Imagine this all too real scenario, you are a successful MD of a small business and your headcount is growing steadily to meet the demand of your customers. You realise that you suddenly have over 60 people working for you and need at least three more in the telesales team as you have just lost two high performers and have one who is not doing so well and you think is about to resign.
In addition to this, you recognize that you need some HR support but don’t have the money in the pot to afford an in house HR Manager.
As the MD you have limited time as it is year end and your Accountant is demanding to see you ASAP along with your Department Heads who all seem to have complicated issues in their teams. There is a list of Recruitment Agencies on your switchboard as they regularly call (10 a day) asking to see you about your current recruitment needs. So… you ask your PA to pick the best three agencies to call and ask them to send in CVs for the Telesales roles. “How hard can it be…?” you ask yourself.
Two days later you have three agencies sending in candidate CVs and two other random agencies sending in candidates with no names on the CVs, and then the chase calls start. Current number of CVs sent in ……………45.
You forward them to your Sales Manager who has been on holiday and with three people down, they are looking particularly stressed. As a result, you decide to screen them yourself as it will be quicker and decide that only 2 are worth seeing as the agencies have all missed a crucial point in the brief.
You meet both candidates with your Sales Manager and decide to take on both as you need the bodies and they are pleasant enough and anyway they have telesales experience.
They start a week later, and the invoice arrives from the agencies, which you pay inside the 4 week terms. At the 11 week point you look at the new employees’ performance and realise that neither are performing, and they are now both costing you money. You in fact have an issue, you don’t believe that they should pass the probation period. However, you have paid two large invoices totaling £6,000 to an agency and the rebates run out in a week. You decide to keep them as sales roles are hard to fill and turn to your Sales Manager to ‘train them up’ and give them very clear KPIs to get better results.
Fast forwards to 6 months later, and one of your new hires has since resigned costing you £3,000 in agency fees with no return on your investment, not to mention the hidden cost to your business of inducting and training them over this period and you need to part company with the other one as they are not behaving as you need and have a poor attitude i.e. they are always late, rude colleagues and customers – they need to go.
The Sales Manager is not coping and to avoid adding to their stress you call your local HR Consultancy for help and they offer to come in and support you. Another additional cost…
You still have vacancies in your telesales team and your Sales Manager now resigns due to work related stress (I hear the bells of the Employment Tribunal ringing aloud in the distance). You are now a minimum of £6,000 out of pocket with no Sales Manager and no Telesales Team.
Sound familiar?!
The damage of this cycle is far reaching, with the very real potential of impacting on your culture, employer brand, attrition and not to mention your sales targets for the company (no sales team). Never mind, you can always contact your local recruiter for some Telesales temps and a new Sales Manager.
The Cycle of poor Talent Management is far reaching and should not be overlooked.