Hiring the right people for an organization has become a science in itself and rightly so. Now, it is all but known that ‘one bad apple can spoil the entire batch’. Still, many organizations struggle to realize and identify their perfect fit. The best way to avoid bad hires is to understand what it costs an organization when they hire a bad employee. Once it is clear to us as to what is really at stake, hiring processes can accordingly be optimized to weed out bad employees and onboard only those who are likely to add value to the organization.
On this front, our hiring experts at Saransh advise as follows:
Input v/s Output
Hiring an employee is akin to planting a seed. The relation needs to be cared for, tended to and nurtured until it grows and bears fruits. Evidently, this process requires a lot of time and energy and it only makes sense to do this when the input of resources required for this task is well-balanced with the output derived from it.
In this sense, hiring a bad employee is like planting a seed on barren land. One may spend as many resources as possible and yet, nothing positive can come from it because the foundation itself is flawed. The more this happens, the more resources are wasted and, eventually, it hampers business operations.
Quality of Work
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Bad employees are not just ‘bad’ because they don’t deliver great work, but also because they can lead to polluting the workplace. When such employees are hired, the overall productivity of the workplace is affected. This is terrible news, since the bad work of even a single employee can potentially undo the hard work of an entire organization.
Motivation
Toxic employees are great at playing Chinese whispers. Their habitual gossiping and rumor-mongering eventually breaks down the strongest work bonds and turns the workforce against each other, as well as against the organization. The motivation to work in any workplace comes, at least in part, from liking your colleagues and employer. Unfortunately, when toxic employees come into the picture, they can make even the best of workplaces seem inefficient. The result – degradation of work ethics, low enthusiasm amongst teams, and eventual failure of the entire project.
Waste of time
Any organization has finite resources. The most finite and precious of these is ‘time’. Hiring an employee itself is a long process that involves review of multiple documents, several interview rounds and tricky assessment routines, to finally decide who gets hired. If a bad employee is hired and later removed from the organization, this time-intensive process must be repeated to find someone who is more aligned with the organization’s needs. Naturally, finding and retaining good employees should be a priority since bad employees cost a lot of time to the organization.
Reputation
Employees always represent their parent organizations in some or the other capacity. If an employee behaves badly, it is capable of tarnishing the image of the organization. This is especially true of those who, not having received what they wished for, resort to bullying tactics such as defaming an organization or making disparaging remarks about their employer in public. While remedial steps can be taken later on, such as terminating such employees, many times the damage that is done is irreversible.
From a client’s perspective, seeing something like this can be a sour experience and may even lead them to ask the question – do we want to work with an organization whose own employees don’t like them? This may stem from a false understanding of what has happened, but unfortunately, there is no way of explaining it to the client and therefore it is best to avoid such scenarios altogether by hiring well-calibrated individuals who are able to conduct themselves properly, so that the reputation of the organization is never under threat.
Knowing what not to do is half the battle won and an organization that is aware of the cost of hiring bad employees can take active steps to only hire the right people for its teams.
If you liked this article and want to know more about how hiring processes can be enhanced for best results, reach out to us at info@saranshinc.com and we will be happy to assist you.