The importance of hiring the right employee is crucial to any business and when a company gets it wrong it can have a huge negative impact.
Firstly there is the cost involved in recruiting – it costs a company approximately 25% of the employee’s annual salary, plus the time involved interviewing the candidates.
Then if the perfect candidate does not walk through the door – you’re not actually impressed with any of them – you’re under pressure to choose the best of a bad bunch. Many companies feel the need to do this as they have spent so much time assessing and interviewing candidates, and they need to move forward and fill the position.
So the best of the bad bunch is hired, their knowledge is not as high as the rest of the team and a lot of training is needed, but the position is filled so we can move on right? Before long, issues within the team arise – workload is building due to the extra training the other team members are having to do. Morale takes a dip, as do profits and before long you are sitting in meetings about the issues within the team. Time possibly better spent on getting it right in the first place?
The next step is the exit strategy, again a timely and costly exercise which is painful and very emotional for the new/about to be ex-employee involved. They did their best to get this role and in hiring them you made them believe they could do it. They have given up their job of 10 years for this role and now they have no job, something that should tug on any decent Managers heart strings!
This is why it is so important to invest in the recruitment process up front. Not only does employing the wrong person have serious financial implications, but it can also have an impact on the health of the organisation as a whole.
