Meet Jane. Jane is the middle-aged employee that your firm hired six months ago because of her personable demeanor and her connection with the HR rep’s alma mater. Now, Jane is the office crazy who ties up productivity and files complaints about her coworkers just about everyday. Think the only cost of keeping Jane around is her salary? Wrong. The truth is that Jane, or any bad hire for that matter, is likely hurting your bottom line a whole lot more than just that. A situation that could have been avoided with the appropriate pre employment testing tools.
A single bad hire can initiate a tsunami wave of negative impacts – slow at first, but overpowering in the end. Typically, it begins with a diminishing effect on morale. Frustration with mismanagement, anger from poor workmanship, and distraction from goals are only a few of the results that will, ultimately, deteriorate the group’s confidence in their ability to perform.
People, especially top performers, will only tolerate this atmosphere of low morale for so long before they realize that there are other places of employment offering the same duties, but in an improved work environment (even in this economic climate!). The members of your A-team will slowly begin considering their next move.
Once these select individuals have given up on your firm, the bottom line is going to reflect it. Initially, the marks may be off by only a little bit, but soon there will be a significant drop in both productivity and sales. This will further diminish the already low morale, which will then reflect poorly in your firm’s customer relation skills. No client wants to deal with a moody representative. However, if they have to, they’re likely to follow-up their conversation with ten of their friends about just how bad their customer service experience was. It only takes a few online reviews that include words like “rude,” “impatient,” or “horrendous” to really get the grapevine going.
However, that grapevine doesn’t just extend to potential customers. It also goes to the ears of potential recruits. Suddenly individuals who would have done anything to join your team before are a far cry from even vaguely interested. And now, when the HR team provides their top ten candidates for the next opening, Jane looks like a grandiose gift.
So this is a little dramatic but for many organizations it’s not a fantasy, it’s the way their business is headed! However there is hope, you don’t have to end up with a third floor full of Jane’s. Begin looking beyond turnover to your “Rehire Rate” – the number of candidates who were hired and haven’t left the company, but would not be rehired if the situation presented itself. Using this you can systematically identifying the commonalities among failed hires. Beyond knowing what you want in a candidate, it’s helpful to know what you don’t want too. Review your current arsenal of employee selection tools and consider alternative measures, including Predictive Talent Selection technology. Finding the right candidate doesn’t have to be about gut instincts or connections to an alma mater anymore. Instead, firms have the opportunity to employ the right technology and reference checking tools to keep Jane and her tsunamis at bay.
About the Author
Greg Moran is Founder and CEO of Chequed.com, a revolutionary Predictive Talent Selection suite for pre employment assessment and reference checking.