A bad hire can cost you heavily, avoid it by all means possible

Any employer will know that recruiting the right person at the right time is a challenge. With constant change it’s hard to hold on to staff or even know what your manpower needs will be in the upcoming months. At a time when there is a desperate need to fill a position; it is easy just to find someone who has a pulse. This however is definitely not the right thing to do!

May times we don’t realize the true cost of recruitment itself and the cost of recruitment failures, where the individual leaves within the first three to six months of being hired.

A survey by Mindflash.Com found that 41 per cent of companies they surveyed in the US say that a bad hire in the last year has cost them $25,000. The cost however goes beyond just the cash used to hire and compensate the employee. There are other factors that also need to be considered, for example loss of worker productivity, the expense of training and recruiting another worker, negative impact on employee morale and negative impact on the customers.

So why do we hire bad employees? Well according to the Careerbuilder survey, 38 per cent of companies hire bad employees because they need to fill the position quickly, 21 per cent didn’t test or research the employees’ skills well enough and 11 per cent didn’t do an adequate reference check.

It is easy to succumb to the pressure of hiring, however this pressure can cost you in the long run. It is always sensible to ensure that you have a clear recruitment process in place. Starting with the job requirements, followed by a structured interview and selection process.

When creating your recruitment process aim to mitigate the ‘Horn’ and ‘Halo’ effect. It is one of the most powerful and potentially harmful mental models you may encounter and was named by psychologist Edward Thorndike.
It is a cognitive bias that causes you to allow one trait, either good (halo) or bad (horns) to overshadow other traits, behaviours, actions and beliefs.

It can cloud your judgment and you may end up making sub-standard recruitment decisions. For example interviewing someone who may look similar to the previous employee may be judged by the previous employee’s performance.

A study by Kaplan in 1978 found that attractive individuals were rated more highly in qualities such as creativity, intelligence and sensitivity than unattractive individuals. This was further extenuated when being assessed by the opposite sex.

Some ways of overcoming the ‘Horn’ and ‘Halo’ effect are to:

Have a clear job description

Have a clear idea of what skills, knowledge and behaviours you are looking for before starting the interview process. Structure your interview questions around these and identify other ways you can assess these.

More than one person interviewing

Have a panel of interviewers who can debrief after the interview to gain a more balanced perspective. The perspective of one person alone can be tainted by their previous experience and bias with one able to challenge this.

Identify different ways to assess the candidate

There are many ways to interview and assess a potential candidate. During the interview itself, using behavioural-based interviewing technique can really help you explore their past experience and ability to deal with certain projects and situations.

Research shows that past performance is usually a good indicator of future performance. For example if you are looking for someone with good problem solving skills, asking a question like:

“Tell me about a time where you were face with an unexpected challenge, how did you solve this?” Get creative with how you assess and put together a job simulation, for example for a sales job, ask them to prepare a sales pitch and present it. For Customer service position, role-play a customer complaint. There are also many assessment tools available that can be set up knowledge or aptitude tests.

Cultural fit

We may just focus on the skills and experience of the new hire, however a fundamental aspect is the cultural fit. Many new hires fails to perform or are unhappy in their role because they cannot adapt to the culture of the organization. Their personal values do not match the company values.

Rekha is the founder and owner of Nairobi-based Redstone Consulting, a Performance Consulting firm that focuses on Leadership Development, Change Management, Performance Management, Team Development and Executive Coaching