Why Care Friends?
Care Friends turns referrals into a powerful way to attract committed, reliable people, whether you’re seeking employees, foster carers, or volunteers. By tapping into trusted networks, you expand your reach and attract individuals who are more likely to connect with your mission and stay engaged, reducing turnover and ensuring continuity.
With Care Friends, you’re not just filling positions; you’re building a dedicated, long-term community.
Helping organisations leverage their in-house networks
saving them marketing, job board, overtime and agency costs.
It’s time to modernise
Whether you already have a (spreadsheet or paper-based) referral program in place or are starting from scratch, Care Friends takes referral into the 21st century.
Referral via Care Friends is different!
Care Friends turbocharges referrals by using micro-rewards, gamification and automation.
Also for Recognition and Rewards
Care Friends can also be used to recognise and reward people for non-referral-related activities via Bonus Points.
Calculate how Care Friends can help you recruit
Which equals XXXX vacancies annually
With participation from your employees, Care Friends can help your organisation achieve*
XXX job offers via employee referrals, or
XX% of your annual recruitment task
And those new, referred, employees are likely to stay 50% longer than new starters from other recruitment sources!*
*based on actual averages and results from current Care Friends users
"Huge contrast to job board candidates"
Since launching we’ve seen 1 in 5 referrals start employment with us. We’ve found the quality of applications coming in via Care Friends far better than job boards with candidates who are warm, well-briefed and keen.
Brad Allen, National Talent Manager, Junior Adventures Group
"Better quality candidates"
Both the uptake with our employees and the number of referrals we have received have really pleased us. The simplicity of the app makes referring easy, and the quality of candidates is much better than those coming from job boards.
Narelle Milne, HR Manager, ECH Incorporated
Benefits
For your organisation
- Improve tenure and retention
- Reduced marketing, overtime and agency costs
- Tap into your local communities.
- Money spent internally instead of externally
For your employees
- Easy-to-use app co-designed with people working in the care sector
- Earn rewards for each step of the process, not until very late in the process
- Get recognised and rewarded for things other than referral
- Easily keep track of how many points/cash they have earned
- Leaderboard makes referring fun and competitive
For recruitment
- Generate a regular flow of high-quality referrals
- Save time through automation
- Easily share opportunities to keep referring top of mind
- Build trust with your organisation by not overlooking a referral payment
- Integrates with many recruitment systems
How it works
Case studies
Great success
Before Care Friends, employee referral was not seen as contributing to Bolton Clarke’s sourcing strategy, because it only delivered a trickle of candidates. After 18 months of using Care Friends, new hires via employee referral has increased to an average of 21% of new hires!
After a year with Care Friends, Bolton Clarke averaged 80 referred candidates each month. 40% of these referrals were new to the care sector and the retention rate of referred employees was significantly higher.
Huge reduction in agency spend
Clayton Church Homes (CCH) in Adelaide already had a casual employee referral program in place for their 400 staff, but its results were inconsistent.
After modernising their program with Care Friends their new hires via referral skyrocketed and they are now sourcing 100% of care and related roles via their own staff.
Their ROI was gained from a huge reduction in agency staff as well as job board costs. Turnover on referred employees is sitting at less than 5%.
Reduced cost-per-hire by 81%
Peninsula Villages has 3 RAC and RV sites with 290 beds and 420 employees. Their existing referral program was generating very few candidates. Seek was also underperforming.
After launching Care Friends in 2023, they are now getting 38% of new hires through referrals, reducing their cost-per-hire by 81%!
They recently started using Bonus Points to recognise their employees for actions such as going above and beyond, filling a short-notice shift, and modelling their values.
In the news & Awards
FAQs
Can I customise the reward points?
Yes you can! Care Friends boosts referrals because people are rewarded for the action that matters: sharing opportunities. Most clients have chosen 1 point for sharing and increasingly larger rewards the further the referral makes it into the recruitment or approval process. This type of reward psychology via microrewards not only boosts referrals, it also makes referring fun. You decide the breakdown of the total referral reward over the different stages. Care Friends also allows for different rewards for different opportunities.
