Imagine this: Third time in a row, the complaints keep coming.
The accumulating guilt and regret of having made a bad hiring decision is going to get you eventually.
What a Bad Hire Can Cost Your Business (And How to Prevent It)
Like a movie rewind, you begin to reflect on your actions pondering where things go so wrong. You begin to compare the present scenarios of the same employee’s behaviour with his or her portrayal during the interview, trying to figure out the missing red flags.
Now, you have accounted for a bad hire while the team is still paying the price for it.
It’s a nightmare to watch when you are stuck with a bad job as it has become the firm’s headache to handle. Given below is a detailed breakdown of a bad hire and here is a list of ways to avoid it.
Costs of a Bad Hire
1. Melting money eventually
Your wallet is going on a diet- that’s your money, my friend.
The first consequence of a bad hire is the accrued annual salary costs of about 30% to 150% each year. It’s money that could have been spent on something worthwhile.
Be it the purchase of an office supply, training programmes for the workforce, or even a coffee upgrade, value for money is realised only when it’s getting drained.
So, the damage costs get piled up in multiple ways,
- Recruitment expenses
- Severance pays
- Training & onboarding investments
- Costs of rehiring
2. Team productivity at bay
One bad seed is enough to ruin the farm field.
Likewise, a bad hire is enough to slow down the productivity of others.
Eventually, they become the weak link affecting team performance. Some of their coworkers spend their workdays covering up, re-explaining tasks, and rectifying blunders.
So, consequently, the entire productivity suffers like a band playing without sync.
3. Losing end of customers
A rabbit hole that never ends.
Are you witnessing increasing customer complaints recently? The worst case could be the trail of your customer dropping out without explanation.
Losing hard-earned consumers will hurt your company’s reputation. Additionally, it unwittingly shakes your relationship with other consumers.
In the digital age, criticism spreads faster than ever, and a bad review will hurt their social image.
Have you ever been observant of a LinkedIn Roast? Like a post highlighting a toxic work culture or a bad hiring experience catching on with immediate traction.
That’s pretty much a full recipe for disaster seamlessly getting cooked for you.
4. Team morale at stake
It gets hard to hang up on someone if you are halfway through.
Working with someone with a matchless vibe can only weigh you down to rock bottom.
Each day of collaborative efforts can only drain you off from the little bit of energy reserved for you. In the company of a toxic colleague around you, the most you can expect is the slow eradication of team morale causing more frustration within the team.
How to Avoid It?
1. Giving it time to analyse
Stop beating yourself up for everything.
First, try to understand the reason behind the mishap happened. You cannot leap to a conclusion unless we have got enough data to back you up there.
Identify the employee’s previous pattern of behaviour and actions to conclude whether it was his accountability or your ineffective hiring decision that caused the damage.
2. Hire through attitude
Always look out for the real attitude more than what’s being projected.
Do not fall for the trap of courteous acts of first impressions. Scan it through their real-time attitude and try to etch out the mindset behind it. When you are on the run, keep looking out for the individual traits like,
- A sense of quick adaptiveness in a new setting
- Invite them to describe a scenario where they are held accountable for their behaviour.
- Discuss their professional journey to understand their team collaboration technique.
- Ask throwback questions about individuals’ cultural adaptation in a new workplace.
Always remember people can talk big talk. However, it’s your responsibility to determine if they can walk those talks.
3. Take a cumulative decision
Perspective is often the key to unlocking difficult answers.
When it comes to making important decisions, let the majority always win. Take gut check individually, but also bring in different perspectives from other team members starting from,
- Conduct a background check with the reference list provided.
- Ask for any potential red flags from your discussion with the team members.
- If the combined decision still comes down to a state of confusion, it is better to give them a trial period to avoid suffering from a severe backlash at the end.
4. Catching early signs
Like an early bird catches its prey,
Catching the danger lights early on will necessarily help you in preventing the eventual big blowout. The more you appreciate the need of early problem-solving, the less likely a major bomb will explode at the last minute.
Some of the early signs to catch on are,
- Lacking interest and declining productivity eventually.
- Lack of accountability for one’s actions
- Excessive workload levied upon the other team members in covering for the new hire’s mistakes.
5. Enhance your employer branding
Many times, you attract what you search for, not what you seek.
There should be a solid reason when you are continuously attracting the wrong talent. Maybe, you haven’t been able to lock eyes with a matching workforce fitting your culture as your visibility as a potential employer is limited.
Hence, to attract the right talent, it is important to project your firm in the light of organisational culture, and what it holds for the future workforce.
Overall, it means the chances of a bad hire happening could be averted in the first place,
- Highlights of the firm’s culture need to be shown through social media.
- Set a very transparent communication regarding your expectations.
Wrap Up
A bad hire isn’t just a matter of inconvenience that lasts for a moment or two.
It’s a snowball rolling that bundles up with depreciating productivity & profits, decreasing team morale, and downgrading organisational culture. However, with the strike of appropriate strategies in place, the downfall of bad hires can be mitigated and prevented. From catching those earlier signs to employer branding, room for bad hires can be sealed altogether.
What’s the biggest hiring mistake that has cost you the biggest lesson to date? Drop in the comments below.
