Plastics Pipeline Blog

Utilizing an Employee Recruitment Program

Marcus Battin Receives Check for Employee Referral

“Employee referral is the best recruiting channel I know,” states Liz Ryan in her article, The Truth About Employee Referrals, for forbes.com. It “…reinforces and celebrates your employees in a tangible way for contributing to your company’s success. It’s the only one [recruiting channel] that builds on the community you’ve already established in your organization. It’s the only one that says to your employees ‘Of course we want you to recruit for us. You know us better than anyone. You know which people will like it here and be successful. You know your friends. We rely on you!’”

Simply put, “An employee referral program is a recruiting strategy in which employers encourage current employees, through rewards, to refer qualified candidates for jobs in their organizations.” According to www.shrm.org in its article, Designing and Managing Successful Employee Referral Programs. “Creating and managing a vibrant employee referral program makes good recruiting sense because employee-referred job candidates are usually a good cultural fit and may need less onboarding when hired.”

In addition, “Referred candidates, if hired, stay at their jobs longer than traditional hires and a great referral program improves a business’s overall retention rate,” according to linkedin.com’s blog, The 6-Step Guide to Building the Perfect Employee Referral Program.

Team 1 Plastics, a plastic injection molding company for the transportation industry, began its Employee Referral program in July 2017, according to HR Manager, Robert Clothier, “to aid in bringing in quality team members. The great thing about the referral program is that instead of having one or two recruiters at Team 1, we can have 20 or 30 recruiters who are hopefully thinking about whether the person they refer would be a good fit in our culture. Each year we ask our team if they would recommend Team 1 to family or friends. The Referral Program gives Team 1 the opportunity to reward those who recommend us to future team members.”

Clothier compared an employee’s referral to a job reference. “It’s common in recruiting and selection to contact references before a job offer is made. Having a referral program can add more credibility to this step since we already have a reference that we are familiar with working for our company.”

In setting up an Employee Referral Program for your company, paycor.com suggests four steps:

1. Set your program goals – What are you trying to achieve? Who are trying to hire? Make sure you communicate this to your employees.

Every open position at Team 1 Plastics is announced to its Team Members via the company’s Sharepoint collaborate software which is accessible to all Team Members. It also appears on the company website and the digital signage in the plant facility. Information about the referral program is also available on Sharepoint and is featured during a new Team Member’s orientation with HR.

2. Design a structured user-friendly process and participation rules – make it easy for the employee to make a referral.

For Team 1 Plastics, the process of making a referral is easy. Clothier explained that the Team Member simply sends an email to Human Resources with the candidate’s name, contact information, and position for which they are being referred.

3. Make sure your referral bonus structure is well-organized – most companies offer monetary rewards, but other ideas include paid time off, gift cards, and public recognition.

Team 1 Plastics has two levels of rewards in its Employee Referral program. The referring Team Member chooses either $150 or the equivalent amount of paid time off after the referral is hired in and completes 90 days of service. After 180 days of service by the referral, the referring Team Member receives an additional $350 or the equivalent amount of paid time off.

4. Measure, measure, measure — Measuring the success of your program is the first step toward improvement. It’s important to measure your employee referral program to figure out which parts work well and which don’t.

Clothier said that Team 1 Plastics has just recently experienced its first success story of its Employee Referral Program. Marcus Battin, Team 1’s Purchasing Manager / Planner, referred Kimberely Williams, who was hired by Team 1 on January 2, 2018. Williams has now completed 90 days of service with the company, and Battin has been awarded $150 — he chose the cash option.

And the success of Team 1’s referral program continues according to Clothier. Williams “has expressed interest in our Quality pre-training program and is scheduled to begin training shortly to become certified as a Quality Auditor. And, we just made our second hire through the referral program!”