Can I have different rewards for different opportunities?
Yes, you can! This is super handy if you feel that certain opportunities can use an extra boost. Clients use different reward tariffs for volunteers, casuals and hard-to-fill roles.
Can people misuse the system?
Great question! Not really. There are safeguards in place that prevent over-sharing just to gain points, and some points are only awarded when certain criteria are met. Your scheme rules are always accessible from the app. Then there is the minimum-point threshold you set before people can ask to cash in their points, and if needed, you can always remove points. Luckily, this is not often required.
Does Care Friends integrate with my recruitment system?
Likely! Talk to us about an integration.
Can I try before I buy?
We do not offer a free trial of Care Friends as most of the work is front-loaded and most successful if our guided launch planning is followed. However, we do offer paid trials for enterprise clients who want to trial Care Friends on a smaller part of the business, often a select number of sites. Contact us to discuss this.
How do I launch Care Friends?
With our help. We will guide you through the launch planning and the launch itself via simple and structured regular emails as well as a couple of (fun) planning meetings. Your Client Success Manager is by your side, supporting you when needed. This guided launch planning takes a lot of the work away from your desk and ensures all aspects are covered for a successful launch.
How much time does it take to launch Care Friends?
The launch of Care Friends has two easy steps:
- The launch planning. This is the time where, with our guidance, you start to communicate to the business about Care Friends. You will introduce the new referral program and build excitement for the app. Our step-by-step guidance planning ensures you cover all bases for a smooth and complete launch planning. This step can take from two weeks to a bit longer, depending on your organisation.
- The launch itself. This is the moment your employees are able to download the app and start sharing!
How secure is Care Friends?
Very secure! Care Friends is built with the latest security protocols in mind. The platform can be set up with different sites and different permissions. You also control which employees can take part in your organisation’s referral scheme. Feel free to ask us for our security documentation!
Can I change the look and feel of the app?
The app can be customised to your colour scheme and you can add your own text, images, videos and logos to your jobs. You can also customise the notifications that go out to app users and add your own referral policy rules. We will guide you through this to ensure that the app feels totally “yours” for your organisation.
How can people make a referral?
Easily, via three taps on their phone. They choose the opportunity for which they want to refer a friend and share it using the innate share function on their mobile. Most often this is via a text message, WhatsApp or social media. It’s all supported! Their friend can then read more about the opportunity and choose to complete the short expression of interest form. The moment they submit the form, their friend is notified as well as the recruiter.
Pricing
We offer two annual licence options to turbocharge your employee referral program.
Cost is based on your organisation’s headcount.
Inclusions
Portal plus App
App branding
Referral + notifications modules
Different referral rewards
Customisable pre-screening questions
Customisable auto-reject and reply emails
Reward & Recognition functionality (Bonus Points)
Number of portal users
Flexible permissions
Additional sign on security (SSO or MFA)
Chat + email and phone support
App user boost program frequency
Super User Training
Webinar style training for other stakeholders
Basic insights and portal exports
Advanced analytics with benchmarking
Essentials
- Y
- Default colours
- Y
- One standard tariff
- Limited customisability
- Limited customisability
- N
- Unlimited
- Y
- N
- Y
- Once per year
- 1 person
- N
- Y
- N
Select
- Y
- Custom colours
- Y
- Multiple tariffs
- Fully customisable
- Fully customisable
- Y
- Unlimited
- Y
- Y
- Y
- Quarterly
- Multiple
- Y
- Y
- Y
Book a complimentary referral program review
Already have a referral program, but finding it hard to manage or not seeing results? Book a free chat with one of our referral specialists. We’ll review your current program, share practical tips to boost performance, and help you get more out of referrals; no cost, no obligation, just our passion for making referrals work.
