Over the past few months, the number of staff available to start jobs has been falling at a record rate which is further deepening the current labour shortage. With the vaccination legislation coming into force from the 11th November, it is thought that there are going to be even more vacancies in the sector putting even more pressure on the workforce and recruitment.

When it comes to finding new staff, one of the best ways to recruit can actually be through your in-house networks. Asking your own staff for referrals is a critical part of any care provider’s recruitment strategy. It allows you to reach out into the community to attract and connect with people that already know something about your organisation.

“An employee referral scheme can be your most reliable source of high-quality care candidates. Following research it was discovered that after 3 years, only 14% of staff who were sourced through online job boards were retained, compared to 47% of those who joined because of an employee referral.” – Neil Eastwood, Saving Social Care

Neil Eastwood states that as a goal, you should be able to generate 20% of your staff needs this way, however, it is not uncommon to reach 40% of new staff coming from this source.

What are the benefits of using an employee referral scheme?

• Proven, high-quality, ongoing source of candidates
• Only pay when you have made a job offer, so very little risk
• When friends of employees join, it usually means both stays longer

Here is a simple 7 step referral process that you can implement into your organisation to help you get more employee referrals.

Step 1: Create a profile of your ‘best worker’ to include the benefits and value you add for them

Step 2: Ask yourself, are you referrable? Think about 3 areas in your organisation/service that are working well and top 3 areas you need to work on to improve your referral readiness.

Step 3: Accountability! Think about who will track your referrals and how will they be measured?

Step 4: Following from step 1, now it’s time to profile your perfect prospect candidate – do this by writing a short paragraph describing them.

Step 5: Start to think about which of your employees you will ask for referrals.

Step 6: Create a simple script to follow to help with ‘how’ to ask. Think about how different people may see different benefits for referring.

Step 7: Create a thank you system – how will you demonstrate your thanks? Will you use a paid employee referral scheme?

If you would like to discuss the above, or about how we can collaborate, please let us know. To get in touch, email recruitment@ajrecruitment.com or call us on 03305 552233.

As a specialist, family-run recruitment business, we provide a proactive and consultative approach to recruitment within Social Care. We help organisations to target issues such as continuity of staffing, reducing spend where you have a high volume of agency usage and supporting those who have specific talent requirements or are in hard to fill locations. We can help with any immediate staffing requirements or longer-term recruitment projects to ultimately save you time and money on agency spend.

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