A Bad Hire Can be Costly

After arriving five or ten minutes late and taking another ten or fifteen minutes to settle into the day with a warm cup of coffee, everyone’s favorite employee has finally arrived. He’s the life of the office, full of stories and gossip, but empty of any real productivity or commitment to his assigned tasks.

You know who we’re talking about. Maybe you even feel a little guilty because you were responsible for hiring him, but what can you do now? Terminating him sounds great until reality hits you. Finding a replacement will not only take more time, energy, and expense, it may also result in hiring yet another sub-standard employee. After all, as a small company with no dedicated HR group, you are playing in the hiring stock market. Gleaning an employee’s potential based on résumés, cover letters, and brief interviews is limiting and provides little opportunity to really know who you are hiring.

Selecting the wrong candidate for employment with your company can be costly. Lost productivity is a primary concern in this situation and involves not only the ineffective hire but also those who work with or supervise him. The added time required to manage the employee and the resulting concerns of his colleagues often lead to poor morale in the work place. Consequently, quality of products and services may decrease, resulting in dissatisfied customers, which dramatically impacts your reputation and your bottom line.

Terminating the employee and back filling the position isn’t always an ideal solution either. While your employee may not be performing at the highest level, he is likely contributing something. With so many companies working with minimal manpower, even the slightest transfer of job tasks, even temporarily, can be overwhelming to remaining staff. Finding a replacement to minimize this burden often takes weeks or even months, not including the time required for onboarding and training activities. The added expense of advertising the position, conducting interviews, and running background checks, as well as any fees associated with the termination, such as severance, unemployment, or legal fees, can all make the choice to dismiss the individual even less appealing.

So what should you do about a bad hire? The best answer is to not make one in the first place. Of course, hiring the ideal person is easier said than done. The most efficient way to identify the right employee for your company is to use a professional recruiting or staffing firm. The right recruiting firm will provide a comprehensive hiring solution, not only advertising and screening quality candidates for you, but also retaining the selected candidate on their payroll for a period of up to six months. This will allow you to determine if the employee is indeed the right fit, and shifts the associated risks and costs of termination to the professional firm.

While there are costs associated with using a professional firm, the cost of hiring the wrong person can be significantly higher. An experienced recruiting specialist will follow proven measures for assessing candidates and greatly reduce the possibility of your company hiring another office dunce.