WOMAN SPECIAL.... Refer woman aspirant, get double the reward

 Refer woman aspirant, get double the reward 

Cos Introduce Special Internal Referral Programmes To Improve Gender Ratio

Mumbai: Hiring agencies are not the only ones which earn a strong premium when they help companies scout for female talent. Companies are now incentivizing employees with higher cash rewards, promotions and other perks if they refer a woman candidate for job postings internally. Some companies are said to be paying double the amount to employees for referring a woman candidate as compared to a normal referral.
    Early this year, HSBC introduced a revised ‘Prefer to Refer’ programme, wherein it substantially raised the payout to an employee if he or she successfully referred a female candidate for a job posting. The reference fee would be higher for a senior posting. Lenovo India, on the other hand, offers a 15% premium over and above the referral bonus for female candidates, while Accenture doles out greater benefits in the form of perks and promotions to those employees who are able to bring good women candidates for internal jobs.
    These actions have been taken to improve the flow of women candidates which, most companies said, is still not up to the mark. “We have a significant number of internal referrals for jobs. While the referral programme was working well, we didn’t see that flow of women coming through. So we said we will significantly enhance the referral fee for a successful woman candidate. It was met with a lot of enthusiasm,” said Vikram Tandon, head of human resources, HSBC.
    HSBC wants to improve its overall gender ratio from the current 68:32 to 60:40 by the end of 2014. “We realized that if we really wanted this to happen, strong commitment would be required to grow the pipeline. We are seeing an improved flow of women candidates now. The payouts have not yet happened because there is a cycle time involved: First the CV comes in, then we hire and confirm the person in six months. But there is good enthusiasm about this in the bank,” said Tandon.
    Of course, merit here is taken for granted. At Lenovo India, as well, the incentive is paid in cash once the referred and hired candidate completes six months at the company. The payout slabs vary for referring candidates in different bands — the higher the band, the higher the incentives. “Our referral programme helps us to strengthen our talent acquisition strategy by getting into the organization talent who have had successful career in their previous companies. It also helps the person referred to
learn about Lenovo and its culture in advance through the referee and thus integrate with us faster. Given that we have a large employee population in sales, we focus on building diversity in our hiring though the referral programme by giving higher referral bonus to selected female candidates,” said Lenovo’s Subhankar Roy Chowdhury, HR partner (India) and talent & organizational development leader (Asia-Pacific & Latin America).
    To encourage the number of women in the organization, Accenture, on the other hand, offers greater benefits, which could even be a promotion or other perks, in case a woman candidate is successfully hired. The benefits differ from each business unit to another, depending on the candidature.
    In case of cash payments for internal referrals, such payments made to employees are fully taxable and accounted as other income. Companies see a lot of benefits in a referral programme. “There is a lot of stickiness among people who’ve been referred for a job. They tend to stay around longer,” said Tandon.
    Experts at Gi Group India, part of a global recruitment and staffing company, said sectors like IT/ITeS, banking and advertising offer a differential referral benefit in case of a female candidate. The firm said if the gender ratio is very low, companies tend to go for exclusive diversity drives and, based on a robust employee referral system, the benefits may extend internally as well.
    The fee to an external hiring agency could go up to onethird of a candidate’s annual pay, said industry experts. This is one of the reasons that HSBC prefers to put all its vacancies on the internal job portal first. The bank, which recruits significantly at the entry level from Tier-1, 2 and 3 business schools, is hopeful that 80% of its jobs are filled from within.
DIVERSITY PUSH
Cos are incentivizing employees to internally refer female candidates for job postings
Rewards include promotions and higher cash payouts, up to 15% over regular referral amounts
Such internal referrals are also cheaper than an external hiring agency’s fees, which may be a third of the candidate’s pay  The incentives are paid out after successful recruitment and integration of the woman candidate, mostly after 6 months

Namrata Singh TNN TOI 130510