Season 1, Episode 3: Claudine Trudeau – Employee Referrals

Claudine Trudeau explores the power of employee referrals in building strong, culture-aligned teams. She discusses how to design referral programs that are both effective and equitable.

Transcript

Angela and Claudine 0:00

Welcome to the Hiring Scope podcast from the National Association for Healthcare Recruitment, where we explore the latest trends, insights, and strategies in the ever-changing world of healthcare hiring. I'm your host, Angela Pointer, and each episode we dive deep into the challenges and opportunities facing recruiters, hiring managers, and healthcare professionals alike. Whether you're looking to attract top talent, navigate industry challenges, or build a stronger workforce, you're in the right place. Today I'm so excited to talk with Claudine Trudeau, Assistant Vice President Talent Acquisition at Vi. Did I say it right? Vi or V? That's V, correct. Thank you. Just like the letter. Like the letter. I like that. The V. Before we get started, Claudine, tell us a little bit about you. Who is Claudine? Tell me about your story and your journey.

Claudine Trudeau 0:54

Yeah, so I'm excited to be here. So thanks for taking the time. Employee referral programs are one of my favorite topics. So I have over 30 years of recruiting experience with the last almost eight years in healthcare. Previous to that, I worked in technology, financial services, and education space. So healthcare has been the latter part of my career, but really, really enjoying it.

Angela Pointer 1:21

Awesome. Great.

Claudine Trudeau 1:22

I'm sorry if I hear a train in the background. I do have, I don't know if you can hear that.

Angela Pointer 1:27

I hear nothing. So we're good there.

Claudine Trudeau 1:30

Okay, great, great.

Angela Pointer 1:31

Yeah. So let's just kick it off here talking because we're talking about employee referral programs, obviously. So tell me about your experience. It could either be, I know you're we're in we're talking about healthcare, but I'm curious also if you've had experience with employee employee referral programs in your other industries.

Claudine Trudeau 1:48

So I I first began promoting employer referrals back in the 90s for the really hard-to-fill positions working in uh technology. You know, it's it's tough to find the skill sets for the positions I was recruiting for. So we started asking our employees who they know, who they might recommend. And so kind of started more formal employee referral programs going, you know, almost 30 years ago. The program has certainly evolved since then and has changed, you know, with different companies that I've worked at, but the the basics are the same. So really just tapping into your current employee base for recommendations and who they know that might be interested in a job with us.

Angela Pointer 2:28

Awesome. But have you seen a noticeable difference in the quality or retention of referred candidates compared to other sources?

Claudine Trudeau 2:37

We have. In fact, I measure that every year. And I was just looking back at our metrics from last year, and we have the best retention from our employee referrals, it's 15% higher than all other sources. And quality, it's a little bit tougher for us to measure quality, but we know that we, you know, because we're retaining them, we know that we've got higher quality as well.

Angela Pointer 3:01

Yeah.

Claudine Trudeau 3:02

And I think the the nice thing about referrals too is they're more invested in the company when they start with us. They already have a friend that works there. They're already familiar based off of their friends, you know, their experience and what they've told them about the company and the culture. So they're a lot more invested and, you know, and and excited about the opportunity.

Angela Pointer 3:25

Yeah, that's good. And one thing just came to my mind as we were thinking about quality too, and maybe something for future state is looking at performance of those that are um referred, you know, especially within that first year. So that's pretty cool. So within referral programs, you know, what are some common misconceptions in this space?

Claudine Trudeau 3:44

For us, I think it's um they they feel like they need to have worked with the person or be really familiar with who they're referring, but we're super relaxed in our requirements. We accept referrals regardless of their relationship. They could have met them at an event or on vacation or at a hospital, you know, you know, getting care for, you know, a family member. So, you know, we we accept referrals regardless of their relationship. That's one of them. Another one is that uh referrals are given, you know, the highest priority over other candidates, which is not necessarily the case. I mean, we look at experience and and and you know, who's the strongest for the role, the position. So, you know, that's always the case with us that we're always hiring the best quality, regardless of the source. And then also, lastly, you know, that I think there's a big misconception in general about you're always hiring like people. And so you may not have a wide, you know, diverse workforce if you have too many referrals, but based off of my metrics, and you know, we we do measure that every year. And I can say, I'm very proud to say that we have a large mix of diversity both in gender and race from our referrals. In fact, I think it's um uh in terms of gender, last year it was 2% higher females over males for referrals versus other sources. And for race, uh referrals had the most diverse mix of races. So, whereas from all other sources, it was more predominant white. For referrals, it was more predominant on Hispanic, Black, and Asian.

Angela Pointer 5:31

So really that's awesome. And I was going to ask this question, but you've already covered it about ensuring that the program absolutely is inclusive because you're right, the thought could be, oh, everybody refers people that are like them. But I know for me personally, I know I like to know all kinds of people. And so I think that's important. Now let's talk about the money uh here's or other things. So, what types of incentives have you found to be most effective, uh, whether it be monetary, recognition-based, what what's happening in the incentives related to employee referrals?

