The True Cost of a Bad Hire: How to Avoid Staffing Pitfalls

A company’s most valuable asset is its people. As a small or mid-sized business owner, ensuring you have the right talent is critical to your success. However, the hiring process requires a significant investment of time and resources. According to LinkedIn, the hiring process takes an average of 44 days. 

With so much at stake, it’s vital to hire the right person for each role. Hiring wrong can carry major consequences. A wrong hire that doesn’t fit your company culture can negatively impact productivity and morale. Additionally, replacing an ill-fitting employee means repeating the costly and time-consuming hiring process. While hiring may be one of the most difficult responsibilities for business owners, it’s essential to take the necessary time and diligence to attract and secure the perfect talent for your team. Investing in the right people ultimately leads to higher performance, innovation, and growth.

Mission Impossible: Hiring as a Small-or-Midsize Business 

Of business owners who reported actively hiring or trying to hire in December 2022, 93% cited a lack of qualified applicants, according to NerdWallet. Business owner Joseph Romano, president of CPA firm Romano & Associates, knew this particular frustration all too well. As his client roster grew, he needed to hire more skilled personnel for his administrative team. His hiring process was bogged down with a lack of qualified candidates.  

While some business owners struggle with a sufficient pool of qualified applicants to choose from, others don’t receive enough applicants altogether. Twenty-seven percent of small business owners surveyed cited a lack of interest in the workforce and a low number of applications as their biggest challenge. In the same report, almost half of business owners described the hiring process as “very difficult” or “somewhat difficult.”

And if you think that technology advancements would make hiring easier, think again. Each step of the hiring process requires time and expertise from people on your team that can’t be replicated or automated by AI—weeding out resumes with nuanced experiences, analyzing assessment results, and selecting from a large pool of candidates with diverse personalities and soft and hard skills. And at the end of it all, there’s still looming uncertainty about whether you made the right decision.

The Not-So-Hidden Cost of Hiring the Wrong Person

Once you’ve hurdled the hiring process and an offer has been accepted, you’re still not out of the woods: About 20 percent of employee turnover happens in the first 90 days of employment, according to G&A Partners, costing you in direct and indirect ways.

The monetary loss on a bad hire is undeniable. But it can permeate other areas of your business, too. After several weeks of training, Romano came to the conclusion they didn’t have the right person for the job, even after several weeks spent training them. “It affected our business as a whole since other staff members had to jump in and cover,” he said. 

Romano’s story is frustratingly common when it comes to a bad hire affecting the larger team. When things don’t work out, a bad hire can down morale at a time when employee engagement is already at an all-time low. And studies have shown that when morale declines, productivity dives with it.

When a new hire doesn’t pan out, whether due to a mismatch in job requirements or a lack of synergy with their colleagues, the impact stings. It’s not just the loss of thousands of dollars and hours invested but also the ripple effect on your existing team. One thing is certain: Hiring the right person the first time is critical.

A Smarter Way to Outsource Hiring for Your Business

For owners like Romano, a game-changer in the hiring process would be a system that filters candidates to find the best match for his company’s needs. One that has the hiring process down to a science, leaving the nitty gritty work of recruiting and selecting top-quality candidates to talent-provider professionals. Bonus points if it doesn’t break the bank in the process.

Of course, outsourcing the hiring process is nothing new. You may have tried going through a recruitment or staffing agency. Or maybe you’ve heard about freelance platforms or managed service providers. Each offers a different approach to filling positions, and some can be a good fit for the right company. 

A lot of the time, however, these solutions don’t eliminate the headaches of hiring. They can be costly and extend the hiring process instead of shortening it. And some options might not be flexible enough to meet a small or midsize business’s needs. What may have sounded like a shortcut solution can turn out to be anything but.

Fortunately, some Talent-as-a-Service (TaaS) providers like WorkBetterNow are different. They offer scalable solutions for small and midsize companies who need to fill specialized positions, many times at a fraction of the cost and in a short amount of time. Candidates are hand-selected by professional matchmakers, and business needs are carefully considered, as well as company culture and level of skill set required. This guarantees that whoever you interview is already highly likely to be a top-performing, great fit for you and your team, minimizing the uncertainty of making a bad decision and increasing your ROI.

The WorkBetterNow Approach Takes Hiring to the Next Level

Because of its strong employer brand, WorkBetterNow receives thousands of applications a month from professionals all over Latin America. They complete a rigorous application and assessment process to even be considered, with only the top 1-2% of applicants making it to the interview round for WorkBetterNow clients. Because of this, most clients have trouble deciding between which high-quality candidate they want on their team (a good problem to have). 

What also sets us apart from other talent providers is the success coach that comes with each employee. This person works with you and your new employee to ensure onboarding and training go smoothly, making it easier to get started on the right foot. When the 90-day window is crucial for setting the tone, you want to do everything you can to make sure your new hire feels equipped to excel in their role, and the success coach helps you do that.

We get it: Hiring is tough. But it doesn’t have to be a gambling nightmare. Trust your search for top talent to a TaaS like WorkBetterNow. Schedule a 15-minute consultation so we can talk through your options.