrants and a gay Filipino-American, he grew up valuing the diversity of cultures that characterize Hawaii. When he came to the mainland, he noticed that many people he encountered were guarded about their cultures and identities.

His commitment to confronting and challenging bias led him to become co-founder of the Filipino Students Alliance. After receiving a law degree from the University of Washington, de los Santos worked as a trial lawyer before joining TrueBlue as a corporate counsel. Shortly after joining the company, he was invited to a corporate outing that included spouses and significant others. It was the early 2000s, when same-sex relationships were far less accepted than today, and same-sex marriage was still several years in the future. After he introduced the man who is now his husband as his boyfriend, he was congratulated by many of his colleagues, who thanked him for being open about his relationship.  

When TrueBlue started a Diversity and Inclusion Council, de los Santos was the natural choice to lead it. Today, in addition to being the President of National Filipino American Lawyers Association, de los Santos is Associate General Counsel, Senior Director of Employment Law at TrueBlue.

At PeopleScout’s 2019 NEXT Talent Summit, de los Santos led a Big Idea Talk and breakout session in which he reflected on his own experience, the success of building a diverse and inclusive work environment at TrueBlue, and the vital role of leadership:

“It is important to be your authentic self, not to feel that you cannot be who you truly are because of another person’s preconceived judgement,” de los Santos said. “If employees feel they cannot be who they truly are and express themselves in a way that is natural for them, they will not be able to display their full potential. If an employee is struggling with something in their lives that they don’t feel they can share, that employee will feel isolated. They may not be able to concentrate on their work and could develop a feeling that no one cares about them and start to think about an exit strategy.

“But, when employees experience genuine respect and feel safe to express themselves, productivity, retention rates and morale all increase. Leaders have a duty to create an environment where people can be their authentic selves and set the example with their own behavior that displays respect and a willingness to listen, and clearly communicates the value of every employee.”

Inclusion Pays Off

While the arguments to build an inclusive culture at work may sound compelling, how important is inclusion to an organization’s success? A study from Deloitte cited research that found that organizations with inclusive cultures have a clear advantage over those that do not.

Organizations with inclusive cultures are:

  • Two times more likely to exceed financial targets
  • Three times more likely to be high-performing
  • Six times more likely to be innovative and agile
  • Eight times more likely to achieve business outcomes

Successfully building a culture of inclusion requires a serious commitment from the leaders of an organization and participation at every level. While there may be challenges along the way, the efforts made to create a culture of inclusion can result in increased retention, greater commitment and input from the workforce, which can lead to markedly improved business outcomes.

Talking Talent: Building an Employer Value Proposition and Employer Brand for the Future, Part One

Posted on by nfuqua

This is the first Talking Talent episode in a two-part conversation about employer value propositions and employer branding.

As employers face increasing competition for the best talent, a well-defined employer value proposition (EVP) and employer brand strategy have become more important than ever. In a candidate-driven market, employers need to stand out to their target talent audiences through a unified EVP and employer brand. High-quality candidates know what they want out of a future employer, and organizations that don’t effectively show their value to candidates risk losing them to the competition.

To talk about this, joining us is Simon Wright, Managing Partner of Talent Advisory here at PeopleScout.

With more than 20 years of experience in RPO and talent management consulting, Simon brings a global perspective to talent acquisition and engagement—having spent time living and working across the EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions.

As Managing Partner for our Talent Advisory practice, Simon is a trusted advisor to HR and talent leaders. Operating at a strategic level, Simon has a proven track record of building and driving creative and innovative strategic talent programs that positively impact business performance. 

Simon leads an industry-leading (and award-winning) multi-disciplinary team of subject matter experts across the talent lifecycle – including employer brand and EVP, assessment and development, and diversity and inclusion – who deliver impressive outcomes for clients across a range of industries and sectors.

In this episode, Simon makes the business case for investing in EVP and employer brand development. He explains what makes a strong EVP and what steps you need to take to build one at your organization. Simon also walks us through an EVP and employer branding platform built by his team for Linklaters, a global law firm, sharing the background and the impact it made for the organization.

You can listen to part two of this podcast here.

Preventing Physician Burnout and Reducing Turnover

Posted on by edyson

Exhaustion, stress and anxiety: these are the symptoms of a plague spreading throughout the medical community. Its name? Physician burnout. According to a study conducted by the Annals of Internal Medicine, physician burnout is on the rise and causing major disruptions in healthcare outcomes for both patients and the medical professionals charged with their care.  

In fact, according to the study, it’s estimated that physician burnout adds nearly $5 billion per year to healthcare spending in the United States. Problems such as insufficient care, patient dissatisfaction and malpractice lawsuits are all contributing to the cost of burnout among physicians in the U.S.

In this article, we dive into what physician burnout is, its effects on healthcare and how to minimize and combat this troubling trend.

So, What is Physician Burnout?

The term “burnout” can seem like a nebulous catch-all-term for workplace stress and dissatisfaction. So, what makes burnout unique? For starters, burnout is officially a medical condition, according to the World Health Organization, and is characterized as a persistent state of emotional, mental and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. Burnout includes emotional exhaustion, feelings of cynicism and detachment from work along with a sense of poor personal accomplishment.

Although it can occur in any profession, incidences of burnout are more common in individuals employed in caring professions such as healthcare, social work, counseling and teaching. Common contributors to physician burnout are long work hours, a fear of being sued and having to navigate the growing healthcare bureaucracy and filling out time-consuming electronic medical records.

“Nearly everything a physician does in 2019 is monitored, rated, assessed and reported. The electronic health record has many benefits but it can also be a burden, adding substantially to the time physicians spend in front of a computer screen while robbing them of what brings them joy: spending time with their patients,” states Dr. Edward Ellison, executive medical director and chairman of the Southern California Permanente Medical Group, in an article released in conjunction with the Annals of Internal Medicine study.

The Effects of Physician Burnout

Physician burnout is not new in the medical field. In a study conducted by the American Medical Association, Stanford and the Mayo Clinic, about 54% of physicians reported having at least one symptom of burnout – nearly double the rate of U.S. workers in 2014.

