When Kaplan Higher Education, a premier education provider and subsidiary of the Washington Post Company, set out to enhance their existing employee referral program, they turned to BRANDEMiX, a Web-savvy internal communications agency. The result was an innovative online program built to engage employees and reduce recruitment costs.

"Taking it online makes the ERP process more user friendly for both employees and the company," explained Jody Ordioni, the founder of BRANDEMiX. "Along with ever changing downloadable posters and online postcards for employees to send to friends, we even created badges for them to host on their social networking sites to attract more attention to the program and Kaplan as an Employer of Choice."

Ordioni and her team at BRANDEMiX mapped out and will manage the entire annual campaign for Kaplan, from sourcing an easy-to-remember custom url name for the site, to creating reminder emails to blast out to employees to generate excitement and a constant stream of new referrals. BRANDEMiX even created a tech interface so that HR can link referrals to their applicant tracking system. "Our new online employee referral program makes it easy and fun for our employees to contribute to our company growth -- and easy for us to manage the process," says Lisa Summers Carriegos, Director of Recruiting at Kaplan Higher Education.

Employee referrals are a powerful tool that can cut recruitment costs by as much of 75 percent. And according to Ordioni, the number-one overall benefit is that they bring in a better quality of hire who can become productive in less time. "Online employee referral programs that offer cash and prize incentives to refer friends is the most effective way to go," says Ordioni The Kaplan ERP created by BRANDEMiX offers a cash award, quarterly gift cards and a grand prize drawing for a free vacation for two. "Who wouldn't want to refer some friends and be in the running for all that?" asks Ordioni, "And with employees using the Internet in and out of work and participating in networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, it's a natural to bring your internal communications message online where people spend more and more of their time."

About BRANDEMiX:
BRANDEMiX is an independent marketing / communications company- a rare combination of talent and creativity dedicated to branding in support of human resources initiatives. BRANDEMiX produces, enhances and implements end-to-end programs to attract and inspire the real drivers of an organization's success - employees, and keep them informed and committed to achieving business goals.