Dr John Sullivan Talent Management Thought Leadership

Remember that you felt guilty when, as a highly loyal employee, circumstances forced you to quit. And then you wished there was some way to repay the company/manager that had been so good to you.

Well, fortunately, there is a way for a loyal employee to make one last contribution to help fill the void created by their departure. Ask employees who have always put the company first (I call them Company First Employees) to help make one last contribution by finding a quality replacement through a “Departing Employee Referral”.

How To Identify “Company First Employees” (CFE)

If you want to ensure that you get quality replacement hires every time, you don’t want to ask “just any employee” to find their own replacement. The reality is that not all not all departing employees will put the company’s interest first when they recruit. Instead, you should ask only what I call “company first employees” (CFEs) for help.

Now, you may initially think that CFE’s will be hard to identify in a sea of selfish employees. The fact is, we’ve all encountered dozens of them during our careers. And their commitment to always putting the company first, in a world where most appear to be selfish, means that they will stand out like a beacon of light.

I define a departing “company first employee” as one with three or more years of tenure who is being forced to leave the company as a result of circumstances that are beyond their control (i.e., the family is moving, a major illness, an internal promotion, or retirement). In addition to putting the company first, they can be identified by their unwavering loyalty and their passion for the company.

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The Benefits From… Getting The Help Of A Company First Employee (CFE)

When you’re calculating the ROI of referrals from company first employees, you should consider the dollar value of these many benefits.

• You’ll hire better performing employees – the most important business impact metric in recruiting is the performance level of your new-hires. And it’s a fact that employee referrals almost universally result in the very best performing new hires. In this case, a referral from a departing employee is particularly powerful.
  
  The help provided by the departing CFE will produce a combination of better sourcing, more accurate assessment, better candidate selling, and a commitment to helping the company. And those many advantages will result in better performing new-hires, when compared to your standard recruiting process. Hiring faster will mean that you won’t lose many of your top candidates who would have already accepted an earlier offer.
• A shorter time to fill means a smaller loss in team productivity – because the departing employee will have already established a broad network for sourcing. That network will allow the vacant position to be filled faster. The resulting fewer unnecessary “position vacancy days” will minimize any loss of team productivity. 
• Their targeted network will get your prospects’ attention faster – because the departing employee has been working in this field for a minimum of three years. They will have already developed a strong network of colleagues. And these already established relationships will speed up your sourcing process. The departing employee will already know a great deal about the capabilities of each of their network members (i.e., they won’t have as many stranger candidates).
• The departing employee’s pitch will be more convincing – because of this already built trust relationship with those in their network. The members of a CFE’s network are more likely to trust their pitch (when compared to a recruiter whom they don’t know). And because the departing employee will also likely know more about what the top performers in their field expect in a great job. The departing employee will likely produce both a higher number of completely qualified applicants and eventually a higher offer acceptance rate.
• Fewer bad candidates – the CFE’s superior ability to assess candidates (when compared to a generic recruiter), coupled with the departing employee’s fear of embarrassment among their former colleagues, will likely result in an extremely low level of “bad/unacceptable candidates”. And a zero hiring failure rate.
• No/low recruiting costs – when you rely heavily on the departing employee to do most of your sourcing, you won’t have to spend as much money on job boards.
• A loyal employee is more likely to coach and mentor – even after the departing employee has left. Their loyalty and commitment to the organization will likely spur them to continue helping the new hire.
• The resulting referral is now a current employee – in the cases where the new-hire is a current employee. The remainder of the departing employee’s two-week notice period can be used to help smooth the current employee’s transition into their new job.

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Why You Should Only Ask Your “Company First Employees” To Help

The offloading of much of their recruiting work is extremely tempting to most managers. Many hiring managers will be tempted to ask every departing employee to help find their replacement.

But that would be a mistake. Some departing employees won’t do a great job in finding a replacement for a variety of reasons. 

First, because they are selfish and bitter, they seek payback, or they feel like they’ve already given enough. But also because the departing employee may simply not be good at recruiting, or they may prefer to focus on preparing for their new job. So it’s clear that you shouldn’t ask for recruiting help from any laid-off, mediocre, fired, or disgruntled employees. And of course, anyone who might not put the interest of the company first.

Tips For Those Interested In Implementing A Departing Employee Referral Program

For those interested in developing their own departing employee referral program, here are a few things to keep in mind.

• Most potential problems are easy to avoid – if you conduct a deep enough search on the Internet. You’ll eventually find the usual number of haters who disparage this recruiting approach. However, I suggest that without any data behind them, you must consider most of the proposed negatives to be old wives’ tales.
  
  And when you accept help exclusively from departing employees with a passion for the company and a history of putting the company’s interest first. You won’t have to worry about potential problems (revenge, lackadaisical effort, and reduced diversity). That might actually occur if you were to allow just any departing employee to find their own replacement. 
• The departing employee will have added motivation – because this process offers a departing employee the opportunity to overcome any guilt and/or to repay the company that has been so good to them. It is unlikely that the departing employee will need any nudges in order to complete their recruiting duties on time. Also, realize that the departing employee will likely be even more highly motivated. If you remind them that this last contribution will be positively reflected in their reference letter.
• Consider making the referral recommendation anonymous – and if you are concerned that knowing that the employee referral came from the former incumbent will somehow prejudice the team’s hiring decision. Simply don’t disclose the source of each candidate. 
• Limit the departing employee to just producing a list of names – and if you are worried that the departing employee’s final candidate ranking may overly influence the final hiring decision. Only provide other decision-makers a list of their top candidates, without disclosing which ones are the departing employee’s top picks. 
• Use the departing employee only for preliminary screening – once again, if you’re concerned that the departing employee will have too much influence over the final hiring decision. Only allow the departing employee to help during the preliminary candidate “cutdown” step.
• Consider providing a reward – if you want to further motivate the departing employee. If the candidate is hired, give them a small referral reward.
• Limit your referrals to key jobs – at least initially, I recommend that you limit your referral program so that it only finds replacements for your key jobs. And then expand its coverage after you have discovered and fixed all of the program’s initial problems.

If you only do one thing – make a list of a handful of your departed employees who had a passion for the company and who always put the company’s interest first. And then call each and ask them to rank on a scale from 1 to 10. When they left, how excited would they have been about the opportunity to help their team/manager find their replacement? Then use their responses to gauge if you should try a pilot program at your team.

Final Thoughts

Decades ago, I was losing one of my best and most loyal employees (Sally) due to her graduation from college. And during our discussion around how much she would be missed. Sally remarked that she felt guilty about leaving her team “in a bind”. Then, without hesitation, Sally asked me, “Would you allow me to find my own replacement?” I, of course, was surprised but delighted to accept her offer. And because the replacement that Sally found turned out to be an equal to her in every way. That was the birth of the “Departing Employee Referral” program!

Thank you for finding the time to read and share this article.

Notes for the reader

This is the latest article from Dr. Sullivan, who was called “the Michael Jordan of Hiring” by Fast Company.

You can subscribe to his Aggressive Talent Management newsletter (which focuses on recruiting tools, current recruiting opportunities, and recruiting trends) either here or by following him on LinkedIn.