For physicians and their employers, the effects of burnout are taking an enormous toll. Burned-out doctors tend to make more medical errors, and their patients have worse health outcomes and are less satisfied. This can contribute to a loss of reputation and revenue for employers and physicians.

“Physician burnout is known to be associated with increased physician turnover and reduced productivity,” said lead researcher Joel Goh, an assistant professor of analytics and operations at the National University of Singapore. “But the costs in monetary terms are poorly understood.”

The Annals of Internal Medicine study authors calculate that for healthcare organizations, the cost of burnout comes out to $7,600 per physician each year. The study cautions that these cost estimates are conservative, and only calculate lost work hours and physician turnover. What’s more, a survey conducted by the Physicians Foundation of more than 17,000 American physicians found that:

  • 54% rated their morale as “somewhat” or “very” negative about the current state of medicine
  • 63% were “somewhat” or “very” pessimistic about the future of medicine
  • 49% “often” or “always” experience feelings of burnout
  • 49% would not recommend a career in medicine to their children
  • 58% said the least-satisfying aspect of medical practice was too much paperwork and regulation

With such a staggering economic and professional toll, preventing and treating burnout in physicians is crucial to improving patient and organizational outcomes.

Identifying Physician Burnout

All too often, doctors spend far more energy concerned with the health outcomes of their patients, and their own personal health issues go unaddressed and unresolved. 

physician recruitment

 
“It is always amazing to me how often burnout is actively ignored in healthcare. Research shows one in three doctors are burned out on any given office day,” remarks Dr. Dike Drummond, a career strategist for physicians who focuses on burnout. He began The Happy MD in response to the emerging burnout epidemic amongst physicians.

Outside of the mental, physical and workplace performance effects experienced by burned-out physicians, an estimated 300 to 400 U.S. physicians take their own lives every year. This number is higher than the suicide rate in the general population by 40% for men and an alarming 130% for women. This makes addressing burnout more than a financial or business imperative, but also one of great moral importance.

Because burnout is a slow and gradual process that increases over time, it does not happen from one day to the next. Instead, it can sneak up on physicians and their employers if both are not paying close attention to the warning signs. Below are some of the symptoms to be on the lookout for when combating burnout:

Physical Signs

  • Feeling tired and drained
  • Lower immunity
  • Frequent headaches, back pain, muscle aches
  • Change in appetite or sleep habits

Emotional Signs

  • Emotional exhaustion
  • Detachment from patients or de-personalization
  • Sense of failure and self-doubt
  • Feeling helpless, trapped or defeated
  • Loss of motivation
  • Increased cynicism
  • Decreased sense of accomplishment

Behavioral Signs

  • Withdrawing from responsibilities
  • Isolation from others
  • Procrastination
  • Using food, drugs or alcohol to cope
  • Taking out your frustration on others
  • Skipping work or increased tardiness

Understanding the symptoms and behaviors associated with burnout can help your organization better intervene with physicians and help them identify and understand the emotional burden they are experiencing.  

Managing Physician Burnout

Organization-led initiatives and interventions are sadly few and far between for many physicians, leaving them on their own to manage and treat the symptoms of burnout. This can make it more difficult to manage stress and the emotions that come from working in healthcare. However, this does not need to be the case. Healthcare organizations can take steps to help physicians reduce the risk or severity of burnout.

One strategy is encouraging medical professionals to acknowledge feelings of burnout or exhaustion when they occur and providing assistance whenever and wherever possible. What’s more, promoting the following strategies can help your physicians to decompress and clear their minds:

Physical Activities

This can be accomplished through physical activities such as spending time at the gym, running, walking, cycling or yoga to name a few.

Personal Activities

Others include meditation, mindfulness, reading for pleasure, developing a hobby, going to the movies or spending time in a museum. These activities can be pursued alone; however, when combined with a partner, family members or friends, social interaction can enhance the restful nature of these activities.

Time Off

Another essential approach to reducing and managing burnout is for physicians to spend time away from work. Regularly scheduled vacation time helps reduce fatigue by allowing the mind and body a break from the daily grind.

Your organization’s workplace culture can also play a part in reducing burnout. An important step in battling burnout is managing time and respecting limits. When dealing with emotionally exhausted physicians, consider reducing the number of patients they see or the number of new patients taken on, if possible.

Conclusion

Burnout is common and affects a significant number of physicians at all stages of their careers. It is a consequence of an exceptionally motivated, high-performing, competitive and perfectionistic personality combined with a fast-paced high-stakes profession that is practicing medicine.

While burnout manifests in individuals, it is fundamentally a response to organizational culture and work life. Recognition of, and willingness to address, these specific stressors will allow individuals and healthcare organizations to better prevent or alleviate physician burnout. Remember, physician recruitment should revolve around the candidate’s needs both at work and in their personal life.

Talking Talent: The First 90 Days, Setting Yourself up for Success with New Hires and Promotions

Posted on by nfuqua

In this episode of Talking Talent, we’re talking about the onboarding process and setting yourself up for success with new hires and promotions in the first 90 days.

Those first 90 days are a critical point for a new hire or promotion. Recent surveys have found that about 30% of job seekers have left a job within the first 90 days of hiring. Despite this, most onboarding programs are too short. According to SHRM, nearly 40% of onboarding programs last only a week or less. So, what impact does this have on the success of the new employee or the company? What can employers do during the first 90 days to improve the happiness and productivity of new hires?

Joining us to talk about this is Dana Look-Arimoto who is a mentor, speaker and change agent. Dana has more than 20 years of experience in the talent ecosystem. She’s created Phoenix5 to evangelize a new mindset: Stop Settling™. She coaches executives and leaders of all kinds to become their all in every part of their life: work, home, community and giving back. Dana also recently released the book, Stop Settling, Settle Smart.

