The Hiring Mistake By Dr. Ken Byrne and Rev. Peter Corey

Hidden Costs in Every Hiring Mistake

Every Christian organisation wants to extend God’s grace in Word and Deed. Doing so requires attracting and selecting the right people.

If you’re a manager or a leader, nothing is more critical to achieving your mission than hiring the right people. Nothing!

Yet, this is challenging. Every applicant will naturally work to put their best foot forward during the interview.  

This is not to be critical. The applicant is doing precisely what is to be expected. They are there to sell themselves. The best applicants usually do an excellent job of this and hide their weaknesses equally well.

The Secret but Very Real Price: The Opportunity Cost

This is the most challenging cost to calculate, yet it is the most damaging.

 If you are saddled with a problem performer, the most challenging question is: “Where would we be now if we hired a competent person who did the job without causing difficulty?” The longer you’ve been carrying such a person, the greater the opportunity cost.

A problem performer can be like running a marathon with a ball and chain attached to one leg. You might make it to the finish line, but it sure will be a painful race.

The Hidden Costs

Many of the costs of hiring the wrong person cannot be described in dollar terms, but they do lend themselves to being considered in discrete categories.

• Additional Stress on the Manager

Consider the stress on the person who must manage the problem employee. In this situation, the supervisor may go home at night worrying about what to do with this person. How will you motivate them? Can their problems be corrected?

• The Impact on Your Team

Hopefully, you will have a group of people who get along together, can focus on the job, and work cooperatively to meet the team’s goals. What happens if you hire the next workplace bully? Perhaps it is someone who is lazy and doesn’t carry their share of the workload. Or maybe the person who will oppose you as the team’s leader.

All of these will be destructive to your team.

The chances are you’ve been working to build a culture in your team based on shared values. How will this person affect the culture you have been trying to develop?

• The Risk of Losing Your Best Staff

Good performers resent having to work with problem people. They don’t like having to do more than their share to pick up the slack left by others. These are the people who will find it easy to find another opportunity. Unless corrective action is taken, your best people will be at risk of leaving. The below-average performers will stay because there will be fewer opportunities for them.

• Impact on Your Reputation as a Manager

When a poor performer is hired, their colleagues will be the first to notice. This will lead to the inevitable hallway conversations, usually directed at the people who made the hiring decision. “How did they possibly hire this turkey?” is not uncommon.

Will this enhance your reputation as a manager? I think not.

• The Reputation of Your Department

People know what area they want to work in. When a cohesive team led by a capable manager enjoys working together, the word gets around.

Similarly, people also form an impression about your team when they see poor performers getting hired. If you want to attract the best people, hiring mistakes certainly won’t help.

• Potential Legal Liability

Unfortunately, America is becoming increasingly litigious. Lawsuits against employers are becoming increasingly common. While Christian organisations were once protected from legal action, this time has long passed.

Lawsuits can become a significant source of stress, add additional time demands, and distract from getting your job done. They are also costly in dollar terms.

• Direct Costs

There are a range of direct costs that can be calculated. Among these are:

• Time spent in drafting or refining a position description
• Time and money spent on advertising
• Time to sort through resumes
• Initial interviews, either by phone or in person
• More extended interviews, often with a panel of two or three people
• Time spent checking references
• Meetings to discuss the outcome of your findings and make a hiring decision

All of this is time taken away from doing your usual job.

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This material is adapted by permission from Hire Right the First Time: A Practical Guide for Christian Organisations, which is available from Amazon. Rev. Peter Corney and Dr. Ken Byrne co-authored this book.

• Rev Peter Corney is an Anglican minister who has been actively involved in writing, teaching, and leadership development for Christian ministers for the past sixty years.
• Dr. Ken Byrne has been an independent organizational psychologist for over forty years.

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