Disengaged Employees Are Messing Up Recruiting Too??

It’s an all too regular complaint these days that engagement is at historic lows.  Gallup can’t seem to shut up about it and the HR/Talent community is rightly worried.  However, low engagement can hurt more than an organization’s retention of talent and its overall productivity.  Low engagement can also have an extremely negative effect on employee referrals.

Though difficult to track, employee referrals are one of the best sources of candidates for an organization.  They make up a smaller portion of the overall hiring numbers, but employee referral programs can add high quality, passive candidates (two words guaranteed to make a recruiter’s mouth water) to an organization. However, just as employee referral programs are advancing from a reliance on simple word of mouth and cash payouts to drive referrals to targeted social media tools with measurable results, engagement, the real and best driver of employee referrals, is at its lowest. 

Why is engagement such a crucial part of the success of employee referrals?  Because engaged employees that are passionate about their work cannot shut up about it and when they know about an open position at their company they will be telling their friends and connections to check it out because working there is the best.

What can organizations do to increase engagement and harness it to encourage employee referrals?  We talked to Gerry Crispin,  international speaker, author, and consultant whose views on employment strategy, hiring processes and staffing technology are sought by many of the world's most competitive corporations and he has a few ideas on the subject which he’ll be sharing in an upcoming webcast. 

With engagement levels at such low levels, can organizations stand to wait any longer?

Photo Courtesy of xJosephRogersx