February 5, 2009
Free money: The UW Medicine Employee Referral Program is going strong
There’s no simpler way to say it: UW employees who successfully refer a new hire for one of many medical positions can get a cash incentive of $1,200 through the Employee Referral Program.
Let’s review just that much: $1,200 in free money if you help someone get one of many medical jobs at the UW.
The Employee Referral Program was launched in August 2007 as a way of helping the UW medical centers recruit high-quality candidates for key positions. Jobs that are included in the program — called “incentive-eligible” — are noted as such on the posting at UW Employment.
You can learn more about the referral program and find a complete list of eligible jobs online by clicking here. You’ll see that the list of jobs includes cardiac sonographer, registered nurse, surgical technologist, vascular technologist, occupational therapist, pharmacist and many more. Recent additions to the incentive-eligible list are ophthalmic technologist, pharmacy technician and outpatient medical assistant.
Since its inception, the program has participated in the hiring of 29 people at UW Medical Center and 29 at Harborview Medical Center. Those 53 hired mean $69,600 that has already gone into the pockets of the referring employees.
One of those who got an incentive payment was Erin Peters, a nurse in the neo-natal intensive care unit at UW Medical Center who recommended a friend from her time at Seattle University for another nursing job.
“At the time we didn’t know anything about the program,” Peters said. She was contacted and asked if she’d be willing to have her image used on advertising for the UW. She received $600 when her friend joined the UW and another $600 six months later.
“It was a nice little bonus and at the time I had just bought a house,” so the money came in handy, she said. “It was nice.” Her friend, a successful hire, has remained at the UW.
“The program makes good economic and recruiting sense,” said Nicki McCraw, assistant vice president for Academic Medical Centers Human Resources. “When we hire an employee through the referral program we save the money we normally would have spent on advertising or filling the position on a temporary basis with a contract employee.”
McCraw explained that the medical centers are not directly affected by the hiring freeze impacting many other UW units, so both of the medical centers have many vacant positions.
The program helps find experienced, high-quality candidates for jobs that are hard to fill even in these tough economic times. “The incentive payment is a way to reward the employees for what they do every day, sharing the passion, of working at an employer of choice,” said Maria Kim, employment manager for Harborview Medical Center Human Resources.
All UW, UW Medical Center and Harborview Medical Center employees are eligible to participate except:
- the hiring manager or individual involved in the selection process for a specific position.
- staff who are in the final counseling or dismissal steps of the corrective action process.
- employees who are on unpaid leave, or
- Human Resources employees and other staff with human resources responsibilities.
Making a referral is easy. Your referral must apply online for an incentive-eligible position at UWMC or HMC. Each such position has a special “assessment” that asks the candidate to identify who, if anybody, referred the candidate to UW employment.
The candidate must enter in your name in the designated location online at the time of application for the referring UW employee to be eligible for the payment.
Information is available online, but you can also learn more by calling the Employee Referral Program if you wish.
- UWMC Human Resources is at 206-598-6116, and
- HMC Human Resources is at 206-744-9220.
