| Using Metrics To Measure Your Employee Referaol Programs |
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| Dakotta.com - Articles | |
| Written by Administrator | |
| Tuesday, 14 July 2009 23:56 | |
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When it comes to finding the best candidates, it makes sense to ask the best candidates who work for your company. Employee referrals can be used to fill a variety of positions from entry level to upper management. In order to get the most from employee referral programs, deciding on the metrics needed to measure the quality of the referrals, will help you be able to determine how useful they are and how much of your time you should spend following up on them.
Common metrics used in measuring the effectiveness of employee referral programs include:
New Hire Job Performance Metrics Measuring the performance of new hires that were referred to you by an employee, vendor, or client, is the best way to tell if the referral is meeting the needs of the company and the department. Because many companies evaluate new hires within 90 days of their starting dates, you should be able to quickly determine how these employees are performing. When gathering information from employee referral new hires, be sure to include the following:
If an employee referral program is an effective one, then the overall performance rate of these employees should be high. If the rate is low, then you may need to talk with the hiring manager or the new hire to see if there are other issues. If the turnaround/termination rate for those who were referred to the company by another employee is higher or on level with employees who were not referred through the employee program may not indicate problems with the referral program itself. There may be other variables including management issues, job tasks, or personal issues.
Employee Program Usage Metrics Employee referral programs are only as useful as the people who use them. The amount of referrals you get each day/week/month/year is an indication of whether employees feel comfortable referring those they know to your company. When evaluating the referral program, keep the following in mind:
Understanding more about who is using the referral program and the percentage of those were hired through these referrals can tell you a lot about the popularity of the program and the comfort level employees have in using it. If response is low, you can send out a survey to determine why the referral program is not working. There are many reasons including the number of people who are able to participate, the number of referrals that actually receive a job offer, and the encouragement employees receive from management to suggest qualified candidates when a position becomes open.
Employee referral program satisfaction metrics Measuring employee satisfaction with the employee referral program can be done by sending out a survey or asking hiring managers if their goals are being met by those who were hired based on an employee referral. Even if most employees do not participate in the referral program, this does not mean they are not satisfied with it. Depending on who is allowed to make referrals, how often positions are open, and how many referrals actually lead to new employees being hired, fewer employees may be motivated to make a referral. Analyzing how referrals are made is another area you should investigate. Employees who have to fill out extensive referral forms or answer a questionnaire, may not have the time or they may be intimidated by the process.
HR/employee referral turnaround metrics HR turnaround on employee referrals could be one of the reasons why the program is not as successful as it could be. If the HR department takes too long in sending a ‘thank-you’ email or contacting a referral, employees will become discouraged and will not want to refer anyone else. You should measure turnaround times by asking those who referred candidates how long it took for them to get a response. Other metrics you should consider include:
These metrics will allow you to make the necessary changes within the HR department which will hopefully encourage more employees to make referrals. An important point to remember is that the longer it takes to contact a referral, the lower you chances will be to recruit them as they will find another job or will see the HR department’s slow reactions to contacting them as a reason not to work for your company. Your metrics should also include the percentage of referrals you had to be proactive in obtaining. Asking hiring managers, employees, and others for referrals is a good recruiting tool should be noted in your metrics.
Using Metrics to Improve Employee Referral Programs After analyzing the metrics pertaining to employee referral programs, you should be able to determine the percentage of:
Since employee referrals should yield more top performers than low performers, save money from having to interview other candidates, and allow you to hire a diverse amount of employees, if your metrics are not showing positive results or results that do not meet your expectations, the next step is to analyze why. There may be other reasons behind lower employee referral rates. You should get employees and managers involved in trying to improve the process. When employee referral programs are successful, they should provide you with a selection of quality candidates that can become top performers within a set time frame. Improving employee referral programs may involve faster responses by the HR department, opening up the referral program to other employees, and determining why employee turnaround and termination occurs.
About the author:
Dakotta J.K. Alex, social venture director and author of “Damn, I Need a Job. Again!” and “The Recruiters Guide Book,” is a Global HR Solutions Consultant specializing in human capital recruitment, process management and career analysis in the US, Europe and China. With over 9 years of consultancy experience he has found his niche in the social networking arena and now runs the 3rd largest recruiting network forum http://www.RecruiterGroups.com in addition to a candidate / recruiter forum known as http://www.AskTheRecruiter.com. Information regarding Dakotta’s other ventures, books, and articles can be found at http://www.dakotta.com.
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 29 July 2009 07:28 ) |
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