“Time is money,” is a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin. What was true for our forefathers is still true for all of us today. For businesses, time is a strategic resource that needs to be managed on a consistent basis. You can’t re-spend your time. Once time has passed, it is history and no amount of manipulation will reclaim previous minutes, hours or days.
When many people consider recruiting for important positions within a company, the focus is often on cost. That is understandable: CFOs manage companies based on financial budgets, so cost is an important consideration that permeates most management decisions. However, not many companies have somebody who budgets time.
For a recruiter, quality and time is of the essence. The cost of recruiting services is simply a reality of managing that quality and time. On closer examination, the cost of not filling key company positions in a timely manner can be substantial. Let’s break it down and see what delays in recruitment can cost:
- Unmet goals. Every company has strategic goals, sales goals, and business goals that need to be reached. Often, meeting these goals is critical to performance bonuses and the career advancement of people who are responsible for meeting them. Every week that a position remains unfilled is often a lost opportunity to meet or exceed those goals.
- Brand experience. Many of the positions we help fill have important functions that directly relate to delivering a quality brand experience for a company. Your brand is often judged by the people that others interact with at your company. If there is no one to talk with because the position is unfilled, it can reflect poorly on your brand, or provide competitors with an opportunity to “steal” your business. The same holds true if a shortage of time and lack of adequate internal resources has caused you to hire the wrong person to fill a position.
- Team stress. The fact that you need to fill a position means there is not enough capacity with your present staff to get the work done. Until that job is filled, others in the office often have to pull double duty to make up for the position that has yet to be hired. While most people can tolerate this for shorter periods of time, it can be detrimental to your present staff when positions go unfilled for long periods of time.
- Lost momentum. Momentum is important in business. Often new positions are needed when your company is on a roll. Business is growing. Times are good. However, momentum is difficult to acquire, but easy to derail. Filling positions in a timely manner with qualified people is often essential to maintaining that momentum. If a job is vacant for a length of time, the momentum that your organization enjoyed may languish.
It’s easy to see why Benjamin Franklin was right. Losing time is the same as losing money. That is why it is critical to use internal and external resources effectively to put good people into important positions as quickly as feasible.
