A recent survey by Career Builder, polling over 2,000 employers, reveals the reasons, effects, and characteristics behind a bad hire. Within the U.S. alone, 68 percent of employers said they were affected by a bad hire in the past year. Consider more of the findings below:
What makes an employee a “bad hire”?
The answer ranges from company to company, but across the board – a bad hire is everything that a good employee is not. Characteristics of a negligent employee include:
- Didn’t produce the proper quality of work (63 percent)
- Didn’t work well with other employees (63 percent)
- Had a negative attitude (62 percent)
- Had immediate attendance problems (56 percent)
- Customers complained about the employee (49 percent)
- Didn’t meet deadlines (48 percent)
Costs of a hiring such an employee include:
- 41 percent of companies that made a bad hire estimate that it cost them more than $25,000
- 25 percent said it cost more than $50,000
- 40 percent of employers reported that a new hire typically costs $1,000 or less, 34 percent said between $1,001 and $5,000, and 27 percent said more than $5,000
Not only can hiring an inadequate employee make a financial impact, it can also negatively affect the company’s productivity (41 percent), as well as other factors including:
- Employee morale (36 percent)
- Impact on client solutions (22 percent)
Bottom line: Bad hires can cause a number of problems – in both the short and long term growths of the company. Hiring bad candidates can be avoided when thorough reference checks are applied (see: “Pre-Hiring Candidates Through Reference-Checking”).
Employers: Do you agree with the findings? How do you define an unfavorable employee?
