While listening to recruiter Bob Beaudine‘s Entreleadership podcast this week, some comments he made about recruiting and networking suddenly mixed themselves together. When your company is looking for new people to fill positions, do your employees recommend your company to their friends and family?
While such recruiting would be dependent on whether or not your friends and family are qualified to do the work, in many companies, that isn’t a problem. When a company needs a receptionist, mechanic, manager, or salesperson – there’s almost always someone in your circle of family and friends who could be interested in that opportunity.
Question is, do your employees recommend your company? I suspect you’d be interested in hearing what they might say to a friend or family member about their work and their employer. Chances of you hearing that verbatim are probably not good, yet it’s something worth pursuing.
Make it easier to recommend your company
Put together a brochure, something on letterhead or a web page that elaborates on why you encourage employees to recruit friends and family. Your reasons for encouraging this may resonate with your team. For example, you wouldn’t expect an employee to recommend someone who won’t reflect well on them. If they will be working together (something to be careful about), you wouldn’t expect an employee to recommend someone they’ll have to carry or that they can’t depend on.
Rather than leaving that unsaid, discuss it in your recruiting communications and in staff meetings. Make it clear that you understand that employees aren’t going to recommend someone they don’t trust and believe in. Be sure your employees understand that their recommendation is a function of their reputation in the company. Not only will this likely make the employees more selective about who they recommend, it will also reinforce your belief in them and in who they recruit.
What if they aren’t recommending your company
If your employees aren’t actively reaching out to friends and family to suggest they apply for openings, there may be good reasons. Some folks don’t like to combine their work and personal lives. That may seem a little odd to company owners, but it is your employees’ choice. However, if you see or know of your employees socializing outside of work, then it’s unlikely that combining work and personal lives is a concern. For those employees who mix socially, do you get recommendations for job candidates from their friends and family? Presumably this would come out in interviews or recommendations, so you would know most of the time.
Find a way to ask your employees why they aren’t recommending that their friends and family apply for work at your place. You may need to make this confidential – there are easy to use online survey tools that can help.
Of course, there are legitimate reasons why an employee wouldn’t recruit friends and family. I would be wary of suggesting that both people in a couple work for the same company, particularly if the company isn’t on very solid financial ground. The last thing a couple needs is for both of them to be worried about losing their job, or worse, having it happen to both of them at the same time.
Whether or not your staff recommends the company to friends and family, it’s worth discussing with them. Focus on the employees who will be frank with you. You need someone to tell you want you need to hear, even if you don’t want to hear it. Be sure they know that you won’t hassle or punish them for their comments – but you may ask for their help. You want honest feedback. If your staff wouldn’t recommend your company, you need to know why.
They need to understand that the lack of recommendations is serious, and that you want them to share with impunity. That doesn’t grant a free pass to be mean-spirited, rude, or abusive – and you should advise them of that in advance. Communicating bad news properly is an important life skill. Done poorly, this discussion will be tough for an owner to forgive and forget. What you don’t want is information presented in a way that will derail the goal: the need to learn what’s holding back their recommendation to others. Remember, the reasons they don’t recommend you are probably the reasons people leave.
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