How much does it cost you to fill a vacant role by hiring someone who’s not right for the job?
Without due consideration, the expense of recruitment will be wasted.
To make matters worse, you will have the added costs of time and money to go through the process again.
Here are the things to take into consideration when considering the costs of hiring the wrong person.
The direct costs of replacing a departing employee include recruitment costs for advertising and recruiters, plus any termination payouts.
These costs will be incurred every time you hire somebody, whether they turn out to be the right fit for your business or not. The trick is to best invest your money to make sure you can get the right person.
The indirect costs are less obvious but contribute a substantial proportion of the overall expense of hiring. They are also much harder to calculate.
It is highly likely that you will lose productivity while you have a vacant position, while someone is getting used to the workplace, and when someone has decided to leave his or her job.
While you have a vacant position the tasks previously assigned to the vacant role are abandoned, or taken on by another employee whose own productivity may suffer. A new employee will take time before they become sufficiently familiar with their job to achieve full productivity. In addition, the productivity of many employees falls while they are serving out their notice period.
When you have hired the wrong person, they will likely never reach what you consider to be full productivity in their time as an employee.
The tasks involved in recruitment that occur in-house are numerous and varied.
The steps for hiring the right person include:
In addition to hiring, you will need to account for the cost of induction and training a new employee.
The cost of all these tasks can be calculated by the hourly rate of each employee involved in the process, multiplied by the number of hours they spend on recruitment, induction or training.
The administration involved with the termination of an employee who proved to be wrong for the business is an important but costly process.
The cost of termination administration involves:
Hiring is a costly exercise that will be a much more expensive when you hire the wrong person. Combining the direct costs of recruitment with the indirect costs of lost productivity, in-house costs of hiring, and termination administration shows you what you’ll waste by choosing the wrong person.
It makes sense (and cents!) to invest time and money up front to ensure you attract and select people who are right for your business.
This article was originally published on MYOB’s blog, The Pulse. For more business news and tips, visit www.myob.com/blog.
Susan Rochester has been managing director of Balance at Work since 2006. Susan has a natural tendency to balance analytical thinking with an optimistic outlook to set direction and solve problems. She is an effective facilitator and constantly creates new and more effective ways of doing things, motivated by helping others to achieve their goals.