Why Should Companies Have An Alumni Program?

Leaving a job is often a tough decision for employees. Sometimes that decision is taken out of emotional reasons like feeling undervalued, running into a bad boss, experiencing an unsupportive environment, or facing a challenging business situation. But most times it is taken based on cold-blooded rational thinking for reasons as varied as enhancing one's skill set, gaining diverse experiences, for better compensation and career advancement, or due to personal-life compulsions. And while the reason for retirement is straightforward, the experience of ending one's decades-long formal career is challenging for everyone, and traumatic for some.

Most employees want to, and actually do, leave their company on good terms. They maintain personal relationships forged at work. Often, out of kinship and genuine concern, they like to be in the know of how their ex-company and ex-colleagues are doing -- how the things they built or sustained are faring behind their back. At the time of their leaving, some even harbor a hope to come back and work for the company again if the reasons pushing them out go away, or should their move to the new company doesn't work out well.

The best bet from companies' standpoint is to minimize regrettable losses. But in an era of reduced employee-loyalty, increased expectations from the workplace, and a greater prioritization of personal-life over work and career, employees will leave their companies to experiment with alternative routes to reach their life goals.

Losing a valued employee hurts many of the remaining employees physically (increased workload, or a breakage in workflow) and emotionally (the stress of losing a friend or a productive relationship at work). It also has the potential to affect the short term performance of the company. When employees leave they often walk away with institutional knowledge, specialized skills and a wealth of experience that can only be earned by a new employee over a period of time. Sometimes the perspective and personality that is lost is difficult to replicate in toto.? Finally, scouting for talent to fill vacant positions is a time-draining and expensive activity.?

Given the realities connected with employees' leaving, it makes sense for companies to stay engaged with their lapsed employees in order to selectively leverage them for mutual benefit.?

What is a Company Alumni Program?

A company alumni program is a strategic human resources initiative that serves as a platform for a company to engage its lapsed employees in order to explore opportunities of adding value to each other in mutually beneficial ways. A company alumni program builds on the fact that employees are considered the 'internal customers' of a company. And hence, it takes the concept of Customer Lifetime Value, and applies it to employees in order to maximize the Employee Lifetime Value. It is also a formal approach of providing recognition to ex-employees as a vital stakeholder who could potentially contribute to the company's future success.?

Why a Company Alumni Program?

From schools and colleges to universities, educational institutions of all types have universally had an alumni program for long. Companies are yet to catch on to the concept as an essential business activity. Their vision has been so focused on crafting their employee value proposition, or on the more nuts and bolts oriented activities of talent acquisition, engagement, and retention that they've missed to realize the potential of an alumni program. Almost all companies take some actions for employer brand building, but mostly channelize those efforts into attracting or retaining employees. There's hardly any institutionalized approach to re-attracting lapsed employees who were a regrettable loss for the company. And this very aspect of a company alumni program has the most quantifiable benefit.?

Investments made by a company in its alumni program would justify being called one with a quick payback period and a high ROI (Return On Investment) particularly when they lead to valued ex-employees rejoining the company. Along with bringing in the desired skill set, returning employees also bring rich external experience, enhanced perspectives, and renewed energy. In the process, a company's effort of infusing 'fresh blood' is supplemented with many measurable additional gains like the ones mentioned below:

• The history of a lapsed employee's performance and potential is readily accessible in the company records. So the process of screening their candidature for vacant positions is shorter.?

• Testimonials from their former bosses and old colleagues are also easily available. These can complement the always-risky interviewing process, and give more confidence to the company in making its employee selection decisions.

• An offshoot of the above point is the opportunity of fully eliminating reference checks, thereby shortening the overall recruitment process.

• In comparison to totally new hires, returning employees take significantly less time at each stage from onboarding and settling-in to reaching peak performance. This advances the hiring break even point, and the business starts to benefit faster.

• Lastly, as a quantifiable financial benefit, the fee incurred on executive search and placement consulting agencies can be entirely saved. And this can be recorded in the company's cost savings program.

What are the Benefits of a Company Alumni Program?

Beyond the more quantifiable metrics like break-even point, payback period and ROI, several other benefits can accrue to companies that operate an alumni program. Some of them are below:

• Whether they are retired, or are still pursuing an active career, lapsed employees can teach a lot to current managers by recounting history, and sharing the successes and failures of their times.

• From the still active lapsed employees, there's a vast potential to learn non-confidential matters from their current experiences, and get helpful insights on industry trends, best practices etc.

• That the company cares about them even after they quit, fosters not just a true sense of community but also instils a vital sense of pride amongst the existing employees. This bolsters their morale and performance.

• Cultivating ex-employees as ambassadors of the company encourages them to spread the good word about their ex-company as consumers, and as professionals. Hearing positive testimonials about their previous employer has a knock-on effect on their professional network and current colleagues. Some of the employee-interchange that is seen between companies (employees of company A liking to join company B, and employees of company B often joining company A) is also influenced by the good word of mouth spread by ex-employees.

