8 Steps to Running Focus Groups That Ensure High Returns on Your Employee Referral Schemes
By Real Links ·
The most common reason employee referral programmes fail is that they’re designed without input from the employees who will participate in them. Focus groups solve this problem — and the organisations that run them before launching their referral programmes consistently outperform those that don’t.
Step 1: Define Your Objectives
Before running focus groups, be clear on what you’re trying to learn. Key questions include: What stops employees from referring? What rewards would motivate them? Which channels do they prefer? What information do they need about open roles?
Step 2: Recruit Representative Participants
Aim for groups of 6–10 participants that represent the diversity of your workforce — different teams, tenures, and seniorities. Don’t just invite the most engaged employees; you want honest perspectives, including from those who’ve never referred.
Step 3: Choose Your Format
Online or in-person both work. Smaller groups (6–8) generate richer qualitative insight. Consider running separate sessions for different employee segments — your tech team may have very different motivations from your customer service team.
Step 4: Design Open-Ended Questions
Avoid leading questions. Ask things like “Walk me through why you haven’t referred anyone recently” rather than “Is the reward good enough?” The goal is to uncover genuine barriers, not validate assumptions.
Step 5: Explore Reward Preferences Deeply
Don’t assume cash bonuses are the answer. Ask employees to rank different reward types: financial bonuses, experiences, non-monetary recognition, charitable donations. The answers often surprise organisations.
Step 6: Test Your Messaging
Show employees draft communications about the referral programme and ask for honest reactions. Are they compelling? Confusing? Would they act on them?
Step 7: Identify Platform Preferences
Ask which communication channels employees actually use, and would prefer for referral-related comms. Slack, Teams, email, mobile app — the right answer varies significantly by organisation and team.
Step 8: Close the Loop
After the programme launches, run follow-up focus groups to understand what’s working and what isn’t. The organisations with the best referral programmes treat them as living systems, continuously optimised based on employee feedback.
← Back to all posts