Hire or Train? Smart Answers Here | 2-Minute Video

Should you hire or train for the next open role?

Either is almost always an option. Bring in someone with the exact skills you need? Or train a great employee who might be up to the challenge and ready for a change.

The Dilemma: Hire or Train

To hire or train raises several dilemmas for HR pros and hiring managers. For one, can you be sure the new hire has the skills you need — and will they be a good fit with the team or culture? On the flipside, will training one employee create a bigger hole where they were?

Plus, there’s the expense: It costs nearly four times as much to hire a new employee than it does to train an existing employee. But even if you look at costs alone, you aren’t guaranteed either situation will work out as you expected.

What’s Up in This Episode

The unknowns make the decision to hire or train difficult. Fortunately, we have help here from an expert and practitioner.

In this episode, John Deal, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Phenom walks us through the things to consider when it’s time to fill an open role, plus ways to get the person — whether hired or trained — integrated in the new role.

Click, watch and listen for more details on making the decision between hiring new talent or training your existing employees.

Transcript (edited for clarity):

Should you hire or train? That is the question.

In fact, it’s a question many HR pros face all the time.

While there’s no easy answer, you should know that SHRM found it costs about $4,7000 to hire a new employee. And the Training Industry Report found It costs about $1,100 to train an existing employee.

But getting the right people and skills in a position isn’t just about money. So how do you decide?

Deal: It depends on the position you’re hiring for, the skills that you need and what is the investment you’re going to have to make to upskill vs. the investment you’re going to have to make to hire externally.

But, sometimes existing employees – and even job candidates – aren’t where you need them to be. Then what? You’ll need to assess …

Deal: What is the skills gap? How long will it take? And what investment does it take to get them to the next level? Where does it make sense to source that talent?

When you figure out what makes sense between hiring new or training, you’ll want to …

Deal: Give people options. People learn in different ways. Some people are good with taking courses online and they can get their certification or things like that. Some people like a more hands-on approach, so they might benefit from coaching or having a mentorship or something like that. Some people just like to dive in and do the work and demonstrate it that way. So I think you have to give people options because you have different learners.

So there you have it. When you have to fill a role – and wonder, “Should I hire or train?”  — you want to:

• Break it down. The answer to hire or train isn’t one-size-fits-all. Make each decision individually.
• Consider three things: The existing skills gap, the time it’ll take to fill it and the resources you’re willing to spend.
• Give options. Be ready to train your new or existing employees in more than one way so you can do what’s right for the learner.

The decision between hiring and training will always be difficult. But knowing how to decide which will deliver the best results, you can address it with some ease.