• If managed smartly, select ex-employees with no conflict of interest can contribute to the ongoing success of their professional alma mater by acting as an informal volunteer advisory panel, or as an idea sounding board. They could be encouraged to voluntarily share suggestions or feedback with their ex-company based on how they see or experience their ex-company's products or services from the outside.

• Ex-employees who have retired, but are desirous to contribute, will be happy to serve their former companies as an adjunct workforce. These people will form a highly motivated and pre-trained temporary staff that could implement the idea of a "liquid workforce" which expands and contracts based on the quantum of business at hand. Those interested, and who have had an internal track record of capability, can be hired as formal trainers and mentors to the existing employees. This way, not only will the company stand benefited, but the retired employees themselves will be able to extend their productive life spans. The prospect of getting a merit-based post-retirement boost to their physical, cognitive, and financial health will also be hugely motivating to the existing employees.

A loosely connected example for this idea is provided by the US Army Reserves, where alongside their civilian career, volunteers serve 38 days a year in the US Army (one weekend a month on duty and two weeks a year in training).?

How Can a Company Alumni Program be Implemented?

Like all things deferrable or avoidable, starting off a company alumni program is, first, a matter of a company's ambition. It will require sponsorship from the senior leaders. The will, the skill, and the bill follow next. Operating managers entrusted to run the program will initially feel their efforts incremental to the existing workload. However, with some of their work getting replaced by the program, and with the qualitative benefits plus a strong ROI from the program, those managers will eventually see the value addition their work is bringing to the company and the employees. While there can't be a prescription about what a company alumni program should entail, the following points could be handy to set out on the path:

• A person or a team within the human resources organization should have the responsibility of operating the program with direct involvement of the CHRO, and sponsorship from the CEO. To show the company's commitment, the CHRO should be the external face of the program who should be visible and accessible to ex-employees.

• This team should start with developing a database of ex-employees, and keeping it always updated. Think of a CRM program for ex-employees! Next would be reaching out to ex-employees to share the program charter, and to solicit their consent for being engaged by the program.

• Simply having a Facebook page, a LinkedIn community, or a section on the company's website for posting updates about the company, or for facilitating communication among ex-employees will not be the most creative rendition of a company alumni program. But along with regular newsletters, personalized emails, and sharings about ex-employees themselves, those will form the foundation of the program.

• An annual or biannual virtual engagement session with participation from the company's senior leaders and important positions would be a great way to show that the company is serious about its alumni program, and is looking to actively engage its ex-employees.

• A step further down this path would be to invite ex-employees back to their old office for a physical gathering. Depending on the company's intent and resource commitment, this could be an annual, biennial or a quadrennial event which will not only spark nostalgia-driven inspiration amongst ex and current employees, but also lead to serendipitous conversations. Companies need to stretch their logic for having a 'Bring Your Kids To Work Day' and a 'Family Day,' to also have an 'Alumni Day.' All current employees will be glad to realize that, eventually, they too will qualify for this day.

The more creative and involved company alumni programs could involve higher order actions. The following are two such ideas:

• Having a dedicated email ID for ex-employees. This translates into a XYZ company having email IDs for its employees with a 'XYZ.com' domain name, and granting email IDs to its ex-employees with a 'XYZalumni.com' domain name. Having this approach will spark easy peer-to-peer access among ex-employees, and will also allow the company to comfortably reach out to an ex-employee. After all, if people like to use their ".edu" email IDs, they should only be too proud to use their company alumni email IDs!

• Extending employee facilities to ex-employees that cost nothing extra to the company. Ex-employees could avail of services such as health insurance and corporate memberships where the ex-employees fully bear their part of the cost while benefiting from the scale economies negotiated by their former company. Staff sales and employee discounts are other examples where company alumni could feel appreciated. These could be a mutual win if they're leveraged as a retention tactic. Imagine progressively more such facilities becoming available based on the number of years of service put in by employees.?

These next level ideas might appear as sops on the surface, but done right they can not only aid in attracting and retaining employees but also be financially accretive to the company.

Conclusion

While there should be a quantifiable business benefit behind investment of every kind made by a company, including the time of its managers, the purpose of a company alumni program should not be only to rehire select lapsed employees. A company alumni program should be run if it is part of a company's employee value proposition, and employee engagement plan. It will serve to elevate the company's employer brand image, and strengthen its emotional connection with employees based on the fact that they enjoy a sense of belonging, and a feeling of community, not only when they are part of the company but also when they are not.

An alumni program should be based on a company's long term vision of maximizing its Employee Lifetime Value. If conceptualized strategically, it will directly support the triad of attracting, engaging and retaining employees, and when those employees become ex-employees it will help treat them as a stakeholder. A company alumni program is not an employee benefits program but a strategic people initiative with multifarious advantages. The level of effort behind an alumni program will vary based on the ambition of a company, but with people's life spans expanding and their career spans shrinking, it will pay for companies to leverage their alumni smartly.