Majority of Employee Referrals Made During Work Hours

Employee referrals have long been a hiring team’s favored source of applicants for open roles. A new study of enterprise referral programs reveals that employees tend to make referrals during work hours rather than during their personal time, showing that, for many, it’s not an afterthought.  

ERIN, an employee referral platform in Pittsburgh, analyzed its 2024 user data — over 1.1 million referrals from 744,580 unique users — to examine how employees at large organizations engage with referral programs.  

“The most surprising thing that came out of this study was how people are using the platform,” said Mike Stafiej, CEO of ERIN. “We built the platform thinking people would use it on their phone. But 55% prefer desktops for detailed submissions, often during work hours. That tells me that employees want to engage with talent acquisition as a part of their job, not in addition to their job.” 

The study found that 55% of referrals were sent by email, 30% were shared over social media, and only 10% were sent by SMS/text. That supports the idea that referrals are being taken seriously by the referrers, who use email for its professional tone and accessibility instead of just blasting an open job across social networks or texting out a link.   

“It takes more intention and effort to craft an email,” Stafiej said. “People are also initiating a referral to a friend over drinks at the bar, but that is not the norm,” he said. “And it makes sense because, when we talk about what makes a referral great in terms of quality of hire, culture fit, and retention, having a solid layer of connection with that person is key.” 

Ultimately, it’s important to have multiple ways for employees to participate in referral programs, including over desktops and laptops, mobile devices, and social media.  

“Most of the time, employees hear about open roles while at work,” said Jane Curran, global head of HR Operations at JLL, a commercial real estate services firm based in Chicago. “We send out referral campaigns to employees to encourage referrals for our hard-to-fill jobs,” she said. “Some of our best recruiters are our employees.”

Nicole Belyna, director of talent acquisition and inclusion at SHRM, said that she’s grateful when referrals come in. “If people are making referrals at work, that’s great because they are probably taking the time to do it well. It shows engagement and initiative for employees to act as brand ambassadors.”  

Experts agree that referrals are an effective talent acquisition practice if done right. Referrals also tend to stay longer than other hires. “Referrals increase the intent to stay and belonging in the company, contributing to positive culture,” Curran said. She added that top talent tends to surround themselves with top talent “so if you are getting referrals from top performers, you are likely to hire quality talent.”

Belyna noted a common risk to be aware of, however: Referrals come with the potential of baked-in bias, especially those made by an admired or senior-level employee.  

“Sometimes, the scrutiny you would give another candidate is not there,” she said. “Referrals are great in the sense that it’s another resource, but I would caution recruiters and hiring managers to follow the same process that you would for any other candidate — stick to your interview guides and evaluate each candidate the same way. You can end up with a department or an organization with very similar people, which hurts diversity of thought.” 

The Referral Funnel 

The ERIN study concluded that, among enterprise-level organizations, 1 in 10 referrals results in a hire — a conversion rate significantly higher than that of job boards, where companies often need over 50-60 applicants per hire. 

“We found that out of 10 candidates who receive a referral notice, eight respond to the referral, six apply for the job, four are interviewed, and one is hired,” Stafiej said.   

Since going live with ERIN a little over four months ago, JLL reported more than 13,500 employees making over 11,000 referrals. “We’ve had over 13,000 referral applications — some people applied to more than one role — which has resulted in over 600 offers,” Curran said.

At a smaller organization like SHRM, with roughly 500 employees, about 50% of referrals become hires; in 2024, slightly more than 10% of all hires were employee referrals. 

“What we don’t get in volume we make up for in quality referrals,” Belyna said.  

Stafiej added that referrals made over social media are less effective than direct referrals. “While 30% of all referrals were shared via social media, only 14% of hires came from this channel, proving that direct, one-to-one referrals via email or company portals remain the most effective way to drive quality hires,” he said.  

Referral Incentives  

Employee referral programs often involve offering incentives, such as monetary bonuses, to employees to encourage them to refer potential job candidates. 

“Companies with robust recognition programs drive higher engagement across submission types, and the most successful referral programs have incentives for all jobs,” Stafiej said. “It doesn’t have to be the biggest incentive, but they have some kind of incentive. It can even be a $25 gift card; it doesn’t have to be a $1,000 bonus. The key is knowing how much to incentivize, and that should be determined by role and difficulty to fill.”  

SHRM pays a bonus for successful hires — half when hired and half at the six-month mark. “It’s a pretty generous program, and I’m OK with that,” Belyna said. “I’d rather pay an employee than pay an agency. I don’t think there’s a good reason not to pay.” 

She added that anyone with an influence on the hiring process, including those in HR, should not be eligible for the referral bonus.   

Building a Winning Referral Program  

Aspects of creating an effective referral program include ease of use, a mix of incentives, regular promotion, and the ability to track results. Stafiej provided several tips for building out referral programs:  

• Make it easy. “People should feel comfortable using it,” he said. “Don’t make your employees or the candidates work for it.”  
• Promote it. “Use engagement tactics to keep people involved and thinking about making referrals,” Stafiej said. “In enterprise organizations, people don’t care about the jobs in other departments. Awareness of open roles must get communicated down to the team level.”  
• Offer incentives. Nonmonetary incentives are a great way to sustain engagement when restricted by budget.  
• Make it fun. Referral programs are tailor-made for a gamified experience. “Gamification, such as leaderboards, can foster healthy competition and can motivate employees to contribute more actively,” Stafiej said. 
• Automate the process. A necessity for larger employers, a referral platform significantly reduces the manual work involved in managing referral processing. Using a referral platform also provides tracking and data, and it refines the process to ensure only eligible referrals are advanced.