Feature
Alumni networks are a familiar concept to any high school or college graduate. But businesses, too, are getting in on the game in an effort to attract and retain talent. Corporate employee alumni networks can offer significant value on a number of fronts.
A corporate alumni relations program is a strategic initiative under the aegis of HR leadership, where the company proactively invests in building and maintaining a structured long-term relationship with its past employees. These programs focus on building strong relations with all alumni — not just those boomerang employees who wish to return to the firm.
Of course, like any long-term investment, these programs have to deliver certain outcomes to enjoy both continued investment and leadership backing. We took a look at how to make them work for you.
The Power of a Corporate Alumni Network
Alumni who leave a company on good terms can serve as valuable brand ambassadors. They can support business growth by helping create sales opportunities in their new environments and provide the right connections within their new organizations.
Maintaining good relations with past employees is a great way to keep a diversity of well-intentioned and well-informed perspectives flowing into the company, which in turn helps with new product development and innovation efforts.
Continued access to former employees also enriches the organization’s talent pool. Employee alumni know the company culture and hold significant institutional or tribal knowledge, which can help reduce hiring and onboarding time, effort and costs in case of a rehire. At Big Four consultancy EY, for example, around 15% of external hires each year are from the company’s alumni community.
Talent acquisition specialist Brian Ferguson argues, in a LinkedIn post, that rehiring former employees brings in trusted talent and can save companies up to 50% of the cost of recruiting, hiring and training new employees. And retaining institutional knowledge can be particularly valuable in industries with complex processes or specialized expertise.
Equally valuable is the role employee alumni can play in helping spot talent and referring potential candidates to HR at their alma mater.
The EY 2021 Global Alumni Survey revealed that 84% of their alumni would refer a colleague, 70% would recommend the EY organization as a place to work, and 31% would consider returning themselves.
Another emerging outcome of alumni management programs is support for the firm’s CSR and charity initiatives. Microsoft’s “Alumni for Good” program, for instance, engages alumni with community service and volunteering opportunities.
These benefits explain why close to 98% of Fortune 500 companies have some form of organized alumni relations program in place, and many global corporations run alumni portals, social media groups and even podcasts showcasing alumni leaders.
Related Article: Return of the Boomerang Employee
The PwC Example
Global consulting firm PwC recognizes that employees will not spend their entire career with them, but remain valuable assets beyond their tenure with the firm. The PwC Alumni program has been active for more than 20 years with almost 80,000 engaged members.
“We like to say ‘once a PwCer, always a PwCer’ because our people are part of a community that extends beyond their time at PwC,” said Yolanda Seals-Coffield, the firm’s chief people officer. “PwC benefits beyond their tenure at the firm, with some of our alumni finding themselves back at the firm or engaging with PwC later in their careers — a testament to how we foster strong relationships with our employees."
PwC also has a dedicated network for retired partners to stay connected in two-way dialogue, keep them updated on firm and industry happenings and navigate their post-PwC obligations concerning regulatory and firm requirements.
Seals-Coffield views alumni as a source of learning and ideas as they go on to become thought leaders and experts in their fields. They can also be a valued asset in attracting future talent to the organization, advocate for their former firm at their new employer and make an impact if they return.
Related Article: Here’s Why You Should Have an Employee Resilience Strategy
Setting Your Corporate Alumni Program Up for Success
Investing in alumni relations programs is a long-term commitment. Having a clear definition of the expected outcomes for both the business and alumni members, finding alignment with key functional stakeholders and identifying a dedicated owner and executive sponsor all help with long-term success.
But a big chunk of effort is also focused on managing the alumni relationship. This includes regular content, job opportunities and special privileges communicated across multiple channels.
When developing alumni resources and opportunities, Seals-Coffield said it’s important to consider the various career stages of your alumni. For example, some alumni may be more interested in discovering opportunities on LinkedIn and connecting with alumni on social media platforms. For others, a traditional job board may be more effective.
