How to Track Employee Referrals in Workday

Employee referral programs are the heartbeat of strong healthcare recruiting – turning trusted employees into your best source of quality candidates. But as many teams discover, tracking those referrals inside Workday isn’t always simple.

When using Workday to track employee referrals, there are two essential components to consider:

Two Components for a Successful Employee Referral Tracking Process

1. Referral Capturing – this includes the ability to easily identify and record the employee who made the referral.
2. Payout and Eligibility Tracking – this includes verifying employee eligibility for a bonus, tracking payments, and canceling payouts if necessary when either the referrer or the new hire leaves the company before the payout is due.

Component 1: Referral Capturing in Workday

Workday offers two primary ways to capture referrals:

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1. Candidate Lists Referral on their Application

With Workday, organizations can capture referral information on the application, allowing candidates to list the employee who referred them.

Endoresment Feature: This feature might be optional, but when a candidate enters the exact name or email of their referrer as it appears in Workday, the system automatically sends an email to that employee to confirm and endorse the referral.

Pros:

• Easy for Employees: Employees can simply tell their referral to add their name to the application, making it a straightforward process.

Cons:

• Mis-matches: For this process to smoothly work, candidates need to list the exact name or email of the referrer, and most candidates usually don’t. They often use a shortened name like Bob or even "my friend" for Robert. This is magnified if you have common names in your workforce or if the candidate omits the last name of the employee.
• Only captures referrals who complete their application: This method only tracks candidates who actually apply, missing out on potential referrals who may visit the job listing but decide not to apply or not complete their application, a common issue with a Workday’s lengthy application process.

2. Employee Log-In Approach

Another option is for employees to log-in to Workday and submit the referral themselves. This typically requires employees to:

• Log in, navigate to Jobs Hub or Careers
• Click Refer a Candidate
• Provide the candidate’s name, contact details and select the job they’re submitting the referral for

Pros:

• Accurate tracking: This method accurately records the referral source, reducing the risk of data entry errors or manual matching.

Cons:

• Negatively impacts engagement, especially from frontline employees: Many frontline employees rarely use systems that require a corporate login. This Workday can discourage participation, as logging in to make referrals is not practical for their daily workflow.
• Limited to a specific job: Workday only supports referrals tied to a specific job opening. Employees can’t refer someone more generally. For example, when they know a great candidate but aren’t sure which role might be the best fit.

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Component 2: Payout and Eligibility Tracking

Tracking and managing referral payouts is often where the complexity really begins. While Workday can record who referred whom, it doesn’t automatically manage when or how bonuses are paid. Most HR teams handle this in one of two ways:

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1. Manual Tracking via Spreadsheet

Many organizations start here – downloading a report of new hires whose source is listed as Employee Referral, identifying the referring employee, and manually calculating payouts in a spreadsheet.

Pros:

• Easy to set up: No technical configuration needed; teams can start immediately with basic reporting and Excel or Sheets.

Cons:

• Time-consuming: Requires manual tracking of eligibility, employment status, and payout timing.
• Prone to errors: Manual data handling increases the risk of missed or incorrect payments.
• No visibility for employees: Referrers have no real-time insight into the status of their bonuses.
• Not scalable: As referral volume grows, spreadsheets quickly become unmanageable.

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2. One-Time Payment Plans

The more advanced option is to create a Referral Bonus Plan within Workday using One-Time Payment Plans. This requires your Workday administrator to configure a dedicated one-time referral plan and associate it with relevant jobs or job families.

Pros:

• Automated payout tracking: Reduces manual effort once the plan is properly configured.
• Configurable payouts: Supports predefined bonus amounts and timing for different roles.

Cons:

• Requires technical setup: Setting up eligibility rules is highly complex – administrators must define who qualifies (HR, recruiting, hiring managers, etc.), handle duplicate referrals, and align with internal policies. (Check out this Reddit discussion)
• No support for split payments: Can’t easily handle multi-stage bonuses (e.g., $1,000 after 30 days and another $1,000 after 90 days).
• Limited flexibility: Many setups still require manual intervention if either the referrer or hire leaves before payout.

A Solution

That’s where Eqo comes in.

Eqo integrates smoothly with Workday – linking employees, recruiters, and payroll to deliver a unified referral experience.

Here’s how it works:

• Text-to-Refer: Employees send referrals in under 15 seconds. No logins, no apps, no friction.
• Smart Matching: Eqo automatically connects “Rob” with “Robert” to prevent lost referrals.
• Automated Eligibility & Payouts: Bonuses are scheduled automatically (e.g., 25% at 90 days, 75% at 6 months), and canceled if eligibility changes.
• Transparency for Everyone: Employees receive text/email updates as referrals progress.
• Real-Time Sync: All referral data flows back into Workday for reporting and compliance.

Together, Workday and Eqo make referral tracking accurate for HR/TA and effortless for employees.

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Customer Story: Compassus

When Compassus, a leading hospice and home health provider, combined Workday with Eqo, they wanted to solve two big issues – engagement and transparency for their frontline workforce.

Before Eqo, referrals were hard to submit and even harder to track. Within months of integration, results spoke for themselves:

• Referral hires jumped to 32% of total hires (up from 14%).
• Turnover among referral hires dropped by 50%.
• Referral-to-hire conversion reached 34.8% – five times higher than other sources.
• Employees rated the new experience 4.7 / 5 stars, citing ease and transparency.

By removing friction and automating payouts, Compassus turned their referral program into a true competitive advantage.