Zao graylink webinar launching and maintaining your employee referral program - sep 2013

Launching & Maintaining
Your Employee Referral
Program
Thanks for joining us! The webinar will begin in a few minutes
About the Host
Ziv Eliraz is the founder and CEO of
Zao. Ziv is an expert when it comes to
employee referral programs and social
recruiting, having worked with many
companies to launch and
maintain their employee
referral programs. He
passionately believes
trusted referrals are the
best way to hire well, fast!

Questions during the webinar?
For questions, please use the Q&A box anytime!

Launching Employee Referral Programs
www.zao.com info@graylink.biz
In this webinar, we’ll explore
The impact of referral
programs
Why referral programs fail
How to prepare, launch and
maintain referral programs
that meet your goals & how
Zao can help!
JOIN US

Why you want referral hires
Referrals are #1 in
employee retention
rate after one year at
46% vs. 22% for job
boards
Employee
referrals are the
#1 source of
hire
Referrals are
the #1 ROI
Referrals produce the
highest quality candidates
- they are 5 times more
likely to be hired
Referrals are
the highest
quality hire
Your employees aremore connected
than ever!

THE PROBLEM - LOW ENGAGEMENT
Is this the response you’re getting when you ask employees for referrals?!
Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

THE PROBLEM - NOT PREPARING
Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
We have a
referral
program?
Since when?
• You’ve heard it before... Failing to plan
is like planning to fail
• No one will refer candidates to a
program they don’t know exists or
doesn’t have clear rules
• Launching for the ﬁrst time or
reinventing your program? Let people
know loud and clear

PROBLEM - FAILURE TO THINK LONG-TERM
• Equal amounts of time and energy should
go into the launch, & how to sustain your
referral program in the the long term
• A big splash launch is nice, but how will
you sustain engagement long term?

Implementing a Strategic
Employee Referral Program
PART 1: PREPARING TO START
PART 2: LAUNCH AND ONGOING ACTIVITIES
PART 3: LONG TERM ENGAGEMENT

• Create a strategy! Have a plan!
• Make sure everyone understands why it’s
important
• Understand your team. Are they in-house
or remote? What motivates them? How
are they built?
• Get everyone in the company involved,
including the CEO
• Have a social and mobile strategy
Strategic programs
can increase referrals
from 16% to 48% of
external hires
STEP #1
MAKE YOUR PROGRAM STRATEGIC

Valve Employee Handbook:
“Hiring well is the most important thing in the universe...
One of the most valuable things you can do as a new
employee is tell us who else you think we should hire.”

• Sample goals:
• % of Hires: Increase % of referral hires
from 15% to 30%
• % of Employees referring: Increase % of
employees that made a referral from
10% to 40%
• % of Employees that gave a lead:
Increase from 5% to 30%
• % of Applicants that come from referrals
• Time to hire? Quality of hire?
STEP #2
SET GOALS TO MEASURE SUCCESS
Image courtesy of tungphoto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

STEP #3
HAVE A BRANDED CAREER SITE
MAKE SURE YOU SHOWCASE:
• Your Employer Value Proposition
• What does your brand represent?
• Why should an applicant come work for you?
• How are you different? What makes you special?
• Don’t just throw job descriptions out there...
• Make sure it works on mobile devices
Major beneﬁt: they help promote job listings and show off your
company culture and why people would want to work with you!
Career sites are the
#1 inﬂuencer on
referrals.

WE SAY YES TO:
✓ Videos
✓ Images
✓ Open jobs
✓ A fun background
✓ A story about your company
STEP #4
WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR CAREER SITE
REMEMBER THE GOAL IS...:
• What is your EVP?
• What makes you special?
SAMPLE FREE CAREER SITE ON ZAO

• The best way to offer rewards is to
set a speciﬁc cash reward for each
open position position
• At Zao we’ve seen rewards of
$2,500-$5,000 bring a ton of
engagement, but companies with
rewards as low as $250 have hired
as well
• Offer at least $1000 to see high
employee engagement!
• Spice it up with non cash rewards
Image courtesy of Gualberto107 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Cash rewards for
referrals are the #1
incentive for getting
employees to participate
STEP #5
SET UP REWARDS

• Most companies send job descriptions and
expect resumes to come back. That’s too
broad of a question. Instead, do these three
things:
1. Ask employees to forward jobs to 5-10
friends a week
2. Make it easy for employees to refer friends;
accept name-only referrals
3. Offer autopost to employees
• Zao automates these three tasks, making it
easy for you to get great referrals!
STEP #6
ASK SPECIFIC QUESTIONS
Don’t give your employees a headache!
Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

• Have you ever hired someone as a
result of a referral from someone who
wasn’t your employee?
✓ Business partners
✓ Former employees
✓ Vendors
✓ Friends
STEP #7
CHANGE THE QUESTION

• Rather than just limiting yourself to the
network of your employees, consider
asking your employees reach out to:
✓ Business partners
✓ Former employees
✓ Vendors
✓ Friends
• Consider offering a reward to non
employees (Zao handles this
automatically)
STEP #7
CHANGE THE QUESTION
?

Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
• Timing is important - never on a friday...
• Announce your referral program at a
company meeting, happy hour or create
your own referral launch party!
• Be clear on the rewards and other game
elements that may be relevant
• Zao helps walk you through your launch,
making sure you’re ready to go!
STEP #8
MAKE YOUR LAUNCH COUNT

What you should tell your employees
• Explain and demonstrate exactly what the program is & how it works.
• Tell them why they should care, how they are helping out your company, their
friends and themselves
• Mention you want to hire great people they refer so they can work with them!
• Zao sends you the resources you need including employee tutorial videos and
graphic banners, making sure your employees are informed!
STEP #9
BE CLEAR AND CONCISE

STEP #10
ONGOING MARKETING OF THE PROGRAM
• An employee referral program is
not something you launch, it’s
something you DO.
• Look for multiple opportunities
to get the word out - email,
company newsletters, social
media.
• Graphics and banners are great
attention grabbers - put them in
public places

• If you’re using an automated system, make sure it’s one where employees can
get on board quickly.
• Count the clicks. Seriously. The more clicks, the less people will sign up.
• Zao offers one click sign ups. All you need to do is invite your employees to join!
STEP #11
MAKE SIGN UPS SIMPLE

• Tap into employees’ social networks
• Allow them to share jobs and
recommend friends on social networks
• Make sure they are able to share jobs
that include your company logo and
link to your branded career site
STEP #12
GET SOCIAL

YOUR JOBS ARE NOT AS CUTE AS THIS

STEP #12
GET SOCIAL WITH AUTO-POST

• Your employees are each connected to hundreds
of people on social networks. But how do you
reach these people?
• They don’t have time to scan all your open jobs and
match people manually
• Zao has advanced algorithms that match your job
description with the proﬁles of your employees
friends, automatically picking great contacts!
STEP #13
OFFER SMART MATCHING

• Bring groups of employees together in a room
• Bring junk food!
• The goal of the meeting is for every attendee to:
✓ Give you names of the best people they ever
worked with
✓ Forward jobs on to people most likely to know
relevant candidates
STEP #13 (If you don’t have smart match)
LINKEDIN/FACEBOOK PIZZA PARTIES

• Let employees know that their
privacy is 100% respected
• Make sure data is kept private and
goes to the right people!
• Don’t make recommendations
public, use private messages
instead
• Zao takes care of this for you! We
make sure all recommendations are
done privately
STEP #14
RESPECT EMPLOYEE PRIVACY
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

STEP #15
GIVE FEEDBACK
• Update employees on the hiring status of their
referrals
• If you don’t like the referrals some employees
are making - just tell them. Give them
feedback.
• Highlight employees that have a good referral
to hire ratio
• Don’t let resumes go into a “black hole”
• Zao automatically updates your employees on
the status of their referrals!
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What is gamiﬁcation?
The use of game mechanics (such as points
and leaderboards) to encourage engagement in
employee referral programs.
Gamiﬁcation is a great tool to avoid the
dreaded post-launch drop in participation that
most employee referral programs face
Image courtesy of Master isolated images / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
STEP #16
ADD GAMIFICATION

• Use gamiﬁcation to tell employees
how they are doing and give
recognition for any action they
take within your referral program
• Offer points and badges for
achievements in your referral
program
• Keep the feedback loop alive -
different points or badge levels help
emphasize what’s important to you
GAMIFICATION - TIP #1
MAKE REFERRALS FUN
Sample point
structure on Zao

CREATE FRIENDLY COMPETITION
• Create different competitions to fuel
engagement and buzz around your referral
program.
• Competitions can be individual, or between
departments or between oﬃce locations!
• Example: offer movie tickets or even a day off
to the team that refers the most applicants!
• You can also offer ﬁxed rewards to the top 5
people on the leaderboard

