The real cost of unfilled vacancies

If you are an employer with unfilled vacancies in your workforce, as each day goes by without making an appointment you will be less productive. Leave that clock ticking and money simply goes down the drain – hour by hour, day by day. This isn’t an exaggeration.

For many businesses, particularly SMEs, exactly quantifying the true costs of an unfilled vacancy might be difficult but, rest assured, failing to recruit the best person in a timely fashion is costing you. And it’s currently not getting easier to find the right person, either. The number of unfilled job vacancies in the UK remains historically high at just over 800,000.(Source: ONS Vacancy Survey). At the same time, our unemployment rate is almost at a 45-year low and nominal regularly weekly pay has risen by 3.6% (Source: ONS).

Let’s face it, you’re locked in a talent war, whether you like it or not.High employment, rising wages and a shrinking jobs market does not make recruitment easy. Leaving a role vacant in your company inevitably causes issues. Frustrations may arise as other departments or individuals assume more responsibility. They themselves may become more inefficient; overall productivity may suffer. Britain is no stranger to low productivity, the country has one of the lowest rates inEurope. And it is predicted that boosting the productivity of Britain’s SMEs to match that of Germany could add up to £100bn to our economy. (Source: BusinessProductivity Review, HM Govt).

In the current jobs climate, your ability to recruit is so critical to your productivity.Any failure to increase the value of your goods and services produced per hour of work ultimately restricts what you can afford to pay your employees.And with stiff competition for candidates driving up wages, and increasing costs for businesses, you can’t afford to get trapped in a vicious circle caused by low productivity influenced by a slow recruitment process.Applying urgency when it comes to unfilled positions makes good business sense.Research among some businesses saw 42% report reduced productivity when leaving positions unfilled for up to six months with 38% citing limited businessgrowth as another major consequence. Crooton can help reduce your time-to-hire by providing a smarter way to manage the candidate funnel. We can also help reduce you cost per hire with our fixed price recruitment model.To find out more, contact us today.