Making the wrong hire can cost employers big time, with the cost not just measured in dollars—although there are plenty of those involved—but in the ripple effects they cause in the organization.
So says a report from Careerbuilder.com, which says in a new report, "if you're not hiring the right people, your ability to succeed in other aspects of business can be greatly compromised." And bad hires can be pricey in more ways than one: the survey found that companies lost an average of $14,900 on every bad hire in the last year, and more businesses had the problem than you might think, with 74 percent of employers saying they've hired the wrong person for a position.
Then there are those ripple effects. Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder, says in the report, "It's important to note that there's a ripple affect with bad hires. Disengagement is contagious—poor performers lower the bar for other workers on their teams, and their bad habits spread throughout the organization."
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Employers asked about the effects of a bad hire on their business in the past year, 37 percent cited less productivity; 32 percent said they'd lost time to recruit and train another worker; and 31 percent cited compromised quality of work.
And if the cost of a bad hire makes employers cringe, the cost of losing a good employee ought to make them sob: employers report that the average cost of losing a good hire was $29,600 this year. And while 75 percent of workers say they're loyal to their current employer, only 54 percent say they feel their company is loyal to them, and 31 percent say they are likely to change jobs in the next year.
And while employers may regret hiring someone who lacked necessary skills, lied to get the job or gave off warning signs that were then ignored under the pressure of making a quick hire, employees have regrets, too. Two thirds of workers (66 percent) say they've taken a job only to realize it was a bad fit; 50 percent of those workers quit within 6 months, while 37 percent stuck it out (presumably unhappy about doing so).
In addition, workers who said they had taken a job only to realize it's a bad fit said they noticed their mistake based on toxic work culture (46 percent), boss' management style (40 percent), the job failing to match the job listing and interviews (37 percent) and a lack of clear expectations around the role (33 percent).
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