The High Cost of Hiring Low Performers

Imagine this picture represents the ratings by your interviewing team of a job candidate on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest value. There’s no question, right? This candidate needs to look for a job elsewhere. But what if the ratings averaged 3.5 or higher or are not representative of what is truly required to be successful? Are you being pressured to fill the open slot so much so that you would be tempted to hire a less than “A” talent?

Before you make a move, you should be fully aware of the high cost of hiring low performers. The costs can be divided into 5 different categories…the costs of

1. Turnover
Think about how much you invest every time you hire. Salary is just the beginning. You should calculate, too, the costs of recruiting, interviewing, onboarding and time until a new hire is fully productive. When turnover is high, you face these costs every time one person exits and there is an open slot to fill. 

2. Damage to company reputation
If you have low performing employees in customer-facing positions, you face a loss of your hard-won reputation for excellence. Don’t risk your brand with below standard workers. 

3. Culture depreciation
Low performers diminish your culture. If you allow them to stay, their presence signals a loss of accountability and alignment. When high performers work alongside poor performers for whom there are no consequences of substandard effort, they will quickly disengage and may well leave.

4. Personal devaluation
When workers are poorly matched to their job roles, they don’t enjoy their work and do not perform well. They doubt their ability and are discouraged. Their attitude can infect others negatively to the point that team members also begin to disengage.

5. Lost opportunities
Whether your company is losing potential sales deals because of poor sales performers or losing customers because your service team’s performance is lacking, you will never know what has been missed. This cost category is incalculable…both in terms of assigning real numbers and in terms of size.

So what do you do? You make sure that you hire only the best and that they are well suited to the job role, your organizational culture and your business strategy. Give your interviewing team the best in behavior based interviewing training so they can distinguish between the candidates who talk a good game and the candidates who will perform well above par in your unique environment.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/behavior-based-interviewing-training/