How Are You Spending Your Employment Budget?
by Paul Barada
How are you allocating your employment budget? Is your major investment at the front end of the process, during the employee-selection stage, or is it at the opposite end of the process, in things like outplacement and exit interviews? Sounds like an odd question doesn't it? I would have thought so too, had it not been for a recent conversation with the HR manager for a major corporation.
We were discussing how his company went about identifying and qualifying prospective employees. The HR manager mentioned how proud he was that the company's average cost-per-hire was incredibly low per person across the board. I could hardly believe it. Compare that to the most recent cost-per-hire survey conducted by the Employment Management Association (EMA), which puts the average in the thousands per person nationally. What made the discussion with this particular person even more interesting was that he asked if our company could conduct either employee satisfaction surveys or exit interviews for his company. Yes, I told him, we could, but I wanted to know what his turnover rate might be, just out of curiosity. The answer? Nearly 40 percent. What's wrong with this picture?
