Zombies In The Workplace

 

“The cost associated with employees who are disengaged and under-performing can be frightening.” Frightening like a zombie movie! Here’s a great graphic from Todd Wasserman that breaks down and aggregates those costs when employers put bodies into roles just to fill a vacancy.

I’ve heard bandied around the rule of thumb that cost of replacing a bad hire and dealing to their collateral damage can be equivalent to their annualised salary.

I wrote an e-book ages ago (available on Amazon) milking the whole ‘employing zombies’ metaphor. At no stage did I ever come up with a line as cool as my favourite ever from a zombie movie, “If you love me, you’d let me eat your brains.” That is a tough one to argue.

Michael Bertrand’s blog post expands on the zombie metaphor, the subsequent costs of disengaged employees and the wisdom of investing more time, effort, money and hiring external consultants in getting it right. I may be a tad cynical about that last one but the general theme is one with which I agree. When it comes to hiring, no body is better than any body.