Cooptation: a real obstacle to diversity in the workplace?

Cooptation and diversity: conflicting HR levers?

As companies compete to attract, recruit and retain future employees, they are innovating in their recruitment processes. To this end, they are making increasing use of co-optation. By 2023, it was among the most reliable sources of recruitment, accounting for up to 40% of new hires [1].

And yet, some people find it hard to see the benefits of asking their employees to help with recruitment. In particular, they point to a lack of diversity in the candidates put forward through co-option.

But is this really the case?

Cooptation: incompatible with diversity?

A few years ago, co-optation was still confused with “piston” recruitment. Although this confusion is tending to disappear, collaborative recruitment is sometimes perceived as an obstacle to diversity.

However, by encouraging employees to recommend someone in their network, the chances of identifying the right candidate are increased tenfold!

Of course, the prospect of recruiting only alumni of the same school, who recommend each other, doesn’t seem attractive.

But does this pitfall really come from cooptation? Isn’t the recruitment of “clones” a symptom of an overall biased recruitment process?

In the case of co-optation, this duplication of candidates is the result of a poorly explained co-optation program.

A rigorous approach to program design ensures a sound foundation. It allows us to build an easily identifiable and understandable framework for the co-optation process.

In the digital age, this criticism of co-optation’s lack of diversity has lost its meaning.

Today, digital technology makes cooptation possible on a massive scale. Gone are the days when cooptation meant recruiters only calling on their own network or that of close colleagues.

Today, with a high-performance cooptation tool like Keycoopt, you can reach all your employees (regardless of location or department) and thus thousands of profiles with a single job offer. In other words, more diversity and variety than if you solicited the same pool of candidates, or the same network of recruiters over and over again. Discover our tool in detail

Co-optation brings out atypical profiles with high potential.

In addition, co-option is a way of finding out the value of candidates other than through their diplomas and previous positions. A co-operator may very well recommend a candidate whose personality is compatible with the company’s culture… By deviating slightly (or completely) from the initial specifications.

Co-optation therefore brings in unexpected, unusual profiles… Profiles that would no doubt have been dismissed on the basis of the CV alone… But whose potential, identified by the employee/co-optor, has been highlighted to recruiters.

A real asset when you consider that diversity is also about hiring talent whose career paths are off the beaten track.

In addition to diversity, what else is attractive about co-option?

By 2023, 1 in 4 companies will have found their ideal candidate through cooptation [2]. Increasingly popular over the years, co-optation has won over recruiters for a number of reasons, other than the diversity of profiles.

The role of Ambassador encouraged by co-optation.

Involved and solicited in projects, employees/co-operators more easily become ambassadors for their company to their networks.

And that’s only natural: they’re the ones who know its culture, values and workings best.

Promoting the Employer Brand

What could be more convincing for an Employer Brand than a recommendation made by one of the company’s employees? Co-optation is a lever for attracting Talent, for whom the expression of an employee has more impact and credibility than corporate communication.

The economic aspect: using in-house teams is advantageous.

Co-optation provides an additional means of sourcing via employees. Generally speaking, when they are approached, they think of a profile within 48-72 hours. Less quantitative but more qualitative, recommendations save time for the recruiter too.

Among our Keycoopt customers, an average of 7 recommendations is enough for one recruitment [3].

Reduced recruitment risks.

You don’t recommend someone just to please them. By co-opting, you commit your responsibility. The act of recommendation is a powerful one. We act as a “guarantor” for the candidate (within reasonable limits, as co-optation in no way diminishes the role of the recruiter).

The co-operator will generally be qualitative in his recommendation. The people recommended will generally be more in line with the values and DNA (which the co-operator knows well). This reduces the risk of turnover. In fact, 43% of co-opted employees stay with the company for 3 years, compared with 14% of candidates from job boards.

A little plus The time saved by co-option also reduces the risk of the recruiting team running out of steam (the longer the recruitment process, the greater the risk), as well as the teams filling the vacancy. Taken together, these advantages make cooptation a less costly and more innovative system than traditional recruitment methods. And it also enhances the role of the employee in the recruitment process!

Discover the interview with Charlène HEMERY, Talent and Employer Brand Manager at BPAURA (BPCE Group), on the implementation and results obtained from the digitalization of their co-optation recruitment program. Co-optation on a large scale: the ingredients for success.

To make your program a success, you have to think in terms of Animation, Reward and Relevance!

These 3 key words will help your co-optation program to spread more widely, be more effective and last longer.

Animation…

Without animation, employees won’t go and see the vacancies themselves, or only at first, out of curiosity. It’s a fact that promotion generates commitment, not the other way round. Internal co-optation will only work if the program is regularly maintained. Communicating about the positions filled thanks to co-option, and therefore the successes, is, for example, a good way of creating emulation.

…Reward…

Reward is a key factor in the program’s success, as the co-optation bonus adds an extra incentive for the employee. It also represents the employer’s recognition of the employee’s commitment to the company. The reward system is designed to keep employees actively involved in the program: it must be motivating (without being excessive) and fair.

…Relevance.

Targeting is also important: if you ask employees to work on jobs that are completely different from their core business (or their network), they’ll quickly lose interest. Providing relevant content therefore helps to maintain commitment, as well as being more effective. The content should be in line with the employee’s network and profile.

Using a high-performance tool like Keycoopt will enable us to inform employees of job offers in a targeted, proactive way, to animate the community and make it easier for the recruiter to manage recommendations… And to follow up with the co-opter and co-optee.

In this way, cooptation provides an additional sourcing tool for recruitment, putting employees at the heart of the company’s projects. A cooptation strategy brings trust and dialogue between the company and its employees, who become active players within the company. It also makes it possible to reach candidates who would not have been identified by any other method… External candidates, but also internal candidates with multiple qualities!

Indeed, co-option and internal mobility have a lot in common. Did you know that there is a synergy between these two employee-focused strategies? Discover the advantages of developing these 2 recruitment levers simultaneously!

[1] CareerBuilder “Recruitment and cooptation” survey 2023
[2] Executive recruitment practices 2024 – APEC
[3] According to our customer survey 2019