What if your network came with a paycheck?
BY NETTA JENKINS, FOUNDER, OF HIC; LEADERSHIP PERFORMANCE FIRM | AUTHOR OF SUPERCHARGED TEAMS
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What if one of the most powerful employee benefits of the AI era isn’t another perk, wellness program or learning subscription? What if it’s the ability to make money from your network and help build the company at the same time?
That’s the experiment playing out at Serval, the AI-native enterprise service management company now valued at $1 billion.
Serval has built an unusually aggressive employee referral program. The company pays at least $20,000 when a referred candidate joins, with higher payouts for harder-to-fill and senior roles and more than half of its team has come through employee referrals.
The result is more than a recruiting strategy. It’s an entirely different employee experience.
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What happens when recruiting becomes everyone’s job?
Kaz Hishida, a founding engineer and talent leader at Serval, has increasingly shifted his own time toward recruiting.
“I was spending half of my time on talent as Serval scaled from 20 to 140 people in a year,” Hishida explained. Talent has become the single most important function for a startup growing that quickly.”
That philosophy changes the employee’s role. You aren’t simply an engineer, salesperson, or operator. You become part of the company’s talent engine.