Just get your pal & party at Moolah Rouge
Now, IT firms are offering cash sops, gizmos, cars & holidays for buddy referrals.
By Sreekala G, TNN |
HYDERABAD: Siddhartha Bhan, a Juniper Networks employee, saw his bank balance swell sizeably, thanks to a buddy referral bonus of Rs 5.6 lakh this year. He referred five employees to Juniper and earned $2,500 (around Rs 1.12 lakh) for each candidate hired.
Bhan is not alone here. Staffers across many IT companies have won themselves iPods or Asian holidays, motorbikes or even a Maruti Swift. Clearly, employee referrals or buddy recruitments are increasingly becoming big-ticket incentives with staffers enjoying freebies along with hefty bonuses. With the cash component showing no signs of slowing down, some employees could end up with referral bonuses higher than their annual packages.
The trend is more noticeable among niche players and even lesser-known brands where attracting talent is a challenge. So, while the big five - TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam and Cognizant - continue to hover around the industry average in terms of payouts, smaller players too are willing to travel that extra mile.
On its part, the company not only gets the kind of talent it is eyeing, but also manages to cut recruitment cost considerably, notwithstanding the high payouts. Recruitments through a consultant would typically cost about 25% more. Gallup managing partner for India Prashant Srivastava told ET that referral incentives have risen by about 20% in the last two years. “Companies have realised that they can bring down the recruitment cost by about 50% through this system,” he says.
“It is mostly the companies working in niche areas or lesser-known brands that are offering huge referral bonuses as it is difficult for them to find suitable talent. Large service-oriented companies and big brands have not upped their incentives considerably.”
At the $2.4-billion Juniper Networks, the referral system accounted for 50% of the 290 employees recruited this year.
Bhan is not alone here. Staffers across many IT companies have won themselves iPods or Asian holidays, motorbikes or even a Maruti Swift. Clearly, employee referrals or buddy recruitments are increasingly becoming big-ticket incentives with staffers enjoying freebies along with hefty bonuses. With the cash component showing no signs of slowing down, some employees could end up with referral bonuses higher than their annual packages.
The trend is more noticeable among niche players and even lesser-known brands where attracting talent is a challenge. So, while the big five - TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam and Cognizant - continue to hover around the industry average in terms of payouts, smaller players too are willing to travel that extra mile.
On its part, the company not only gets the kind of talent it is eyeing, but also manages to cut recruitment cost considerably, notwithstanding the high payouts. Recruitments through a consultant would typically cost about 25% more. Gallup managing partner for India Prashant Srivastava told ET that referral incentives have risen by about 20% in the last two years. “Companies have realised that they can bring down the recruitment cost by about 50% through this system,” he says.
“It is mostly the companies working in niche areas or lesser-known brands that are offering huge referral bonuses as it is difficult for them to find suitable talent. Large service-oriented companies and big brands have not upped their incentives considerably.”
At the $2.4-billion Juniper Networks, the referral system accounted for 50% of the 290 employees recruited this year.
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