Most organizations will have stories to tell relating to bad hires. These will normally consist of the costs and hassles of making a bad hire. The sad reality is that just because you ran a very good interview campaign doesn’t necessarily eliminate the risks of you ending up with the wrong person. But how to tell if you’ve made a bad hire? In most cases, time will be the telling factor to confirm just whether or not you got things right and hired the best person.
This blog post will take a closer look at some of the indications that your new person just might not be able to cut it.
Learning the Ropes
Before we dive right into trying to understand what makes a bad hire, we should perhaps pause and give some thought to individuals who are learning the ropes. The pace in which many businesses operate means that time is not always given to new people. As a direct result of this, strong negative opinions can develop even before the newbie has had a chance to settle in.
It might not always be the employee’s fault that they are off to a slow start. To understand this further, it is important to take a look at your own induction process. Does it provide the new person with a good grounding in which to do their job?
The onboarding process is pivotal in providing your new starter with all the tools that they need in the early days of their career. Quickly setting the scene that this person is important to the business and making what is expected of them clear can help to ensure that a good hire doesn’t turn into a bad one.
The Social Media Junkie
Social media plays a massive part in people’s lives. Catching up with development on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus is part and parcel of how a huge number of people function. With social media usage, however, the danger signs that you have employed the wrong individual can come about almost from day one.
Most employees feel that accessing their social media is a given right, even during working hours. As a result of this, almost every employee will take time out of their working day to get their fix. Of course some organizations are their own worst enemies here, as without installing a proper computer misuse policy this type of behavior can be hard to eradicate.
Catching a brand new employee accessing their pages during non-break times could well be an indicator that you have an issue on your hands. You can bet that if it is not stopped at this stage, it will grow into a serious problem. In many respects the same applies to text messaging.
Attendance or Timekeeping Issues
During the early days of employment the individual will hopefully demonstrate signs that will impress their new employers. However, sometimes this just doesn’t happen, with issues around attendance or timekeeping becoming a factor. An employee that misses days early on without justifiable reasons will very often go on to become less productive than they really should be.
The Same Mistakes Keep Cropping Up
It should be remembered that even the best of employees are not computers. As a result of this, they will make the odd mistake here and there. However, a bad hire will often result in the same mistakes being made over and over again.
Making mistakes is part of an ongoing training process; in most cases a new person will learn from them and grow. Sadly when a newbie continues to make the same errors, it can be as a result of the following:
- They are not paying attention.
- They don’t know how to perform this task.
- They just don’t care.
Having a talk with a new employee will often help to determine exactly what is at the root cause of their mistakes. Hopefully it can be addressed with additional support or training, but sometimes it might go to prove that you have got it wrong and made a bad hire.
Attitude Problems
Starting a new job can put a fresh set of strains on an otherwise happy and contented individual. These will often manifest in ways that suggest they have some kind of attitude problem. Perhaps for the first few days of employment it is sensible for the recruiter to let things go, after all it could just be down to the pressure of a new job.
However, if the attitude issues persist, this might well be how the person normally behaves. Maybe they were able to disguise it sufficiently during the various hiring stages. Poor attitudes can very quickly become toxic in working environments — with this in mind it is essential that it is “nipped in the bud” as early as possible.
Sometimes a person might not even know that they are displaying signs of having a bad attitude, until it is pointed out to them.
The “I need” Person
Most people who start a new job will just knuckle down and get on with what’s required of them. They won’t for a moment start to make demands centering on what they need to carry out their tasks.
An indication of a bad hire might be clearer when your newbie starts asking for things on their very first day. The “first day requisitioner” might well want a new desk to work from or a better computer system. Very often, this type of person will try to find external reasons as to why they can’t carry out their job properly, when in reality they should be looking for reasons a little closer to home.
At My Old Job
Another giveaway revealing how to tell if you’ve made a bad hire is if your latest recruit is constantly referring to the ways that things were done in their old organization. In some respects this might be beneficial, as a fresh set of eyes can see different ways to improve working practices. But, when you hear it all day, every day, then there is probably an issue.
The chances are that this new person is struggling to come to terms with the emotional transition of changing to a new company.
Just Not Fitting In
Depending on the size of your business, it can be quite daunting for a new person to get to know their co-workers. It is worth remembering that not everyone has an outgoing personality.
Sometimes a new hire will tuck themselves away and resist integrating with other members of your team. Nerves are likely the number one factor here, although sometimes deeper issues might be the cause of them not fitting in.
When this situation is allowed to develop, it can cause serious side effects. Very often, cooperation isn’t forthcoming from the remainder of their team. This, over time, represents a real challenge to any business.
Time Investment
If a couple, or indeed more of the above factors appear, it can quite quickly signal the end for the career aspirations for the new person. However, before making the decision to let them go, it is sensible to double check that you have done everything possible to assist them.
Without wishing to labor the point, take a closer look at your own onboarding process to make sure that you have given them the very best of starts. Pairing the newbie up with an experienced employee can really help to take the edge off of things for the first week or so. Sadly, far too many businesses need to see immediate results from an individual, often at the detriment of their overall career.
The reality is that when you fire someone you will be faced with costs — these come in the shape of both time and money. Very often it is the time element that is the hardest to deal with. The entire recruitment process will need to be kicked off again, this time in the search for the perfect employee.
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