Joanne Morrissey, the top recruiter from last year’s Mega Recruitment Drive, suggests asking prospective members if they know any other eligible members while you have them on the phone.
There are 6,000 federal retirees in Newfoundland and Joanne Morrissey has made it her mission to recruit as many as possible to the National Association of Federal Retirees.
The modest 74-year-old mayor of North River, Nfld., was a super-recruiter during last year’s mega-recruitment drive for members of Federal Retirees. When asked about her secret, she shrugs.
“I don’t have a secret,” she says with a smile. “I just called people I knew and asked them. Then I asked them if they had any friends that were ex-employees that they thought might want to join and I went from there. I just started making calls. When I start something, I don’t know when to stop.”
Morrissey has been on the retention and recruitment committee of her home branch— Avalon-Burin — for about three years, but this was the first time she participated in the national campaign.
Asked how they keep their members in small-town Newfoundland, she was again understated: “We don’t do anything special. We check our list and if any memberships have lapsed, well, we call them to ask if they want to renew.”
For the mega-recruitment drive, her trick of asking people to refer others worked. More times than not, she’d seal the deal with one caller and they’d give her a few more names to try.
“Newfoundland is a small place,” she said. “If I call someone in Harbour Grace, they might have friends who worked in other departments. They’d suggest I try this one or that one. I don’t have any special powers. I just kept doing that, and every day, I’d get two or three people more. Even though I didn’t know the people I called, just through small talk, they’d relax on the phone and they’d give me some names. When I called the next person, I would say ‘I was talking to your friend and they thought you might be interested’.”
Once she has a prospective member on the phone, she tells them about the benefits of membership, including the strength in numbers in protecting health and dental benefits and pensions. Johnson Insurance deals, especially its MEDOC travel program, are other goodies she throws into her pitch, as well as branch-level social events such as Christmas parties and summer barbecues. She also mentions the minimal cost of membership ($51.36 per year for a single membership and $66.60 for couples — spouses are allowed to join.) Last year, if they agreed to pay their membership through pension deduction, they were given a 25-per-cent discount. This promotion will be running again for the 2020 Mega Recruitment Drive, so Morrissey plans to leverage it again in her recruitment calls.
“When I worked, I was an avid union leader,” says Morrissey, who was managing the Career Information Resource Centre in Harbour Grace for Service Canada before she retired. “We fought and earned those benefits to enjoy on retirement and we need to protect them. I was always passionate about that. I was a good employee, too, but I always thought employers and unions should work together for the good of everyone.”
Last year, Morrissey collected 28 referrals — she still has the forms tucked into an inch-thick file folder — and she’s geared up for this year’s campaign.
“I’ll do my best,” she says. “We have about 6,000 federal retirees in Newfoundland and only 2,000 are members. What’s wrong with the other two thirds? I think if a lot of people knew about it, they’d join.”
Turns out Morrissey’s method isn’t uncommon. A full 27 per cent of respondents to the 2020 membership engagement survey told Federal Retirees they had referred a prospective member and 43 per cent of members said they first heard about the Association from another member.
Joanne Morrissey’s recruitment tip list
- Membership is cheap;
- Travel insurance is second-to-none;
- The bigger the Association, the more likely it can protect pensions and other benefits;
- Social events allow you to meet old friends and make new ones;
- You can stay abreast of issues facing retirees with your hard-copy subscription to Sage included
The 2020 Mega Recruitment Drive is on now. Visit federalretirees.ca/MRD for more information.