·5 MIN READ
The obvious cost of a bad hire is the salary you paid before the person left. The real cost is much larger and rarely shows up in a single P&L line.
Recruitment costs, again. Agency fees, advertising, HR time — all doubled when you replace someone.
Onboarding & training. Weeks of ramp-up you now write off.
Lost productivity across the team. A single disengaged or dishonest hire drags down colleagues.
Reputational and cultural damage. Especially in tight KZN markets, word travels.
Depending on the role, industry research puts the fully-loaded cost of a bad hire at 30–150% of annual salary. A single R400 check is a rounding error against that.