Minimising the Costs of Hiring

Hiring staff is expensive. Research shows that the actual and opportunity cost for advertising, shortlisting, interviewing, on-boarding and training new staff, is somewhere between $7,000 and $15,000 per new employee. If you are recruiting multiple staff per year, this quickly ads up.

With constant pressure to reduce costs, how do you minimise recruitment expenses? How do you ensure you hire the right person so you don’t have to repeat the process in a couple of months’ time? Recruiting through online jobs boards such as Seek can be frustrating and wastes your valuable time and money sorting through hundreds of unsuitable candidates. Employing someone you or your friends, family or employees know might cut down on time, but it can put relationships at risk when things go wrong.  

To minimise costs, you need a plan and an efficient way to identify who and where your ideal candidate is, and attract them to the position. Critical to this is developing a job ad and position description that highlights the benefits of the role and the type of candidate you are seeking.

Most importantly, you need to utilise different channels to advertise depending on the type of role including:

• Social media such as Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook groups, ads and posts.
• Business networking groups, industry groups and professional associations.
• Universities and TAFE institutes who can directly advertise the position to students.
• Employment service providers who have access to many younger and mature aged candidates that have fantastic skills and experience but lack networks and current work history.

Many employment services candidates also attract a range of various wage subsidies and employer payments to help offset the costs of recruitment and wages in the first 6 – 12 months. For eligible candidates and businesses, the Qld government provides payments of $10,000 – $20,000 for hiring people who have been unemployed for between 4 and 52 weeks and Commonwealth funded employment agencies offer wage subsidies of between $6,500 and $10,000 for the first 6 months.

A plan, a targeted recruitment process and payments to minimise or offset hiring costs – sounds easy, right? Well, it can be. But if you’re not sure how to get started, or how to maximise the employer payments, engage an expert who can offer a cost-neutral and effective way to help navigate the recruitment and claims process.Oh, and make sure that your expert understands that business costs matter.