Claudine Trudeau 6:03

Sure. So we not only provide you know the referral bonus if someone gets hired, but we provide incentives for other activities. For example, just referring someone, they get points and they can these points add up. They share a job on social media, if they refer someone and then they refer someone themselves. Um, if they apply to a job, if they get an interview, so they get points for different activities that they can redeem for gift cards. So there's a lot of incentives along the way. We have gamification in our program. So we have a leaderboard, and if you know there are some people that are highly competitive, they want to see their name at the top of the leaderboard. So we've we've got some employees that have, you know, provided us with, you know, upwards of 50 referrals in a single year. And uh, and they they like to see their name at the top of that leaderboard. So a lot of incentives, not just the referral bonus, because it is disappointing, you know, if someone doesn't get hired, they don't get that referral bonus and they kind of give up. But if we have these incentives and you know, the points for the gift cards, it it kind of keeps them motivated and keeps them engaged.

Angela Pointer 7:15

Talking about kind of success, I'm curious to hear, can you share a success story where a referral led to a great hire or even a culture shift?

Claudine Trudeau 7:24

I can't think of a specific story, but we did have someone last year who had more than five referrals that were hired. And so they received an extra incentive. We have a special bonus for those that have more than five hires in one single calendar year and they get an extra thousand dollars. So we do have that. We have had those that have been referred to us that started with us maybe in a entry-level position and then have grown in the company, you know, moved up our career ladder and you know, had a successful career with us and have grown in the company. That's great. That's a good best. Yes, absolutely. We do try to share different stories too on our. We have an internal newsletter that's um uh digital. And so we have, you know, employees share their stories in our uh newsletter. It's called the Vhive.

Angela Pointer 8:18

And um like that, the Vhive. Yep.

Claudine Trudeau 8:22

Yep, and we have you know video testimonials as well that we like to share among our employee groups. But locally at each of our communities, our locations, I know that our HR team does a really good job of acknowledging people when they've had hires, acknowledging them at all employee meetings or department meetings, you know, thanking them publicly for their referrals. That that goes a long way as well.

Angela Pointer 8:47

That's great. You know, I just was thinking about because when you said the V Hive, and I just realized when we before we started talking, tell us a little bit about V, because I'm sure people may not know exactly um what V is.

Claudine Trudeau 8:59

Oh, sure. So we are a continuous care retirement community. We have 10 locations throughout the US, and our corporate headquarters is in Chicago in this in the Sears Tower, and we have very high-end exclusive locations. They're resort type living. And uh like I said, we've got the continuous care. So we've got independent living and assisted living, memory support, and skilled nursing. So we have the the full continuum of care at our locations. We've got about 3,000 employees across our our 10 locations, and we've been around for over 35 years.

Angela Pointer 9:36

Awesome. That's good. How long have you been doing this employee referral program?

Claudine Trudeau 9:41

Really, it was one of my first initiatives when I started. They did have like a basic referral program, but when I came in almost eight years ago, I was tasked with, you know, really revamping it and getting more participation and you know, just kind of changing up the program. I wanted to keep it simple so that, you know, it was easy for employees to make those referrals, but also, like I mentioned earlier, adding those extra incentives along the way so they're getting rewarded not just for hires, but for their referrals as well. We also have a quarterly raffle for anyone that submits a referral, they're they're automatically entered into a quarterly raffle for a gift card at the end of the of for each location at the end of the quarter. So that's that's another way that we reward them.

Angela Pointer 10:29

That's good to hear because it, you know, sometimes that was kind of the next thing I was going to mention. Not all referrals get hired. So, you know, that's a good way too, that even though the person may or not may not have been hired, there's still ways that they can be recognized, your the colleagues for that. So that's good. I know for the purposes of the podcast, we're not mentioning particular platforms, but just in general, it sounds like, especially what you shared with some of the things with the gamification and whatnot, it sounds like you are using a specific employee referral platform versus kind of a manual process. Is that correct?

Claudine Trudeau 11:02

Right. Yeah. So we did implement um a software that helps us track referrals, helps us with our metrics. And, you know, of course, you know, it helps us keep track of when referrals are eligible for their bonus. We pay out in 60 days one lump sum. Whereas I think previously we had uh two lump sums spread out over a longer period of time. So we shortened the period of time to 60 days because it, you know, they were waiting, you know, up to six months for a referral bonus. So we shortened it up to 60 days because it was a lot more enticing. And and like I said, the one lump sum instead of waiting for two installments. But yeah, our system does help us track those as well as the points. Um, and then there's the the you know, the gift card store where they can go shopping to redeem their points for gift cards.

Angela Pointer 11:50

That's great. So, as we're looking ahead, how do you see employee referral programs evolving over the next three to five years? Especially, you know, everybody's talking about AI and automation. So tell me if you had your crystal ball, Claudine. What are you seeing in the space of employee referral programs?

