My mother always taught me that it’s rude to eavesdrop. But when you’re in an elevator hurtling up 35 floors whilst your fellow travellers are having a conversation, discretion is not always possible. Sorry mum.
This is what I heard this in the elevator morning.
Person 1: How are you?
Person 2: *sigh* Things are just crazy in our team right now.
Person 1: Are you still doing heaps of hours?
Person 2: Yep, we all are. We really just need another couple of bodies and we’d have this finished.
Person 1: …and none of you would be about to have a nervous breakdown.
Person 2: Yeah we’re all basically taking it turns to book in our next “mental health” day.
Then they exited the lift. This conversation really got me thinking…what is the cost to that company of not hiring those ‘couple of bodies’ to help its team complete their project?
The costs that I observed in that brief interchange were manifold:
- Reduced productivity due to exhaustion
- Increased absenteeism
- Low morale because the company won’t support their staff in working standard hours
- Risk of attrition for another offer with better conditions
- Poor employer reputation in the market due to negative sentiments
Studies show that over 70% of job seekers are open to hearing about new opportunities at any point in their career. These people are called ‘passive’ job seekers. For this company right now, I’d estimate their vulnerability to losing people who get a call about another job is extremely high.
So if you add up the cost of lost productivity, absenteeism, and potentially having to replace and retrain new permanent staff members, as well as deal with the knock-on effects of low morale across the broader business, surely it’s cheaper to just get a contractor or two in for a few weeks?
I’m cognisant that headcount minimisation is an easy target when managing costs. I’m also cognisant that the costs I’ve mentioned above are less easily quantifiable (read = difficult to convince your CFO of). However my own experiences during my career make me certain that they are real. Without a doubt, the cost to your business is much higher than the cost of a contractor or two to get you through a spike in your company’s busy period.
Clicks’ Account Management teams provide quarterly Relationship Management Review (RMR) meetings with our clients. Among other things, we use the RMR to forecast your resourcing requirements to make sure you’ve got skilled people to hit the ground running when you need them. Clicks contractors will augment your workforce when it’s needed most, and you can rest easy knowing the only conversations happening in the elevator are about the footy results or where to go for a drink on Friday night.
If your business could benefit from interim staff augmentation to improve your overall results, please get in touch with your Clicks Account Manager, or call us on 1300 CLICKS.
Sam Micich
General Manager, Operations
