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Recruitment & Retention

Published February 2008

Those Who Have Left: The Value of Building Employee Relationships

 

  Diane Pardee

The Benefits of Maintaining Corporate Alumni Relationships

Alumni of an organization long have been recognized as sources of new business and employee referrals, as well as for their potential roles as customers and rehired employees. Maintaining these relationships for life and connecting alumni electronically, with each other and with current employees, can escalate these benefits by fostering connectivity and information flow.

For example, KPMG set up a corporate alumni social network in the spring of 2007, aiming to better connect current and former employees, keep them up to date on corporate news, events and job openings, foster a more collaborative environment, and provide KPMG executives with an easy way to stay in touch with former employees.

KPMG has signed up approximately 10,000 former and current employees on its corporate social network. KPMG credits its network with helping it hire 137 former employees, or around 14 percent of the company's total hires, since the network's launch, up from 72 people in the three months prior. This increase in the number of rehires delivers significant benefits to the organization — from cost savings to productivity improvements and increased goodwill among employees.

Additional benefits include access to the knowledge experienced alumni hold, the ability to inform opinions and discussions alumni have about the organization, and the potential to create positive impressions for individuals who may remain shareholders or customers of the organization. Such brand ambassadorship, whether for an organization's employment or corporate brand, can have substantive results.

Rehires Hit the Ground Running

Corporate alumni bring many benefits when they rejoin an organization. They understand the culture, work ethic and how to navigate their former employer's organization. Further, the organization has knowledge about their prior performance, and the goodwill associated with returning, customer-facing employees can have substantial financial impact.

According to a recent survey of SelectMinds clients, most were able to increase the amount of rehires versus external experienced hires by approximately 30 percent following the implementation of a corporate social network, linking corporate alumni with each other, the company and their former peers.

The study also found rehires are more likely to be star performers. Study subjects report, on average, 66 percent of rehires made through their corporate social networking program are star performers versus 26 percent of experienced hires. According to industry statistics, star performers contribute three times the amount of an average performer.

The study also revealed, on average, the time to contribution of rehires is half that of all experienced hires, which may be linked to rehires' existing knowledge of customers and established relationships within the organization that can facilitate work.

Making the Business Case