Bad hires are one of the biggest money drains of any business, and it’s often difficult to realise that you’ve made a bad employment decision until it’s too late. Staffing agencies such as PRL Recruitment are often the go-to in order to ensure that you have a reliable new employee in your ranks.
In this short blog we discuss how you can reduce the costs of recruitment and also explain the true costs that you’re paying when you hire an employee that isn’t right for your company.
What makes a bad hire?
Hiring the right employee can be a difficult task. Even if you put in a lot of work researching their background and doing tests and checks, there’s still a possibility that you’re going to hire someone that isn’t right for the job. Here are a couple of signs to watch out for if you suspect you’ve got a bad hire.
- Surprisingly poor quality of work – Even with a degree, there’s no guarantee that your hire is going to be great at the work they do. Qualifications aren’t everything, but it generally depends on the field of work. Some hires may need time to adjust, but if they’re consistently producing poor quality work and show no signs of improvement, it may be just be a bad hire.
- Poor attendance – Whether they’re always late to work, constantly going home early or simply never show up to work, these are clear red flags and you need to consider how much it’s costing your business.
- Lack of respect for others – If you have a team of employees then it’s important to remember that they have to work together in order to produce good results. If one bad hire is causing trouble in the workplace, having difficulty integrating with other teams or causing conflict, then it’s going to affect the entire workplace and drastically lower your productivity and quality.
- Misaligned priorities – Your employees all need to be on the same page if you want to run a successful business. If one of your hires is showing signs of rebelling for no reason or their goals and priorities don’t align with everyone else’s, then it’s going to create friction and it will eventually lead to a lack of productivity.
These are just a few signs to look out for if you feel like you’ve got a bad employee in your ranks. Of course, many of these issues can be solved with a stern talk and occasionally disciplinary action. However, you might find that investing more money into these employees is a poor financial choice.
Calculating the cost of a bad hire
The costs of a bad hire are going to depend on the individual circumstances, so it’s difficult to make a full accurate calculation. However, what we can do is look at a couple of areas to consider.
- The amount of time wasted – Whether it’s time wasted trying to help the employee, time spent on hiring them and running background checks or the time they’ve personally spent loitering around your office and not being productive, it can be quite costly if you consider that time is money in business.
- The cost of advertising – Advertising for a job online isn’t cheap, especially if you go the traditional route of posting the opening on a job website. It can get very expensive if you need to keep the advert up for a long period of time, and bad hires only make this worse because you need to keep posting the advertisement.
- Searching multiple times – Searching for an employee uses up a lot of company time. If you keep having to replace employees, then you’re going to end up distracting hiring managers from day to day operations, ultimately reducing productivity which also costs the company financially. This is where PRL Recruitment can not only source you hard to find candidates but also save the company time and resources.
- Capital spent training – Training an employee can also be very expensive. Whether it’s external lessons and courses or even the time wasted by another employee that is trying to guide them, training a bad hire is a huge waste of working capital.
How PRL Recruitment can prevent bad hires
PRL Recruitment seeks to fill employment gaps across a number of industries in Ireland. If you’re worried about self-hiring a bad hire and wasting a lot of time and money, then a reliable recruitment agency like PRL Recruitment can help you save time, money and prevent a lot of stress.
PRL Recruitment can help reduce your recruitment costs by first guaranteeing placements to ensure employee retention. We also present only qualified candidates that have the skills and experience necessary to help grow your business. During the current unemployment rate, at PRL Recruitment we don’t rely solely on job adverts to source your ideal candidates, we also refer to or unique database of hard to find, qualified candidates and also engage in ‘head hunting’ activities to ensure we support your needs.
Our successful approach to recruitment is thanks to our seasoned and experienced recruitment team. We have a network that spans the entire island of Ireland with offices in both Dublin and Belfast, and our years of service in the industry mean that we have long-lasting connections with many businesses in Ireland that often refer PRL Recruitment to other organisations based on their experiences with us.
Regular self-recruitment can still work, but it’s a huge gamble that takes up a lot of time, resources and finances. If you’re tired of bad hires and want to ensure you retain employees that work hard and have goals that align with yours, then PRL Recruitment is the service that you need. Contact us today and speak to one of our friendly consultants to find out more about how we can help you look for your next key employee to grow your business.
If you found this blog interesting and insightful then checkout last weeks blog; ‘The true cost of bored employees’ which discusses the importance of keeping employees engaged and challenged in order to retain their talent. The current employment market certainly favours candidates at the minute. Thus, retaining employees who are performing well should be a priority for all organisations in Ireland.