The cost of doing nothing is the long-term expense that occurs from unnecessary delays or not taking needed action. With respect to recruitment marketing, the cost of doing nothing is not something that is often considered.
HR departments can be slow and deliberate in order to make the right decisions; however, this can result in negative organisational impacts.
In explaining this concept, TLNT compares the cost of escalating damages from organisational inaction to postponing repair costs in your home. By ignoring or delaying the repair of a leaking pipe, what could have taken a few hundred dollars to fix can become thousands of dollars of damage when the pipe bursts and floods a whole floor.
Dr John Sullivan reporting for TLNT states:
It’s important for HR leaders to work closely with the CFO’s office to calculate the actual costs associated with inaction or unnecessary delays in strategic HR areas. The first step for everyone involved is to understand why doing nothing costs so much.
Damages and costs can escalate quickly. Recruitment marketing begins with attracting the best people. Organisations that make ordinary hires can unintentionally change company culture for the worse over time. Hiring weak managers can lead to the hire of weak employees. Once this takes hold, it can be extraordinarily difficult to reverse. If a talent problem persists over years, it can cause year-on-year expense damages. You also run the risk of falling behind competitors and project delays resulting in delayed revenue.
Another unforeseen expense is the cost of turnover from jobs not meeting candidate expectations, or not matching your employer brand to the employee experience.
Taking emergency action after a talent problem becomes evident can lead to errors. It can also be expensive if you need to rely on external specialists to help correct the problem. Even then, action taken after this point may no longer be effective, no matter how much you spend.
In order to address the problem of inaction, solutions include: investigating matters without delay, retention initiatives, training, leadership development, incentives, better internal movement, purchasing new technology, addressing weak productivity, and effective recruitment marketing to attract and hire top talent.
Preventative action, such as replacing poor managers, is by far the best defence against this problem. These measures can produce better results in the short term and can be more cost-effective in the long term.
Has your organisation engaged in talent loss prevention strategies? Let us know in the comments below.
Source
Understanding The Tremendous Cost Of “Doing Nothing” in HR
Dr John Sullivan
TLNT