In this interview, Dana talks about how employers can overcome inertia to develop a well-designed onboarding program tailored to each individual hire. She gives actionable advice that you can put in place today, and she explains how to drive success for newly promoted managers, an often-neglected topic. You’ll also hear Dana’s insights on how to identify your employee’s strengths and how to get the most out of them, how to give your new hires control over their own onboarding process, how to flex the process to fit different jobs and industries and how to transition out of the onboarding program to drive continued success.

The Importance of an Employer Value Proposition and Employer Brand Strategy

Posted on by skatz

As employers face increasing competition for the best talent, a well-defined employer value proposition (EVP) and employer brand strategy have become more important than ever. In a candidate-driven market, employers need to stand out to their target talent audiences through a unified EVP and employer brand. High-quality candidates know what they want out of a future employer, and organizations that don’t effectively show their value to candidates risk losing them to the competition.

If you google EVP and employer brand, you’re likely to find thousands of definitions. At PeopleScout we define EVP and employer brand as the following:

  • Employer Brand: The perception and lived experiences of what it’s like to work for your organization.
  • Employer Value Proposition: Captures the essence of your uniqueness as an employer and the give and the get between you and your employees.

Both concepts revolve around the qualities that make a company a great place to work, as well as the benefits, career growth opportunities, work-life balance and company culture that attract top talent.

EVPs are particularly important in today’s job market, as a majority of candidates heavily evaluate companies before they even consider applying for open positions, and it can be a critical differentiator in a company’s ability to attract talent.

Key Elements of a Successful EVP

As HR Technologist explains, “An employee value proposition must be thoughtfully designed since it has a direct impact on behavior. It must look into the tangible and intangible elements of the psychological contracts between the employer and the employee. It must start way before the employee joins, even before the person is a job candidate; it must appeal to the person irrespective of whether the person intends to work with the organization or not.”

A successful EVP articulates the value that you offer to your employees. At PeopleScout, we establish three elements to support a successful EVP:

  • Pillars: Pillars are the core components of your EVP and are informed by insights into your cultural DNA and your audience’s motivations. Pillars are used to define the relevance of your EVP and are based on research.
  • Narrative: The narrative is usually a single, manifesto-style paragraph – it’s the emotive “sell” of what you offer. The narrative defines consistency throughout your EVP and employer brand strategies.
  • Strapline: Finally, the strapline is a concise phrase that summarizes your overall offering – it focuses on being memorable rather than detailed. The strapline defines a point of focus throughout your EVP materials.

By creating pillars, a narrative and a strapline to support your EVP and employer brand strategy, employers will be set up for a successful deployment both internally to current employees and externally to candidates and the broader marketplace.

For example, we recently completed an EVP and employer brand project for a global law firm based in the UK called Linklaters. Here are the pillars, narrative and strapline that we created to bring the project to life.

Linklaters employment brand pillars
Linklaters employer brand narrative
Linklaters employer brand strapline

Benefits of a Well-Managed Employer Value Proposition and Employer Brand Platform

Organizations that effectively deliver on their EVP can enjoy a host of benefits, including decreased annual employee turnover and increased new hire commitment, according to Gartner research. Other benefits include improved brand sentiment, increased reach to target audiences, a greater sense of commitment from current employees and cost savings related to compensation.

Improved Brand Sentiment

Organizations with effective EVPs are more attractive to candidates and are considered employers of choice – organizations where candidates want to work. In order to make yourself an employer of choice, you have to be able to appeal to your ideal candidates by differentiating your company from your competitors.

A compelling EVP and employer brand can move your brand sentiment in a positive direction. A clearly defined EVP creates the foundation on which to build your internal and external employer brand messaging, which allows you to have greater influence over what you are known for and how you are perceived.

Increased Reach

A thoroughly researched and tested EVP is designed to speak more effectively to your target talent audiences. When you are able to tailor the core of your message to individual audiences, while keeping your narrative and strapline consistent throughout, more diverse groups of candidates will respond favorably. This has real business impact. According to a Morgan Stanley study in The Atlantic, there is a positive relationship between equity returns and the gender composition of an organization’s employee base, as an example.

We work with an organization in the UK that was once an online automobile magazine but is now a digital publication. The organization struggled with brand perception. Many candidates thought the company was old-fashioned, and they struggled to attract women to their open positions. We developed an “adventures in awesomeness” EVP that spoke to the digital transformation that had already happened at the employer. This EVP not only increased brand attractiveness and shifted sentiment, but also increased the number of women visiting the careers site by 300 percent.

Greater Employee Commitment

Organizations with strong EVPs enjoy significantly higher levels of engagement from employees. In one example studied by Cornell University, a beverage bottling and distribution company launched an initiative to develop an integrated employer brand. Around the same time, the company decreased headcount by more than 6 percent and maintained tight control over salary raises. Despite these difficulties, employee engagement grew at the company from 36 percent to 55 percent over a five-year period.

This study suggests that when you clearly articulate your EVP and the behaviors you’re looking for from employees, it can be a factor in successfully attracting and retaining employees with the right cultural fit for your organization. This yields more engaged employees.

Compensation Savings

Organizations with effective EVPs are able to reduce the compensation premium required to attract new candidates. Another example highlighted in the Cornell paper found that organizations with a well-managed employer brand had a 26 percent economic advantage in terms of labor cost.

Key Considerations When Creating an EVP and Employer Brand Program

There is ample data that shows that effective EVPs generate real business benefits. To realize those benefits, there is a lot of work that goes into creating a successful EVP and employer brand. Before launching an EVP internally or externally, it’s critical that companies spend time researching, defining, developing, optimizing and deploying an EVP that accurately represents the company’s value to employees.

Recruitment for Retention

Posted on by skatz

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” It is perhaps the most time-worn question in a job interview. But if the candidate answers that if they are hired, they will be happily working in your organization, the odds are against this ever happening. Why? The average time workers in the U.S. remain in one job is just 4.2 years. And in other leading economies, the average single job tenure can be similarly brief. In the UK, workers change jobs every five years, while in Australia, the national average job tenure is just three years and four months. In Canada, the average length is 8.5 years, but the averages vary widely depending on the industry.

