In light of recent cases where procedures and implementations of employee reference policies are raising alarms, leaders and professionals are asking whether such programs and policies are fair. An employee referral program is basically a structured plan adopted by companies to find and hire new talent from among those candidates who are referred by the company’s existing workers. In return, the employees may be offered a lucrative referral bonus when their candidate is selected and compliant to certain protocols.
It is not uncommon to find that the same candidature is shared multiple times through the employee referral program during a lucrative opening. In their eagerness to get placed, candidates share their resumes with multiple people within the organization, who in turn refer the same internally in the hope to be awarded the promised referral rewards. In scenarios like this, how does the HR ensure that it protects the interests of all parties involved? What is the role of HR in managing the employee referral program effectively such that employees don’t lose faith in the system?
Many professionals and leaders from the global consulting industry shared their perspectives on the subject matter. While some of them cite factors like flawed referral programs for not having stringent guidelines, others hold it up to the HRs for negligence in showing complete transparency. Leaders say that in cases where the candidates referred by multiple employees gets selected and joins the firm, it is the HR’s job to run the process transparently and fairly to ensure that the interests of all parties are being borne in mind.
Also, important questions need to be answered in such cases where duplication occurs. A clear process should be followed to ensure that the clarification on duplication of referral, as well as steps taken to identify the queue of the referral are communicated to all interested parties. For instance, even though a duplication of resume in the referral program software might have occurred, HR cannot fail to track as to who had provided the resume first. The person who shared the resume first is deserving of his or her bonus. In certain cases where a timeline on the referral cannot be drawn, the referral bonus should be shared with the multiple referring employees. Simply citing duplication as the reason for declining the bonus is nothing less than foul. While by avoiding to pay the referral bonus by citing duplication as the reason, a company may gain a talented employee for free, but it will lose in the form of confidence lost in the minds of employees.
Erring HR professionals may argue that tracking referrals is a very time consuming and hectic process. However, industry leaders state that the systems usually records the date, time, and the name of the existing employee when he/she recommends a candidate by uploading a resume. So it is possible, albeit a little hectic, to track and figure out who did upload a resume first. Details like date of the resume having been uploaded the first time should be shared with the employee to avoid future discrepancies.
Another important scenario that can go against employee referral policies – when organizations work with multiple recruitment consultants, often it so happens that two different consultancies provide the same resume or application to the company’s HR. In such cases, the HR is required to be swift in bringing this to the notice of both vendors and determine which one of them provided it first.
Even though the HR must be held accountable for its lack of transparency and tact, we must also take a step back and evaluate such scenarios of disputes and workplace conflict from various perspectives; case in point: employee referral policies. Before rushing to make a judgment against either of the involved parties, industry professionals suggest that interpreting the inconsistencies of the referral program software is crucial. Leaders even pointed out the sketchy, superficial nature of the employee referral bonus program guidelines. Most often than not, in any organization during the talent acquisition process, especially one that ends up happening via employee referrals, the probability of a large number of resumes highlighting merely primary skills, showing up in the application tracking system (ATS) database is extremely high. As a consequence of this, during a search performed in the company’s ATS for a vacancy that requires a certain skillset, the multi-functional skills of the candidate could be overlooked due to the fact that both CV copies of the same candidate highlight different skills. This can be attributed to a glitch in the software since it could not recognize the duplication. Because of that it can get tricky to determine whether a CV has duplicate copies in the system.
Maintaining and constantly updating a database that is so vast is a huge challenge. Steps must be taken to develop the software to be able to raise flags when something similar happens. Even the employee referral policy document needs to be revised and broadened with respect to safeguarding the interests of its employees in times of dispute.
In retrospection, to avoid the above mentioned flaws, employee referral programs must be built on the good faith and trust of employees. Organizations must ensure there is complete transparency between the HR and the workforce, the HR must own up to its faults and avoid them in the future. Also, the employee referral policy document needs to be systematic, efficient, clear and thorough with stringent guidelines to be followed. Employee referrals have proven to be a successful tool in recruiting new talent, and hence it is important that the employee referral policies cater to the needs of the entire workforce and not just towards the benefit of the organization.
Reference:
“Case Analysis: Are employee referral policies fair enough?”, Lipi Agrawal, 04th July 2017
