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How to Successfully Launch a Corporate Alumni Program

The colleagues clap as they congratulate their peer for the award of their project being chosen.

Thorough planning and preparation lay the groundwork for a smooth roll-out and solid foundation for your alumni program. The launch process may seem daunting, but a well-organized plan will keep things structured and on track for success.

Topics: Alumni Network

Engaging former employees in a corporate alumni program, regardless of its initial size, has the potential to evolve into a thriving initiative that delivers your organization and alumni tremendous value. We’ve revised our, “How to Launch Guide” and provided a simple summary here. We encourage you to download it and use it as a resource while building a program.

Step 1: Plan

What’s the Purpose of Your Alumni Program?

Your program should reflect the mission and core values of your organization. Align with leadership and find gaps where an alumni program could support a broader firm strategy.

Which Target Groups Should be Included in Your Program?

The Most Common Segments are:

Current employees
- Senior members (I.e., executives or partners)
- A certain category (I.e., such as lawyers, or consultants)
- All (all categories, levels, and support staff)
Retirees (or a certain amount of tenure)
Interns
VIPs
Geographic Locations

What kinds of access should they have?

Members of a certain seniority or expertise can have different access

Build a Business Case

Demonstrating a tangible program ROI to the C-suite is key to ensuring continued buy-in. A plan to measure program metrics and align them with company goals like brand advocacy, business development, and talent acquisition will demonstrate how the program supports and tracks progress.

Which Stakeholders to Involve?

Engage leadership early on, and identify executive champions to help build program buy-in. Also assemble a cross-departmental team of staff from HR, marketing, legal, and IT to provide input for program elements.

Designate a main point of contact to “herd the sheep” during the implementation process and run the program post-launch. This could be a temporary project manager through launch, or an alumni program manager to kick things off.

What Does Success Look Like?

Decide on what metrics are important to you that determine success. What goals are you trying to achieve with a corporate alumni program? If you’re starting from scratch, we offer insights on measurable program outcomes. Find out what other organizations track and how their metrics compare to one another in our latest benchmarking report.

Determine the Budget

Before proposing a budget to senior leadership, focus on high-impact, cost-effective offerings and leverage existing benefits for employees to be for alumni.

Some areas to consider during budget planning may include:

Platform Technology
Dedicated Employees
Events (Virtual and In-Person)
Offerings (discounts, memberships, professional development resources etc.)
Partnerships

Choose an Alumni Management Platform Vendor

71% of corporate alumni programs utilize a third party to create a hub of alumni activity. A dedicated alumni platform should provide all the features required to support day-to-day program management, as well as a seamless user experience for alumni. Apart from technical expertise, you’ll want to assess an alumni management software vendor based on other programmatic aspects, namely their reputation as a trusted strategic partner.

Step 2: Prepare

Determine Your Program Offerings

Analyze the needs of your alumni by conducting a survey. The results of surveys and feedback determines where your strategic focus should be and how to align it with broader organizational objectives. For example, if alumni value networking, prioritize events which increase business development opportunities. Ensure the offerings are inclusive to all demographics and reflect the social norms of the organization.

Example offerings :

Alumni website
Newsletter
Alumni spotlights
Professional development resources
Networking events
Job Board
Directory (and integrate your HRIS)

Determine Your Technical Set-up

Explore the technical requirements with your IT department and ensure there’s resource availability.

Create an Alumni Directory

Build the directory - the backbone of an alumni program. Alumni contact information may be scattered among different sources such as departmental lists, social networking sites, HR records etc. It’s highly recommended to begin with clean, organized data before engaging with your alumni community.

Integrating your HRIS with the alumni platform can streamline the offboarding process and boost adoption. A one-way integration, for example, auto-populates user data from HR systems, minimizing user input and ensuring a smooth onboarding experience into the alumni program.

Generate Internal and External Buzz

Collaborate with marketing to create internal and external communication strategies to announce the program. Send out an internal one-pager to highlight the benefits of the program and build anticipation on social media.

Coordinate with HR to integrate promotion and communication in key phases of the talent lifecycle: onboarding, employment, and offboarding.

Step 3: Launch

The moment has finally arrived to put all the hard work into motion. Ahead of the main launch, some organizations may opt for a soft launch with a smaller audience to identify and resolve any kinks or gather initial feedback. The launch may also coincide with a special firm event for an extra boost.

Optimize Your Offboarding and Registration Processes

Align with HR to ensure current offboarding practices are optimized for program adoption and ensure registration processes are seamless. Smart integrations with HR software and automation within the PeoplePath platform lighten the management workload while adhering to all aspects of data handling and privacy compliancy.

A well-designed landing page encourages alumni to sign-up and allows data to be cross-checked before admittance into the program.

Take a look at some examples at Starbucks, Accenture, AWS, and Bechtel

Share Engaging Content

Share firm and industry updates, events, alumni spotlights, job postings and perks at a cadence that makes sense for your alumni community. Design an engagement calendar to help keep track of what and how often you want to post content and hold events. You can find a sample content plan in our launch guide.

Track initial launch metrics (number of registered alumni who logged-in, number who have updated their profile etc.) to keep on top of how alumni are engaging with the platform.

Step 4: Excel

Harness the Data!

As your program grows, you’ll have a rich source of data on your day-to-day community initiatives to better inform your future strategy. For example, the reporting capabilities in the PeoplePath platform provide valuable insights into engagement with content and reveal insights into key alumni segments.

It’s important to remember that the needs of alumni are ever-evolving, and the program offerings may need adjustment from time-to-time. Regularly measure the Net Promoter Score (NPS) of your community to ensure your alumni are satisfied and continue to be loyal brand ambassadors.

Collaborate closely with HR and business development departments to develop tracking methods to tie in business outcomes with your program efforts. Make sure to regularly present reports to leadership and show off your hard work!

PeoplePath can guide you throughout your launch process by sharing client best practices, hold workshops and provide unrivaled support from our team. If you‘ve been considering launching or revamping an alumni program, feel free to reach out – we‘d love to connect!