For those hoping to attract and retain top talent, these figures can be familiar – and a cause for concern. When human resource professionals look inside their organizations and identify employees who have defied the statistical average, staying with the company far longer than five years and contributing significantly to its success, they wonder “how do I get more of them?” With low unemployment making many job markets the most challenging in recent memory, there is genuine urgency not only to retain the best talent but to find a way to attract talent that will stay with an organization for the long-term. In other words, there is a need to recruit to retain, but how?

Know Your Talent: Why They Leave and Why They Stay and Thrive

Like many organizations, your company may already have an employee retention program in place. Enterprises are making considerable efforts to retain talent, and the processes they deploy to improve employee retention can also be incorporated into your recruitment process.

For example, it is relatively common to have exit interviews with departing workers to better understand why they are leaving the organization. When a sufficient number of exit interview results are available and evaluated, trends can emerge that can lead to actionable items to improve employee retention. Certain common traits or characteristics may also appear among those who voluntarily leave their jobs.

Less common, but potentially just as valuable, is the “stay interview.” These interviews with current employees allow them to express their concerns before they are in a position to leave, which can help leaders address issues and take steps to retain top talent.

And just as exit interviews can bring into focus the characteristics of those who quit, the stay interview can help identify the traits of those who remain and thrive. Once a group of long-term successful employees is identified, a stay interview can be designed for this group with the goal of identifying why they have remained with the company, what factors have contributed to their success and what characteristics many or most of them have in common. Identifying these characteristics in your candidate pool during the recruiting process could be an indicator of future success.

In today’s tight job market, if you are not working to identify candidates with the characteristics that have been proven to lead to long-term achievement in your company, your competitors probably are. SHRMreports that “Many organizations are seeking more of a ‘whole person’ gauge of candidates, experts say, assessing not just skills or intellectual horsepower but also personality traits, cultural fit and motivational drivers that can prove the difference between candidates who thrive over the long run and those who quickly derail.”

Predictive Analytics: Unlocking the Key to Recruitment for Retention

Predictive analytics is a type of data analytics that uses data to find patterns and then uses those models to attempt to predict the future. Consider the most basic data you likely have about a single employee who worked for your organization and left after five years. A sample of data points could include:

  • How they were sourced
  • Their addresses over their tenure at the company
  • Their education and certifications
  • Previous employers

These data points alone may not provide insight into why this employee joined your organization and why they left. But, if just these pieces of information were aggregated for all your employees, both past and present, here are a few insights which could be determined:

  • Is there a correlation between how an employee is sourced and their tenure at the organization?
  • Do employees who live far from the workplace quit sooner than those who do not?
  • Do employees from certain schools or that have particular certifications stay longer with the company than others?
  • Are there previous employers which produce more long-term employees than others?

The information found in even one of these examples could be built into your recruitment strategy and have a meaningful impact in recruiting talent that will remain with your organization.

The right technology using predictive analytics can provide effective recruiting insight, as PeopleScout’s Allison Brigden explains:

“In this tightening talent market with unemployment rates at record lows, predictive analytics is emerging as an essential AI tool for employers looking to stay ahead of the competition. Predictive analytics allows employers to use the power of data to make predictions about candidates and drive efficiencies throughout the entire talent acquisition process…

Predictive analytics can’t tell you what will happen, but it shows what is likely to happen based on past trends. It’s as close as employers can get to predicting the future.”

Solving for Retention

The dilemma faced by a major auto retailer was challenging but not surprising. The annual turnover rate in the retail sector is much higher than the national average in the U.S. With a 50% turnover rate and a need for 10,000 annual hires, there was an immediate need for drastic improvement

PeopleScout partnered with this automotive retailer and was able to rapidly address their turnover challenges by implementing the following solutions:

A Standard Hiring Model

An uneven hiring process was replaced, and a standard hiring model was put in place that included consistent OFCCP compliance and standardization across the company.

An Efficient Process

PeopleScout deployed a time-efficient screening process which focused on the quality of the candidate, with a guaranteed response from recruiting teams within 48 hours of application. To quickly present candidates to hiring managers, PeopleScout implemented block interview scheduling with great success.

Hiring Diversity

To help source and engage more diverse candidates, PeopleScout developed a comprehensive network of community organizations for partnered recruitment.

In-Region Recruiters

Collaborative relationships between recruiters and the client’s area managers were fostered by in-region placement of PeopleScout recruiters.

Transparent Reporting

Continuous improvement was driven through transparent reporting and analysis for the client’s executive and field leadership.

The Results:
  • PeopleScout hired 10,000 employees in the first year of the engagement.
  • The technician turnover rate improved by 5% and retail turnover by 6%.
  • Hiring diversity improved by 40%, including an increase of 2% for veterans and 6% for female hires.

Flexibility in the Workplace: Rethinking Work

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Checking the status of an important project while waiting to catch a flight. Replying to a coworker’s email from the comfort of your favorite café. Shifting your hours to make time to take an aging parent to a doctor’s visit. Each of these scenarios has one thing in common – they are made possible through flexibility in the workplace.


Flexible work arrangements are surging in popularity. In the U.S., 94 percent of employers provide some form of flexible work arrangement according to a survey conducted by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans. A survey conducted by Regus revealed that some 54 percent of global respondents now report that they work remotely 2.5 days a week or more.


You may be wondering: What’s behind the surge in popularity for flexible workplaces? Well, the data speaks for itself. Global Workplace Analytics found the following:

  • AT&T found that its remote workers worked five more hours than its office workers.
  • Compaq’s flexible workforce increased productivity between 15 and 45 percent.
  • American Express’ flexible workforce had a 43 percent higher productivity level than their traditional counterparts.

In this article, we’ll cover what workplace flexibility means, why you should consider bringing more flexibility to your workplace and how you can best manage the challenges and opportunities presented by a flexible workforce.

So, What Does Workplace Flexibility Mean and Why Should I Care?

Workplace flexibility is an alternative to traditional workplace models that dictate when and where workers perform their work. Workplace flexibility permits employees to choose when, where and how they work.


