Recruiting is TOUGH right now, am I right? COVID hit some areas of the job market hard - for example, the airline industry. Nobody was flying for a while, meaning Boeing/Airbus put a halt to producing new planes, and all those people in any industry related to the airlines got laid off (speaking from personal experience here :) ). Other areas though, like "preparedness" areas - Freeze Dried Food manufacturing, are booming. Everyone decided they should buy meals (and toilet paper) to last them through the impending apocalypse, and they can't hire enough talented, hard working people to save their lives!
If you feel like you are just not getting the talent you need in our job market, one thing you should try is an Employee Referral Program. What is that? Your employees can be your greatest advocates and recruiters for your organization. Especially if you already have rockstar employees. Rockstars typically hang out with other rockstars, and they already know the culture and can easily explain why they love working with you, and for you. Plus, it's unlikely they will refer a dud. Who wants to work with someone who isn't going to actually work? An Employee Referral Program is a way to incentivize your current employees to help you with recruiting.
There are a lot of options for incentivizing your employees to refer others to work for your organization. Think outside the box here:
Additional PTO Hours
Cash if the new person stays a certain length of time
Money donated to a charity of their choice
In order to implement a referral program, you just need to do the following:
Develop a policy
Make it easy for your employees (Give them a little form or business card they can give to their rockstar friends with info on how to apply.)
Create a form for your employee so they can communicate to your HR team WHO they referred.
Ensure you have a way to track referrals in an easy way so that you can do your payouts timely and accurately.
Communicate the heck out of it to your current employees - get them excited about it!
This program can be really inexpensive for you to implement and can yield you some of the greatest hires. Now, go find your next rockstar!
As always, if you need any help implementing a program like this, please reach out!
Breanna Stephens, HR Consulting
