The cost of hiring the wrong person

 Hiring a wrong person for the job can be an expensive exercise!

In a study done by Career Builder survey in 2012, it was reported that 69 percent of employers reported that their companies have been adversely affected by hiring a wrong person that year, with 41 percent of those businesses estimating the cost to be over $25,000, for smaller companies where every employee often juggles many important responsibilities, the cost of bad hire can be even more devastating.

Here are some of the effects of hiring a wrong person:  

The Financial Cost

Making a wrong appointment not only wastes the company’s time, it costs money because you are not only paying a salary to someone who can’t perform to your expectations, but might incur additional training costs and in extreme cases you may also incur the cost of severance pay where the employee is let go.

The Employee Low Morale

When you are spending your time and money trying to correct your mistake of hiring the wrong person, the rest of your team may become disengaged; it’s difficult to stay upbeat when one team member requires so much attention or manages to bring the whole team down.  As a manager you stand a risk of some staff questioning your judgment and will start to doubt the company’s leadership.

The Reputation of the business

The company’s reputation can weaken as customers come to realize that the company is performing below the required standards. Your company brand will be jeopardised if you continue keeping an unsuitable person in the company.

 Managers Lose Time

If you have ever supervised a poorly performing employee, you know how time-consuming it can be and as a manager you need to work harder to maintain team moral and make sure that service delivery is not negatively affected. Your team goals may take longer to achieve as time is wasted on performance reviews and potentially ‘fixing’ problems that were made.

Rather than wasting all the time and money making bad recruitment choices, the next time you need to recruit, make sure of the following:

1.     Have a clear idea of the job requirements;

2.     Draft an accurate job description;

3.     Conduct background and reference checks;

4.      Ensure the candidate is a right cultural fit;

5.     And lastly, trust your instincts;