Flexibility in the workplace shouldn’t be seen as just a perk you offer to employees; it should be viewed as a critical part of your organization’s talent acquisition strategy – and as a fundamental way to increase productivity.

Greater Employee Flexibility: How Employers Benefit With More Flexibility in the Workplace

Employee Flexibility
A Broader Talent Pool


When your workplace culture allows talent to work from anywhere, your talent pool instantly becomes global. Your organization can source and recruit talent across the country or across the globe. With the rise of communication tools such as Skype and Slack, secure intranets and video conferencing, distance is becoming less of a hurdle to collaborating with talent globally.

What’s more, the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the necessity for more employee flexibility. In fact, according to a survey from Gallop, “three in five U.S. workers who have been doing their jobs from home during the coronavirus pandemic would prefer to continue to work remotely as much as possible.”

Broadly speaking, organizations that maintain this new level of flexibility will likely fare much better when it comes to recruitment and retention efforts, and overall employee engagement, especially when compared to similar organizations that decide to go back to the old way of operating with less employee flexibility.


Improved Employer Branding


According to LinkedIn’s 2017 Global Recruiting Trends, 80 percent of talent leaders agree that employer brand has a significant impact on their ability to hire great talent. Offering flexible workplace policies communicates to potential employees that your organization is committed to helping its employees achieve a better work-life balance, which in turn can help improve jobseekers’ perception of you as an employer as you provide flexibility in the workplace.


Cost-Savings and Employee Flexibility


The most prosaic benefit to flexibility in the workplace is cost savings. Costs on business necessities such as office supplies, real estate and utilities are reduced when your organization provides employees the ability to work off-site.

How Employees Benefit With More Flexibility in the Workplace

Meet Personal Obligations


Employees have a variety of personal obligations and family responsibilities. If you provide them with a flexible workplace, they can make that important parent-teacher conference during the day, go back to school or simply be home when the engineer comes to fix the dishwasher all without having to neglect work in favor of personal responsibilities. If you trust people to get their work done in a way that works for them, that trust is usually rewarded.


Employee Empowerment
flexibility in the workplace


Flexible workplaces can give employees an increased feeling of personal control over their schedule and work environment. By allowing employees to set their own style for delivery, you appeal to the entrepreneurial spirit—which can be good for your employees’ sense of self-determination.


Reduced Commuting Time and Costs


For some employees, commutes of more than an hour each way are not uncommon. If employees are allowed to work from home that can potentially save them fourteen hours of time, untold money in fuel costs and wear and tear on the road – not to mention the effect on well-being.

Types of Flexibility in the Workplace

Job Sharing


Job sharing is when two employees share the same role. Job sharing can be very appealing for your employees who may not want to work full-time, for example after having a child or with elderly relatives in need of care.


In a job share arrangement, one role gains two brains – two people with passion and creativity who are committed to success.
There are a number of ways employees in a job-sharing arrangement can manage their responsibilities. Some employees sharing a role may segment the work by each taking responsibility for specific deliverables and tasks charged to them.


Others may split the same workload, with one employee working on projects and passing along their work to their job share partner while they are off the clock. The model you and your employees choose will depend on the nature of the work performed and what preferences and skills each employee possess.


At PeopleScout’s EMEA headquarters in London, we had the luxury of employing two wonderfully talented women in our Head of Assessment role. This role wasn’t initially designed to be a job share. However, after our incumbent in the role wanted to reduce their time in-office after becoming a mom, another talented colleague stepped up to support the team.

workplace flexibility


As both women began building their families and took on the challenges of motherhood, their ability to provide 100 percent to the role was never compromised, as when one needed to take a step back the other is always there to pick up where they left off.


By providing the flexibility our employees needed to share this role, we retained two of our brightest minds. And more importantly, we let our employees know that you should never have to choose between being a parent and being a professional, you can do both equally well with the right support.


Remote Work and the Flexible Workforce


Remote work is when an employee works primarily from home or an off-site location. A well-planned remote work program can help your organization increase overall productivity and promote greater job satisfaction among your teams and may even help you in improving your employee retention efforts.


For PeopleScout in London, we did not always see remote work as an employee perk, rather we viewed it as a practical decision to reduce office expenses at our London location. We began our intrepid adventure into remote work by hot-desking—the practice of multiple workers using a single work station—our client services team.


What began as a decision borne of necessity quickly paid unexpected dividends. When our client service team members didn’t feel the need to stay affixed to their desks, something marvelous happened, they became more engaged with clients .


We were not entirely sure what to expect when we initially opened up our organization to become more flexible. However, after witnessing the success of our remote work program one thing was clear: flexibility was a business asset, not a hindrance to productivity.


Flexible Scheduling 
flexible workforce


Flexible scheduling allows an employee to work hours that differ from the traditional company start and stop time.


According to data compiled by The Economist, working fewer hours correlates with higher levels of productivity. Nations like Greece average 2,000 work hours a year, while nations like Germany average around 1,400, but yield 70 percent more productivity at work. This suggests that fixed schedules and mandatory hours may not be the key to getting the most out of your employees.


Typically, a flexible schedule involves either a compressed work week or flexible starting and stopping times. In a compressed work week, the most common schedule is a four-day work week where employees work four ten-hour days—variations on this schedule could include three twelve-hour work days, etc. This scheduling flexibility allows employees to have an additional day or two to relax, spend with family and friends or pursue activities and causes that interest them.


At PeopleScout UK, we encourage our colleagues to take full advantage of our flexible scheduling options. For example, we had a colleague who wanted to leave work a half hour early once a week to attend choir practice. We not only supported them by allowing them to flex the hours, but we also couldn’t help wondering if they’d like to invite their co-workers to their performance. As it turns out they were happy to have some new people for the audience, and many members of their team showed up to cheer them on.


By promoting and supporting our colleagues interests and encouraging others to do the same, we are communicating that we see our workers as whole persons and that their personal achievements are just as important to everyone at PeopleScout UK as their professional ones.


