When Saving £5,000 on Salary Costs Far More

The budget is £55,000.

The candidates who can genuinely do the job are looking for £60,000.

So the search carries on.

Another advert goes live. More CVs are reviewed. A few interviews take place, but nobody is quite right. Before long, the vacancy has been open for three months and the business is still hoping the perfect person appears at the original salary.

Sometimes they do.

Often they don’t.

A salary problem rarely stays a salary problem

An unfilled vacancy has a cost, even if it never appears as a neat line on a spreadsheet.

Work is shared among an already busy team. Managers spend more time covering operational problems. Projects slow down. Overtime increases. Customers wait longer. Good employees start wondering why the position still hasn’t been filled.

The business may be holding firm over a £5,000 gap while losing considerably more through delay, disruption and management time.

That does not mean every candidate should be given whatever salary they ask for.

It means the salary should be tested against the actual market, rather than the figure the business hoped would be enough.

The job may have moved but the salary hasn’t

This happens particularly often when replacing somebody who has been with the company for several years.

Their salary reflects when they joined, not necessarily what it now costs to recruit their replacement.

The role may have grown too. More responsibility has been added, expectations have increased and the new person is expected to bring skills that were never part of the original job.

Yet the salary is still based on the person who left.

That creates a vacancy that looks reasonable internally but struggles as soon as it reaches the market.

Candidates compare the whole opportunity

Salary is not everything.

A strong manager, interesting work, sensible flexibility, progression and a good company culture all carry value. We regularly speak to people who would accept slightly less money for the right opportunity.

But slightly less still has limits.

If the salary sits too far below comparable roles, the employer is asking the opportunity itself to make up the difference. Sometimes it can. Sometimes it simply creates doubt about how the position is valued.

Know which problem you are solving

When a search is struggling, it is worth asking three honest questions:

• Are the right people unavailable, or are they available at a different salary?

• Has the role changed since the budget was agreed?

• What is leaving the position vacant now costing the business?

The answer will not always be to increase the salary.

The brief may need narrowing. The experience requirements may be unrealistic. Someone with greater potential and less direct experience may be the better appointment.

But continuing the same search at the same salary and expecting a different result is rarely much of a strategy.

The cheapest hire is not always the person on the lowest salary.

It is the person who can do the job, stays with the business and allows everyone else to get back to theirs.