A recent article by Dr. John Sullivan presented the shocking statistic that on average, 50% of new-hires failed, across all levels. Given the effort and expense involved in recruiting new workers (especially at the management and executive level) this is a number that no doubt most managers would be appalled by. In fact, only 1 in 5 new-hires were able to be declared a success.
There are a number of factors contributing to this anomaly, first and foremost being that recruitment is a field which is often not measured. Additionally, recruitment processes tend to be somewhat intuitive and if they are updated, are often updated one piece of the process at a time rather than analyzing and re-designing the whole system. This figure also does not encompass further problems such as the loss of qualified potential candidates due to unfriendly application processes.
Of course, you can’t manage what you don’t measure so the first step should be to define what you count as failure. This analysis might include – new hires that are terminated (especially during the trial period), the acceptable training period in which to bring employees ‘up to speed’ with company systems, job performance against KPIs, fit within the team, diversity, salary justification and early voluntary turn over (within 6, 12, or 18 months, for example).
The problem remains that finding quality staff is often a race which ends in hiring the best of a bad bunch. To try to combat these problems we recommend, when in doubt – hire on attitude and team fit, then train, coach, mentor and love them, to have the best chance of retaining your new star talent.