When your employees feel you appreciate them for more than what they can contribute to your bottom line, that you appreciate what they contribute to their community as a whole, you help engender a familial office atmosphere where employees feel both empowered and respected.

Managing Flexibility in the Workplace

Stay in Compliance


Before your organization begins offering your employees flexible work opportunities, you need to make sure your program won’t become a legal headache. Issues to consider include workers’ compensation and state/national overtime regulations, as well as matters of individual responsibility for company property used off-site. Your organization’s legal counsel should review any flexible work program proposals to make sure you stay in compliance with your country’s employment laws and the regions your organization operates in to ensure you can provide the flexibility in the workplace you to your employees.


Stay Connected


It is extremely important to stay connected with employees in flexible work arrangements. Make sure that your managers and in-office employees remember to include remote employees and support them to feel like they’re part of the team. While conference calls and email chains are effective means of communicating with remote workers, nothing substitutes being in the same room. Leverage videoconferencing technology such as Skype or FaceTime to bring more of a face-to-face feel for remote employees in important meetings.


Be Fair


A major key to managing a successful flexible workplace is ensuring that employees who opt for more traditional work arrangements are treated as equitably as their non-traditional co-workers. When you treat your all employees fairly, they feel respected, cared for and may develop a stronger sense of trust in your organization. Make sure to monitor your flexible workplace policy and periodically tweak it to address new or unforeseen inconsistencies in the treatment of workers both in traditional and non-traditional work arrangements.

The Flexible Workforce and You

flexible working examples

To reap the benefits of flexibility in the workplace, you need to continuously evaluate your flexible work program and monitor which employees use it, how the program is being used and take note of any challenges participants and managers are experiencing.


You should routinely speak with both participating employees and managers regarding if your program is working as intended, how it can be improved and what their individual experiences are while using the program. Assess their satisfaction with the program and tweak it as necessary.

How to Improve Flexibility in the Workplace:

To attract the top candidates, your company should create policies that provide the types of flexibility today’s employees seek. Here, we offer quick tips on how you can better meet the demand for a more flexible workforce:

  • Align incentives with outcomes. Instead of replacing face-time requirements with hours logged in on a virtual private network, which employees could perceive as inauthentic, you should simply set goals and deadlines. If employees meet them, their bosses can worry less about when they clock in and out.
  • Eliminate flexibility stigmas. Change your organizations culture as needed so no one is looked down on for taking advantage of flexibility options. This change needs to start at the top. Company leaders need to be transparent and lead by example.
  • Start small. Don’t try to transition your company culture to total flexibility overnight. Instead, take baby steps by allowing some employees to shift schedules or designate remote working days.


Remember, as employers, we hire whole people. We need to take them as a package: both the things that directly benefit our organizations and the things we may need to accommodate for them. This can best be achieved by providing workplace flexibility.
 

Attitude is the New Experience

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There have been numerous studies on turnover rates in multiple industries, and they all land on a similar conclusion: a high proportion of staff fail within the first 18 months of starting a new job. In fact, one study found that figure to be 46 percent of 20,000 new hires in America. When you look at the reasons why, 89 percent of those who failed did so due to cultural misalignment or attitudinal reasons, rather than technical capability.


To try and buck this trend, I’ll share with you a few tips on why it’s so important to attract and retain the right people, rather than the right skill set and how you can adopt this approach in your organization.


First, you need to have a great culture, which is essential to keeping people in the building. Each company’s culture and mission will be unique, and you need to make sure you have values that you stand by. Secondly – and this is the main area that I’m going to focus on in this article – you need to have a recruitment strategy that is aimed at finding the right people for the organization rather than the right skill set at every opportunity, from graduate roles through to senior management. At our client PHD Media Worldwide (PHD), we’ve focused on hiring people that align with our values of collaboration, courage and curiosity with conviction – and it’s really, really helped!


“Hire for attitude, train for skills” is a phrase that every HR professional has uttered once or heard being uttered from colleagues. However, unfortunately, only a small number of businesses apply it (like, actually apply it) to their recruitment strategy. Whilst a lot of job advertisements will focus on the soft skills and cultural alignment piece, often the interview process can revert to focusing purely on the hard skills and capability a candidate has from day one.


We work in an ever-changing industry, with the constant emergence of new technologies, new software and increasing shift in focus from traditional channels to more sophisticated digital channels. Change takes place now at a faster rate than ever before, and what you knew yesterday might not necessarily prepare for you tomorrow. So, with that in mind, why do some businesses focus on purely trying to tick skills boxes? The candidate who feels fully aligned with their organization’s strategy and beliefs and is a part of its continued success will be more motivated to learn the necessary skills for tomorrow than someone who only has today’s skill set and not the buy-in.


Here is how we can go about finding those right candidates in various levels of the organization:


Graduate Roles


For so long, the media industry, for example, has only considered candidates from a media/advertising/marketing-related field and often opt for interns who have gained first-hand experience working with their particular agency. When interviewing candidates with a specific degree and asking them what they know about a media planning and buying agency, their knowledge levels are comparable with that of any other degree – very little!


A huge amount of the first 12-18 months in a media agency is about learning as much as possible. A very small amount of what you learned in university actually applies to what you are now working on in terms of real briefs with real multi-million-dollar budgets attached. With that mind, at PHD we’ve had a lot of success in opening up our doors to entry-level staff from any degree/non-degree background.


Zac and Tiffany, two great coordinators who joined PHD in the last 12 months, even wrote an article recently on how university prepares you for your first job in media. Notice how throughout the article, it never mentions that it’s the marketing theory they were taught in school or the principles of advertising that has helped them succeed. Instead, it’s the focus on meeting deadlines, presentation ability, working under pressure and as part of a team. These are the skills that you need to succeed in your first job, and when you couple them with the right attitude, you can really learn anything, relatively quickly.


More Senior Roles 


Believe it or not, it’s those same soft skills that apply to the more senior roles that we look to fill. Let’s face it – at one point or another, we have all had to “fake it ‘til we make it” in our careers. A little white lie in an interview, a little oversell of our abilities and BANG, we’ve landed ourselves a gig without a clue of what we’re actually going to do. When faced with this situation, those with a good attitude, flexibility and the ability to learn quickly will be able to adapt and succeed in their roles better than those without these critical skills.


