Would you let any part of your business run at any less than 80%? What about your recruitment process…?
You’ve probably read that opening line and already defended your recruitment record in your head. Your recruitment process is good, you’ve probably said, you’ve never had any problems before, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. That’s fine, it’s natural to be defensive when the concept of failure is banded around, but the question stands. Would you let any part of your business – supply chain, HR, utilities, etc – run at less than 80%?
The answer, of course, is no. Anyone with any kind of business acumen about them would identify an issue like that and rectify it immediately. But, do me a favour and think of your staff retention in the same terms for a moment. If you have employees leaving before they’ve done a calendar year in the job then that’s exactly what is happening – a vitally important part of your business is failing.
So what? You can always replace them with someone else. If they’ve left it’s because they didn’t want to be there in the first place, right? Yes, but not in the way you are thinking. They left because they were incompatible with the company from the get-go. Let me explain that – ever heard that saying, ‘People hire on skills and fire on behaviours?’ That’s incredibly accurate.
Basically, a person gets hired because they have the skills to do the job, and from the face-to-face interview stage they seem like a good fit. All rosy so far. Then, once they’ve been in the job for a while, their attitude begins to change, and it turns out that they were basically charming you at the interview to get the job. The next thing you know they have handed their notice in and you’re searching through CV’s again for the second time in a year. Wasted time, wasted energy, wasted money and possible reputational damage if they leave on bad terms. Sounding familiar now? THIS is where your recruitment process is failing. It needs to be established if they are a good fit BEFORE they are recruited.
I’m not just conjuring this out of thin air, there are Oxford Economics metrics to confirm everything I’ve said. Use the Bad Hire Cost Calculator to see just how much money the wrong candidate can cost your company. Get in touch with us if you want further information on how we use cutting-edge tech to achieve a 96% post-hire retention rate
