Why do new hires fail?

11.11.20 01:21 PM - By SPSOfficial

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the price of a bad hire is at least 30 percent of the employee's first-year earnings. Another study pegs this cost at USD 15000 per wrong hire. While most hiring managers agree that wrong hires are costly and draining on organizational resources and morale, there is little agreement about why this happens?

We all can agree that no hiring manager or recruiter would hire a new employee only to set them up to fail. Yet, new hires do fail and often in spite of remedial strategies. A common reason for this is that often role requirements are not clear and at other times there is too much focus on skills that can be acquired with time. What many hiring managers fail to recognise is that there are some fundamental tendencies that are hard to fix or acquired due to sheer individuality of people.

SPS Scan identifies 5 clusters of reasons why people fail at jobs and struggle to remedy or learn key behaviours. These behaviours are so fundamental that in the short term they are hard to imbibe often because they come with their well entrenched belief systems which are hard to change. Let's take a quick look at these fie clusters.

1: Antagonism - Pattern of behaviours that antagonise others - Burning bridges and inability to sustain relationships.

Antagonism is a common cause for non-performance in roles requiring social mediation, customer service, account management, teaching/training, helping and care-giving. Antagonism has strong negative relationships with Agreeableness and Conscientiousness.

2: Detachment - Pattern of behaviours that lead to isolation - Inability to socialise with others and create favourable social reputation.

Detachment is a common caruse for non-performance into roles requiring frequent social interaction, information sharing, initiating contacts, speaking publicly and asserting self over others. Detachment has strong negative relationships with Extraversion and Emotional stability.

3: Inhibition - Pattern of behaviours that inhibit appropriate actions - Inability to start tasks and maintain goals.

Inhibition is a common cause of non-performance in roles requiring responsiveness, being busy, doing a large volume of work, stressful timelines and energy/endurance. Inhibition has strong negative relationship with Emotional Stability, moderate positive relationship with conscientiousness and moderate negative relationship with Extraversion.

4: Disinhibition - Pattern of behaviours that exhibit inappropriate actions - Inability to exercise caution and deliberation in taking prudent actions.

Disinhibition is a common cause for non-performance in roles requiring high stakes risk, procedural action, bigger responsibilities and work which may undergo legal/regulatory scrutiny. Disinhibition has a strong negative relationship with Conscientiousness and moderate positive relationship with Extraversion and Openness.

5: Incomprehension - Pattern of behaviours that impact cognitive efficacy - inability to solve problems and think properly.

Incomprehension is a common cause for non-performance in roles requiring sound judgement, analytical thinking, complex problem solving, dealing with novelty, dealing with ambiguity and decision-making with long term consequences. Incomprehension has strong negative relationship with Openness and Emotional stability.

As expected, our research shows that Disinhibition and Inhibition explain maximum variance in performance at workplace as described in Bartram's great eight framework. Statistically this is a great validation for these constructs. But from a practical stand point it's the granular 30 scales that best describe more specific risks. E.g. Managers who are very high on openness are more likely to have risks in areas like "emotional avoidance" and "self-awareness". This is one of the many reasons why understanding and avoiding wrong hires requires must more granular and data based intelligence.