Additionally, no one knows exactly what they are doing on day one. We all have our own systems, processes and ways of doing things. At PHD, we have our proprietary planning tool, SOURCE. Unless you have worked on it before, there is a learning curve for everyone to pick it up, and it’s the pace and ability with which people pick it up that matters, as they would have zero experience in using it before. All companies have their own processes and tools, which they will expect you to learn over time.


Yes, you need to have a fundamental understanding of what you are talking about and the more senior the role, the more of an understanding we expect you to have. But we want to talk to someone about their attitude towards certain situations, learn how they act when everything goes wrong (because it does sometimes) and what they would do in the difficult times and how they bring a team along on the journey with them. Ultimately, someone who ticks the attitude box will get the job, and we will often wait until that person comes along, rather than simply fill a role with a candidate who doesn’t fit.


So, What is Attitude?


Attitude, for me, is a collection of soft skills that you can apply to every job. It’s not necessarily something that someone has been taught (or could be taught) but more an approach to work, an approach to learning and the way someone conducts themselves personally and professionally.


What does one look for when gauging attitude?
  • People who look for solutions to problems rather than people who find problems without resolve.
  • People who raise their hand rather than point their fingers.
  • People who make mistakes and have a sense of humility but then focus on what they can do next time to improve.
  • People who, when times get tough, dig in and rally everyone to achieve the same, rather than openly complain to others.
  • People who genuinely love their job and are interested in joining the organization – this is half the battle, finding someone who wants to be on the same journey as you.
  • People who genuinely seek development/career growth opportunities.

Too often, and it’s so easy to, we get bogged down by the immediate needs of our new hire. It may be replacing someone who has left, or it might be a new role that has popped up because of workload increases. However, it works, every time, to be cautious and focus on hiring the right person for the organization, because the longer-term impact of having the right person will really pay off and the struggle of having to dig a little harder to find them will soon be forgotten.


Read the original article on AdNews.au.

Through The Grapevine: How to Create and Manage an Employee Referral Program

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A well-managed employee referral program may be the single most powerful weapon in an organization’s recruitment arsenal. In fact, employee referral programs continue to be a top source for hires. By encouraging employees to refer contacts in their professional networks for open positions you can reduce recruiting costs, improve candidate quality and increase employee engagement.

In this article, we explore the case for employee referral programs, some of the top considerations organizations should be mindful of and how to properly manage a referral program.

The Case for Developing an Employee Referral Program

employee referral program

Intuitively, developing a formal employee referral program makes sense.

After all, who better to refer great candidates and sell those candidates on why they should join your organization than your own employees?

Employee referral programs make good business sense. Some of the benefits your organization may reap from an employee referral program include:

  • Faster time-to-hire: A LinkedIn study uncovered that it takes an average of 29 days to hire a referred candidate compared to 39 days to hire a candidate through a job board.
  • Less impact on your talent acquisition budget: An employee referral program is an inexpensive sourcing strategy that relies primarily on word-of-mouth and internal communication. You don’t have to pay to advertise job posts. Due to the faster time-to-hire, organizations can cut internal costs as well, since recruiters won’t be spending as much time sourcing and interviewing candidates for open positions.
  • Top talent begets top talent: Another LinkedIn survey revealed that star employees tend to refer other star employees. Tapping into your top talent can help organizations source and hire high performers more effectively.
  • Better employee retention: Not only are candidates hired via an employee referral typically of higher quality, they also tend to stay at their jobs longer, with 46 percent remaining in their position for at least three years.

Employee Referral Programs as an Extension of Employee Engagement

With employee referral programs, saving time and money is just the beginning.

Employee referrals also add value through improved employee engagement.

Using employee referrals to hire candidates builds a more robust corporate culture by intersecting performance and engagement to drive business success through tapping current employees for qualified candidate referrals, thus simplifying the sourcing process.

Employees who recommend a new hire have a vested interest in onboarding and retaining that person, as many referral programs include a requirement that the referred employee must be with the organization for a specific period of time before the referring employee can get a referral bonus.

What’s more, employees who refer candidates will feel a sense of commitment to ensure their referral’s success because they recommended the position.

Moreover, employees who are involved in the recruitment process may feel a greater sense of purpose towards the future of your company.

By encouraging employees to submit referrals, you are letting them know you value their input and contribution.

What to Consider Before Implementing an Employee Referral Program

Set Program Objectives

Before implementing an employee referral program, organizations should outline objectives in order to set a clear goal.

Defining objectives early on in the process helps ensure your team is on the same page and knows exactly what is expected and when.

Setting objectives can be achieved by holding planning sessions with key stakeholders where you share the vision for the program, develop strategies to achieve success and find solutions that are mutually agreed upon.

Objectives for an employee referral program might include:

  • Improving quality-of-hire
  • Increasing new hire retention
  • Boosting employee morale and recognition
  • Lowering overall recruiting costs
  • Increasing diversity within the organization
  • Sourcing candidates with a specific skill set
  • Reducing the time-to-hire for external candidates
  • Better targeting and sourcing of passive job seekers
  • Deepening the pipeline of potential applicants

Leverage Technology

Technology can help make the employee referral process better for both employers, employees and referrals. Using your technology tools can streamline processes and minimize inefficiencies and missed opportunities in the referral program.

In an article with SHRM, Jennifer Newbill, Director of Global Employment Brand, Dell explains that Dell uses a combination of “white glove” and automated communications to manage its more than 40,000 annual employee referrals, making the process more manageable for the organization’s talent acquisition teams.

Social Media Referrals

Recruitment marketing technology can allow you to post jobs on your organization’s social channels in seconds. You can also leverage your existing employees’ social media networks – if your employees are willing to post on your behalf – to expand your reach.

