Employee Referral Program: Get More by Giving Permission

With a little psychology on your side, you can start bringing in more from your employee referral program.

Tim Sackett, Executive Vice President at HRU Technical Resources, offers tips and best practices for getting the most out of your employee referral program.

Writing at his personal blog, Sackett says that because rolling-out new programs is one thing that HR does really well, it’s time to use that to your advantage when designing your employee referral program. To get more referrals, he recommends that “when you want a referral, ask for it – each and every time.” Sackett warns against assuming that your employees will “just naturally share it” as soon as you post a new job opening.

Instead, give permission to your employees to share the job opening with their social connections. He also suggests creating email groups by department so that when you have an opening in a specific department, you can immediately “send an email to that group with your standard referral ‘permission’ language” and “an easy cut and paste hyperlink” they they can share. “Giving someone ‘permission’ to do something strikes a trigger in their mind to actually do it,” Sackett says, so “go give your employees permission to get you some referrals.”