Referrals - At Whose Costs?

Recruitments round the year always end up being a pain for those that belong to that specialization. Screening and selecting among hordes of unwanted resumes is indeed a tumultuous task. To ease out the process somebody introduced the Referrals policy and it started bringing out good results. Suddenly employees all so satisfied with the Organization started recommending near and dear family and friends. Then there were some Companies who started acknowledging the brilliance at ease and rewarding employees, some didn’t believe in rewarding but found the referral policy the biggest source or databank available, and there were still some who didn’t believe in the policy.

The 2 extreme positions are the best that could be carved out of this policy; however the middle position is the one that creates major issues, especially in Companies that believe in having local candidates on their payrolls. Hardly a speck in the crowd would belong to far flung places settled at workplace location. Here the referral policy is so much into the system that it has actually entangled the recruitment process.

Suddenly everybody is on a referring spree, and if one tries finding out the history behind their acquaintances, one would be surprised to know that among all things the only common factor was a common surname. Thus it made enough ground to approach the right person in the Company and be rest assured that one would certainly be on the rolls within a couple of days. If this kind of a business can sprout annoyance from just a two or three, then to imagining every single referral belonging to the same genre, it can prove to be quite troublesome for the HR as well as the Organization. As merit of an individual cannot be stated by common surnames, or can one perform any psychometric tests to separate out the desired from the undesired. Whether one looks to the left or to the right, numbers keep percolating with individuals of common surnames. What in turn goes waste is the Company’s resources in paying them salaries for the work they do not do (though this isn’t a generalized sweeping statement, nor do all referrals end up being on the same side of the sinking boat). The resources utilized to train them for the job, paying of the salaries, and once when they quit (that too prematurely) no suitable replacement comes around, hence training the new guy all over again. Besides the references being not so credible, yet following suit since the person whose referring is a top shot in the Company. Little realizing that in this great movement of doing something worthwhile and good for their communities, people are actually gathering dust around! The whole game of reserving seats in political stunts across States being so similar to the Corporate story of referrals. Has anybody benefited by these mindless games at the State levels? So be the case at Corporate level. The policy may seem all so rosy from the distance, but is proving to be a brain chewer from close by.

Maybe we need an alteration in the Referral Policy and we need to limit how many people a year can current employees refer (at those companies that have an open agenda throughout the year). Maybe we can even put some constraints upon who can be referred and put more emphasis on the idea that the referrer’s PLI would somehow contain some value of the referrer’s performance. Otherwise were these trends to continue, one fine day we would have the Company plagued by similar community or surnamed people taking over charges