Rewards are extremely important if you want to have a successful Employee Referral Program. Although Employee Referral in the Philippines is not yet that common, it has been proven to be one of the most effective ways to hire high-quality candidates that onboard faster and tend to stay longer.

Having an Employee Referral Program in place means establishing rewards that are eye-catching enough that will make your employees want to participate. There are a lot of rewards that you can give out, with money being the most basic.

But your Employee Referral Campaigns don’t have to be limited to just handing out cash. In fact, the more interesting you can make the rewards, the more likely your employees will want to participate simply because it feels different and more exciting, or the rewards you offer is something they truly want, need, or care about.

Here are some Employee Referral program ideas that you can try out to make your program successful and more engaging.

Cash Rewards

Let’s start with the most basic reward - cash. Most people are driven by financial rewards but it’s important to find the right balance, meaning you don’t offer too much but also don’t offer too little. The idea is to offer higher cash rewards for hard-to-fill, urgent jobs, which will entice your employees to focus on those positions.

Come up with a budget and see how much you will be able to give out as rewards. If you don’t know where to start, you can think of what amount will entice YOU to refer your friends for open positions, and see if that fits into your budget.

Days Off

Money isn’t always the only reward that will get employees to turn their heads. With how hard people work these days, don’t be surprised that extra vacation/sick leaves will have your employees referring away like their life depended on it.

Offer up an extra day of VL/SL for regular positions, and two or more extra days for in-demand positions. The harder the role is to fill, the more days off you can give.

Raffle Tickets for a Trip or Prize

You can even turn a prize like plane tickets to somewhere or a variety of home appliances into something fun, like a raffle draw. Each referral is equivalent to one raffle entry for the prize. Of course, more referrals means more raffle entries, and more raffle entries means more chances of winning the prize.

Tickets for an Event

Do you have tickets to the PBA finals? What about that upcoming Guns N’ Roses concert? Or even movie tickets for the latest blockbuster this year? Offering tickets to events gives your employees the opportunity to have some fun outside of work.

It is also a great way for you to get to know your employees and their interests, which you can later use for future rewards to keep them eager to refer.

Food and Drinks

Everyone has to eat. Offering dinner at a good restaurant or extra free lunches can also be an enticing reward. Discount coupons for restaurants, Starbucks, and so on are rewards that will be hard to turn down, especially if you know your employees constantly need their daily fix of caffeine.

Gym Membership

Health and fitness is something people are more conscious about nowadays. Bigger companies often have gym memberships as their perks and benefits, but if this isn’t something your company does, you can offer it as referral rewards. An example is a gym membership for six months or one year when your employees have reached certain numbers of successful referrals.

Rest and Relaxation

Stress is one of the main causes of health problems, unhappiness, and under-productivity. In fact, there have been numerous studies that link stress with poor performance in the workplace.

Give your employees some TLC that they deserve by offering them a way to relax and blow off some steam - like a spa day, an overnight stay at a hotel, or a one week pass at the gym. They’ll come back refreshed and ready to work harder than ever before.

Group Referrals worth P500,000

To make things extra interesting, you can turn your Employee Referral Program into a competition, especially if your employees are highly competitive people. The department that can get the most successful referrals will win something big like P500,000.

But of course, not everyone can offer rewards as large as half a million, so the payout will be up to you. The benefits of a campaign like this are to not only get large quantities of referrals quickly, but it also fosters an environment of engagement, teamwork, and camaraderie.

Win a Motorcycle with 10 referrals

Rewards can also mean something as cool as a motorcycle, especially for those hard to fill positions. Commuting in Manila is a hassle and offering a means to make that just a bit easier is something that will hardly go ignored. You can even offer up one of those snazzy new electric scooters or even a bicycle.

Offering up a big prize for a certain number of successful referrals will keep employees engaged for a longer period of time. Just be sure not to make it too difficult, like 50 successful referrals. Aim for anywhere around 5 - 10.

Non-employee referrals

If you’re still having difficulty reeling in those referrals, you can always turn them into non-employee referrals, or in other words, open the positions so that anyone can refer (they don’t have to be your employees).

Siomai Stall Franchise for 20 successful referrals

This one is pretty unique and will for sure get your employees interested. Who wouldn’t with a chance of getting a franchise for a small stall, with the lure of some extra income on the side? This is a pretty big reward so you can either offer it up to that really, really difficult position or for a higher number of successful referrals.

Social Recognition

This isn’t so much something you reward as a stand-alone but rather what you can do to further enhance your employee referral program. People love receiving recognition and being praised for a great job.

You can create posters for “referrer of the month”, make t-shirts, thank you signs, give a huge check for rewards, or even simply recognize them on your company newsletters. As long as you are giving them credit somehow, they will want to continue referring and it will, in turn, push others to do the same so they too get recognized.

Make It Mandatory

Of course, if all else fails, you can make it mandatory by adding it to your employees’ KPIs. This helps you get the job done but also gives them a tangible target to aim for. Give a specific number to make it more effective and of course, don’t forego rewards. Just because it’s mandatory doesn’t mean you don’t give out something in return, even if it’s something small.

Remember, your Employee Referral Campaign will only be as successful as how well you communicate it internally and the rewards you give out. Don’t be stingy and try to be generous with your referrals where possible, and watch your employees bring in candidates of high-quality into your organization for you.

JUNE 28, 2018

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