Claudine Trudeau 12:09

Well, I know the easier we make it for employees, the better. And the fact that we can tie a referral to an employee regardless of what position that they apply to, they might, you know, they might refer them to a specific job at a specific location, and then maybe maybe they don't get hired for that particular role, but three, four months down the road, they apply to a different position and they do get hired. We're able to keep track of that through our system automation. In addition to that, keeping in terms of keeping it easy, they don't have to supply a resume, they just have to supply the their name and either their email or mobile phone number because we can text them a link to apply. So, you know, you utilizing technology to, you know, make it easier for employees as well as the candidates that are the referrals that are applying for our jobs and tracking them throughout their journey, their application journey is is, I think, gonna continue to get easier and improve with that technology.

Angela Pointer 13:16

Yeah, that's always helpful. And it's amazing. I was reading something or actually somewhere yesterday that AI is evolving so fast. So what we're doing today is gonna be obsolete maybe in another few months or so because there's new versions of it. So that's pretty cool.

Claudine Trudeau 13:31

We do, I I just want to mention too, something that we do that's a little bit different is we not only solicit referrals, but when we ask, we ask every employee that we want to hire for references, right? I think that's pretty standard across the industry. And we ask for a minimum of two references, but we'd like to get, you know, five or six for every hire. And when we get those referrals, we ask them the question at the end: are you interested in hearing about opportunities at our company? And if they say yes, then we add them to our CRM and we do um an email campaign letting them know all the great things about our company, and we try to convert them into an applicant. And when we do that, then we reward the employee as if it were a referral of theirs. I mean, because it basically is. So the reference can become a referral. And we've we've actually hired quite a few of those along the way. So it's a little bit more passive. It's definitely working for us.

Angela Pointer 14:31

Yeah, so passive and active. That's another thing on referrals as well. They can go both ways. So as we wrap up or prepare to wrap up, what advice would you give a healthcare organization just starting or even maybe thinking about um building a program or maybe revamping their program? What are what are your nuggets you'd like to leave it?

Claudine Trudeau 14:53

So I think it's important to have a baseline of, you know, measurement where where your hires are coming from, where your applicants are coming from, you know, measuring once you implement the program, you know, how successful it is, but also getting engagement through your, you know, utilizing and leveraging your HR team, leveraging your managers, getting everyone involved with, you know, building the excitement and promoting the program, having materials in multiple languages is important as well, and keeping it very simple for employees to make those referrals, not having too many guidelines, not having too many rules in place. You know, we when we moved to the software, we said, okay, when you when you have your friend apply, they should use your referral link to apply. But it doesn't always happen that way. They might forget, or maybe the person applies before they, you know, got the link from their friend. So we do allow flexibility there and we do still recognize them as long as they've mentioned them in some way, shape, or form on the application. Hey, I was referred by so-and-so, but they weren't in our system as a referral. We can we would still recognize that and add them to our system so that they do get the the the bonus if they're hired. They may not get the points, but they do get the bonus if they're hired. So just keeping it really simple for them and having some flexibility.

Angela Pointer 16:24

Yeah, I think that's really good because we're in this consumer society and the easier the better, right? So and then this is also a win because you know, we are the National Association for Healthcare Recruitment, but with employee referrals, everybody is a recruiter, right?

Claudine Trudeau 16:39

Everybody is a recruiter, absolutely. And we need everyone's help because it's you know, there's it's a tight market, there's a nurse shortage. So we need to diversify, you know, our talent pool and and resources for attracting people to our organization. So it's it's important to get everyone involved.

Angela Pointer 16:57

Yeah. There was something you said that just sparked another question to me because yes, it isn't there's a nursing shortage. I'm a nurse by background, so I get it. Do you have different amounts or different incentives based on the type of position?

Claudine Trudeau 17:09

So we we only have four levels. We have one for PRN on call. We've got part-time, full-time, and then executive level position. So those are the four levels of bonuses that we offer. But we have the opportunity through our system to do special campaigns. So if we have a really hard-to-fill position or, you know, like an odd shift that we need to fill, you know, weekend only nurse or something like that. So we do have the ability to do campaigns, and then our system tracks, you know, what referrals came in based off of that campaign, and we can offer a higher incentive, a higher bonus.

Angela Pointer 17:48

That's good. That's very helpful. And there's one more thing, and I promise we're going to wrap up because we could talk a little this topic. You're saying things that spark it some questions for me. Sure. And, you know, again, we're not talking platforms, but you use a system um for tracking. Does it talk at all to your ATS?

Claudine Trudeau 18:05

Oh, yes, it's fully integrated. Yeah. So our ATS sends our jobs, a job feed, and an employee feed, and then our referral system identifies who's been referred, and then, you know, of course, keeps track of points and and the bonuses. So it's an easy, you know, when I send it to payroll every every couple of weeks, I just run a report and and it's super easy.

Angela Pointer 18:32

That's cool. We like easy, so it's easy all the way around. It's easy for the employee to refer, it's easy for the candidate or the applicant to be referred, and then the whole process of managing and and paying is also easy. We like the easy button. Well, this so this wraps up this episode of the Hiring Scope podcast from the National Association for Healthcare Recruitment. Thank you for joining me, Angela Pointer, as we tackle the evolving landscape of healthcare hiring. If you enjoyed today's conversation, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network. You may also check us out at nahcr.com for more content. Until next time, keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible in healthcare recruitment.