Auto-Posting Open Roles

In order to get your employees more engaged in your employee referral program, you should consider sharing job openings on a regular basis. Instead of sending out emails manually every time a position opens, you can automate this process through your recruitment email marketing tools.

For example, gig-economy start-up Fiverr leverages employee referral software that gamifies the referral process by adding a competitive element to referring candidates. The software assigns points to employees and credit for all the actions they take. The software also keeps employees up-to-date on the status of their referrals.

Make Jobs Shareable Through Employee Portals

Make it easier for employees to share job opportunities through their social media accounts and email. Adding social links on job posts will allow employees to automatically share job openings with just a few clicks. The quicker and easier jobs are to share, the more likely your employees will participate.

Referral Tracking

Tracking and appropriately attributing a referral is crucial to the program’s success. To make tracking easier, a referral field should be added to applications. The referral field on the job application can be filled in with information about the referring employee, making referral tracking easier.

Managing an Employee Referral Program

When it comes to managing a successful employee referral program, there are a few elements to keep in mind. Ideally, every program includes the following:

  • Incentives
  • A simple process
  • Feedback

Below, we explain how your organization can manage each of these three elements within your employee referral program.

Employee Referral Incentives

According to a survey conducted by LinkedIn, 40 percent of respondents were motivated to refer candidates for a monetary reward. What’s more, 68 percent stated they submitted a referral because they wanted to help their organization. If you want to get the most impact out of your organization’s employee referral program, you should offer a combination of monetary and creative, non-monetary incentives for referrals.

  • Experiment with monetary reward amounts because there is no magic number that will motivate all employees. Periodically testing different amounts can allow you to optimize your financial incentives.
  • Employees who are more altruistic in nature may prefer the option of donating their referral bonus to a charity or cause close to their hearts.
  • An alternative to offering individual monetary incentives is to hold a quarterly prize drawing where every employee who has made a successful referral during the period is eligible to win.
  • While prizes and cash incentives can be great motivators, other perks can be just as effective. Non-monetary rewards can include reserved parking spots, extra time off or first choice of shifts and schedules.

For a PeopleScout client and multinational auto parts and accessories manufacturer, we encourage their store managers, area managers and team members to refer quality candidates, including friends and family, to current job openings.

Once the employee’s referral applies to a position, our client lets a member of our recruiting team know that a referral has applied.

In the system the candidate selects referral and the client lets us know. This ensures we do not miss a referral and/or they selected the wrong source code when applying. 

Our team then schedules an interview with the referral and if qualified, proceeds to extend a verbal offer. 

If the referral is qualified, they will be scheduled with the store/hiring manager for an in-person interview, unless the referral was a quality candidate from the store manager and they already met them in person.

To assist our client in tracking the referrals coming in, our recruiters maintain a digital log of the number of referrals that were phone screened and referrals that were hired.

Our client values this referral program because it yields quality candidates and results in a faster time-to-hire for critical positions. 

When a referral is screened the recruiter ensure the source code is correct in the ATS so we provide stats and results of referrals.

Program highlights include:

  • When we onboard and train our client’s new managers, PeopleScout emphasizes the employee referral program and its importance to the recruiting process
  • PeopleScout’s team has specific SLAs to ensure referrals are expedited
  • PeopleScout tracks time in status and conversion rates specifically for referrals
  • More than 25 percent of hires for our client come from referrals
  • More than 50 percent of referrals submitted are ultimately hired
  • PeopleScout hires between 9,000 and 11,000 people for this client annually

Simplify the Employee Referral Process

While 95 percent of HR professionals believe their employees fully understand how to submit referrals, 63 percent say they “very often or frequently” receive feedback that employees find it too complicated to refer someone.

When evaluating your program, ask yourself these questions:

  • Do employees know about your referral program?
  • Is it clear with whom or where an employee should submit a referral?
  • Is the technology used to submit referrals user-friendly?
  • Is it easy to track if the referring employee was given credit?
  • Is it easy to track the incentives that were earned?

If the program makes your employees jump through hoops to place a referral, you can be sure that it won’t attract many participants.

To simplify your program, start with the following steps:

Explain your employee referral program

Employees need to understand exactly how your referral program works to make it successful.

How you teach employees about the program depends on your size and how the workforce is dispersed geographically.

You might gather your employees together and give a brief presentation or create an online training course.

Or, you might do something as simple as sending an informational email or flyer for employees to review.

Set your requirements up front

If you want your employees to refer quality candidates, they need to know what traits and skills you are looking for.

Share the open positions you are hiring for and provide employees with the job descriptions, so they get a feel for the types of candidates that would be a good fit.

Provide regular reminders

You should periodically remind employees about the referral program. If you don’t, they may quickly forget about it.

InMobi, an Indian-based mobile technology company, offered a motorbike—a very popular vehicle in India—to any employee who referred a successful engineering manager candidate.

To keep the referral program top of mind, InMobi parked a motorbike right in front of their corporate headquarters so employees were reminded of the referral incentive every day while entering the building.

When you have an influx of open positions, send a reminder to your employees that explains how they can refer candidates and what the reward is for hired candidates.

You can also promote the referral program when you aren’t actively hiring.

An employee might refer a candidate you do not want to miss out on. You should add those candidates to your talent pool.

Collect and Provide Feedback  

Measuring results is critical to evaluating the success of the program and to finding improvement opportunities.

While metrics can vary depending on the goals you’ve set for the program, here are some good metrics to track:

  • On-the-job performance of referral hires
  • Retention/turnover rate of referral hires
  • Program ROI or the cost/benefit ratio
  • Employee satisfaction with the overall process

Provide notifications after an employee referral is made

Referring employees may be nervous about whether their referrals were any good. The best practice is to notify employees immediately when their referral is accepted/rejected, if the candidate is invited for an interview and when the candidate is finally hired or not.

Employee Referral Program: The Gist

Employee referral programs remain one of the top sources for candidates because they are a cost-effective, engaging talent acquisition strategy.

To get the most out of your referral program, understand what motivates your employees to refer candidates, make the process as easy as possible and maintain good communication with both the referrer and referee.