A leasing office where the energy shifted the day a new team member walked in, and not for the better.
A bad hire is not a personnel problem. It is a tax levied on everyone who has to work around them.
The financial cost of a failed hire in multifamily, recruiting, onboarding, lost productivity, and eventual separation is well documented. The cultural cost, the quiet resignation of high performers who now share a space with someone who does not belong, is rarely measured and always higher.
Most bad hires result from leaders who hired against urgency rather than standard, trading short-term vacancy on the org chart for a long-term drag on the team.
The discipline of hiring slowly, holding the standard when the pressure to fill is highest, is one of the clearest expressions of leadership integrity available to any operator in this industry.
The energy shifted the day she walked in. Three good people started looking for the exit within sixty days. The bad hire left six months later. The three good people left first. Hire like the team is watching, because they are.
The cost of a bad hire is not the salary. It is the talent you lose because of them. — Mike Brewer
When did you last hire against urgency rather than standard, what did it actually cost you, and what would you do differently if you could not fill the role for another thirty days?