How many times have you hired what seemed to be the perfect candidate, only to find that they had misrepresented themselves in the interview process? A “mis-hire” can create both fiscal costs and havoc on your organization. Although it might not be top of mind, when you hire a person who does not fit with your organizational culture and/or operating philosophy, the impact can be pervasive. Promotional Consultant Today shares the following four pitfalls of a mis-hire so you can avoid these potential mistakes to your team and your bottom line.
Fragmented Customer Service: You should bridge the knowledge gap for new hires with comprehensive product and service training, however, you cannot train your workers to care about the customer. When a customer is expecting one level of affinity from the place where they spend their money and receive service that is counter to that expectation, they become disengaged. When you hire a person whose heart is not aligned with your mission and your service offerings, this same level of dissatisfaction is what your customers experience.
Reduction In Innovation: Once the product set is stable and customers are buying, continual improvement and innovation is required to stay ahead of the copycat curve. When some of your people cannot seem to get it together, miss basic deadlines or don’t find problems until your customers do, innovation is not even an option. When an employee is hired because his or her resume lists the right key words, yet the person behind the resume lacks conceptual thinking ability and theoretical problem solving, the person lacks the access within themselves to come up with creative and inventive solutions. Often this lack of ability shows up as excuses, finger pointing and roadblocks outside their control.
Workforce Productivity: When you hire in a hurry, you can experience unwanted turnover. In most cases, it is months before the problem surfaces and the impact of the wrong person doing the job wrong has already disseminated throughout the team. In sales, for example, if you have two or three people continually not achieving quota and approaching the position with a poor attitude, it poisons the well for those who are producing. When any of these morale and engagement busters are happening within your culture, good people either leave or move into autopilot until they can. The indirect and costly impact includes higher staffing costs, institutional knowledge loss and increased training costs.
Time And Energy Losses For The Team And Leadership: We have all heard the old adage that 80 percent of our time is spent with the bottom 20 percent of performers. As the competition for talent increases, you can feel pressured to fill the job with the first decent person who surfaces. Hiring the wrong people because you are in a rush to fill a seat leads to more empty seats. This causes a strain, and often burnout, on the manager.
When you think about the cost of being proactive and creating high-impact hiring solutions in terms of bottom-line profitability and overall success, shifting your philosophy about people and hiring consciously just makes common sense.
Source: Magi Graziano, as seen on NBC, is the CEO of Conscious Hiring® and Development, and a speaker, employee recruitment and engagement expert, and author of The Wealth of Talent. Through her expansive knowledge and captivating presentations, Graziano provides customers with actionable, practical ideas to maximize their effectiveness and ability to create high-performing teams.