• Since companies typically hire 10-15% of their
workforce over a year, even if most of your hires
are referrals, more than 90% of your employees
will be left out!
• Allow points or quality actions to be
redeemable for prizes
• For example: Offer 100 points or a small reward
for referring a qualiﬁed or interviewed
candidate
ALLOW MORE WINNERS

• In addition to offering referral rewards, give out small prizes that can be redeemed
immediately
• For example if someone makes a qualiﬁed referral, you could give them a $25 dollar
Starbucks or amazon card. You can also offer movie tickets
• Talk to your employees and let them choose these smaller prizes
GAMIFICATION - TIP #3 (continued)
OFFER SMALL PRIZES

GAMIFICATION TIP #4
RECOGNIZE EFFORT PUBLICLY
Sample leaderboard on Zao

BRING THE PRIZES INTO THE LOBBY
• Prizes look much more real and
obtainable when they are
physically there.
• Make competitions date
sensitive (month, quarter)
• Set a date when someone will
take home the prize

STEP #17
VARY PROMOTIONS
• Don’t let your program become
static in the long term
• Employee referral success
stories are a GREAT way to
motivate your employees to
refer. Share these success
stories
• Change it up from time to time
and offer shocking rewards! It’s
a great way to WOW people
Shocking reward recently offered by Hubspot!

• A referral program that has
ongoing success is one that
engages employees on an
ongoing basis, not just at
launch time.
• Remember the goals we set?
Track them on an ongoing
basis and look for trends. If
the metrics are going down,
it’s time to refresh
STEP #18
MEASURE YOUR PROGRAM’S PULSE

• Automation lets you do things, week after
week, which you couldn’t do manually, like:
✓ Have employees review their network
against new jobs in the system
✓ Share leaderboard achievements
every week
✓ Enable employees to share jobs on an
automated, recurring basis
✓ Notify employees if a friend applies
STEP #19
AUTOMATE THE RECURRING TASKS
Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Tell your employees to sit back and relax,
automation does the hard work for them!

• Mobile recruiting is on the rise!
• 19% of job seekers use mobile devices
but... 57% would like to use mobile
devices to search for jobs!
• Make sure your career site is mobile!
• Zao allows mobile referrals
Our
world
today
STEP #20
MAKE SURE YOU’RE MOBILE
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

#ZAOdotcom
$
• Offering a referral reward to non-employees
increases engagement 10-50X
• Unlike employees, non-employees don’t have
the same intrinsic motivators for referrals
• Referral rewards are an extremely important
motivator in this case
• Rewarding non employees lets you change
the question from “who do you know” to
“who might your friends know”?
STEP #21
EXTEND REWARDS TO NON EMPLOYEES

#ZAOdotcom
• You email people you trust every day, and
those people know people. Why not remind
them you’re offering referral rewards?
• Add a link to your email signature
• Be creative! Add graphics!
• Make a signature for your employees too
STEP #22
USE YOUR EMAIL SIGNATURE
(OFFER IT TO YOUR EMPLOYEES, TOO!)
$2,000 REWARD
Refer-a-friend & get rewards!
If you refer someone who’s hired

#ZAOdotcom
• Don’t forget you need to pay your taxes, and
referrers need to pay theirs
• If you handle it yourself, speak with your
accounting ﬁrm
• Remember there are different laws in different
countries
• If you work with us, we’ll take care of payments
to non employees for you (Audited by E&Y)
STEP #23
TAX PAYMENTS
Image courtesy of cooldesign/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

#ZAOdotcom
• Consider a month or quarter, where instead of
rewarding employees, the entire company
works towards social goals
• For example, donate toys for tots or a meal for
those in need for every qualiﬁed applicant
• Let your employees choose the social goals
they want to work towards
STEP #24
GIVE BACK

#ZAOdotcom
A) Planning for the long term, not just the launch.
B) Ongoing maintenance and tweaking.
C) Use a platform with automation and smart matching to make referrals easy
D) Gamiﬁcation makes referrals fun and sustains long term interest.
E) Consider extending your rewards to trusted non-employees
F) Support mobile: both your applicants and referrers are on the go
SUMMARY
A SUCCESSFUL REFERRAL PROGRAM IS ALL ABOUT
ENGAGEMENT

FEEDBACK, IDEAS & QUESTIONS
Send us your questions in the Q & A box
?
?
? ?
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THANKS FOR ATTENDING
Reach out any time at hello@zao.com

Zao graylink webinar launching and maintaining your employee referral program - sep 2013

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Zao graylink webinar launching and maintaining your employee referral program - sep 2013