Before the pandemic, this technology firm would peg referral bonus for employees somewhere between ₹10,000 and ₹30,000, the amount depending on the role for which a candidate is being referred.
The company recently hiked bonuses across levels, with those for lateral entry registering a 30% increase. For project management roles, the bonus swelled by 85%.
There is all-round effort to make the referral system attractive for employees, as evidenced by the communication pertaining to it. Posters of superhit movies are embedded in email elaborating on the system.
Fynd, which reportedly would bring around 2000 engineers more on board by the end of 2023, has initiated two referral policies: It offers a flat 4% of the CTC as referral bonus. For roles requiring niche skills (DevOps engineers being one), it has offered the latest iPhone as gift. Headquartered in Mumbai, this company does 28% of its hiring through referrals.
Ed-infra startup Teachmint conducts “Referral League” to encourage its employees to make referrals and take home cash rewards. The top three “Teachmates” with the most conversions win special prizes.
Slice, which offers app-based payment solutions, is among companies that have taken it to the next level, welcoming non-employees to make referrals. Recently, in the case of a successful referral, the referrer was gifted an Apple iPhone12.
Legalwiz was looking for an experienced netSuite developer and limited the referral bonus to ₹10,000.
“As finding the candidate became a challenge as much of the top talent is concentrated in tier-1 cities, we made this a remote-working role and increased the referral bonus to ₹50,000,” says Shrijay Sheth, founder, Legalwiz.in.
Sudarshan Ravi, co-founder and CEO, RippleHire, says technology companies are running differential awards and contests to bag the best talent.
There are special incentives for those who bring gender-diverse talent to niche roles such as that of a cloud architect.
“Most companies are running contests to find early joiners. For instance, here is the tagline of one contest — “get me a new hire in 30 days and you win an iPhone”,” says Sudarshan. Previously contests used to be run quarterly, he says, and employees were taken to exotic places outside India. During the pandemic, the prizes switched to more health and utility products like oxygen concentrators and work-from-home furniture.
He says service companies are offering bonuses anywhere between ₹75,000 and ₹1 lakh for a senior referral; and SaaS employers, between ₹50,000 and ₹1 lakh.
Says Sudarshan, “Joining ratio through referrals is 12 to 20 percent, much better than other recruitment channels; that is why companies are also incentivising early joiners.”