PwC runs digital campaigns, hosts local events and uses webcasts to provide alumni with important career and development information. Aside from its alumni website, the firm also leverages LinkedIn alumni communities (US and MX) and social media platforms, such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
HR leaders seeking to establish a similar network may find it useful to find agreement on the scope of centralization or decentralization of the program with stakeholders, including securing legal clearance. For example, would the portal allow alumni to set up local chapters and facilitate autonomous interactions on the centralized digital platform?
Related Article: Discussion Point: What Questions Should You Ask During an Exit Interview?
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Enabling Alumni Management With the Right Technology
Like with any other initiative at scale, technology plays a major role in enabling global alumni relations programs. The right platform can make all the difference in program adoption and engagement levels.
A dedicated and secure alumni website, for instance, helps ensure members can safely connect with peers, browse job opportunities or access important records from a single place, as well as receive personalized communications and event invitations.
To provide alumni with the most relevant support and services, the company may also want to leverage analytics and reporting tools to help track and measure alumni engagement, such as event attendance, alumni site traffic and email open rates. Seals-Coffield said such insights into the effectiveness of PwC’s alumni engagement efforts help identify areas for improvement.
Today, an increasing number of off-the-shelf alumni relations management technology platforms are available to simplify and streamline the end-to-end process, while taking care of technical aspects like security, upgrades and analytics.
At the front end, these platforms enable an online portal for alumni to log into, as a gateway to all opportunities and communications. At the back end, they have all the functionality and capabilities needed for HR to manage the alumni relations program smoothly.
When considering such a platform, you may want to look for the following capabilities:
- Integration with relevant tools: such as social media management tools, marketing automation tools, CRM systems and HR systems like employee records and job application tracking systems.
- Reporting and analytics capabilities: an easy-to-use, customizable dashboard to track, measure and report on performance metrics such as alumni engagement levels, content consumption, event attendance, job applications, etc.
- Security, privacy and access control: securing the data and privacy of registered users and providing transparency on the use of cookies and data collection as per regulations.
- Customizable: the platform should allow company-specific branding and flexibility with the functionality. For example, how easy would it be to add-on modules such as payments or job boards later? Can the website be easily extended to a mobile app in the future? How easy is it to change reporting dashboard layouts to suit your evolving needs?
- Customer support: the platform should not only offer support and troubleshooting for HR owners but also for users themselves, perhaps with an automated chatbot to help navigate the site.
- Self-serve capabilities: this is important if you want to allow employees to log-in and self-serve access to old employment records, pay and tax statements, etc. or allow members to set up local chapters or fundraise directly.
You may also want to consider certain additional front-end functionalities, such as:
- Secure alumni database management: for storing member records of the alumni community.
- Content management: the platform should allow for the creation and storage of content, such as blogs, learning resources, videos, polls, surveys, social media sharing and more.
- Contact management: to provide the ability to manage outbound and inbound contact with members, via segmented onboarding and engagement campaigns, contests, etc. on various channels from email to social media and mobile messaging.
- Job board: this enables the listing of job openings and lets members apply directly from within the portal.
- Event management: allowing for end-to-end virtual event management, from registration to reminders and replays.
- Chat and forums: bringing the capabilities to let members chat directly with each other via DMs, participate in community forums for peer-to-peer exchanges or 1:1 mentoring or coaching exchanges from within the platform itself.
- Online payments: some companies look for a payment functionality so that members can donate to charities and foundations and fundraise from within the platform.
Related Article: Leave Them Better Than You Found Them
(Re)Opening the Doors to Talent
Employees leave organizations for a variety of reasons that are often unrelated to any breakdown of the employer-employee relationship. In those cases, these former employees may be in a position to return when circumstances change. It may even be in a different capacity, such as consultants, freelancers, speakers at events or even coaches and mentors to existing employees.
Those who don’t return may still support your company’s growth by sharing your job postings, referring new employees, promoting your brand and redistributing your content, which brings added exposure to the firm.
It’s no surprise then that a growing number of companies are recognizing that positively engaged former employees can do a lot to help support organizational goals. The benefits of nurturing employee alumni networks underscores the fact that the employee experience can and should carry on well after the employee has moved to a different team.
