The cost of doing nothing is the costs that occur because needed actions were never taken or unnecessarily delayed

Prevention is better than cure, right? Most aspects of a business have quantified their costs of inaction, but what about HR?

Human Resources is an integral part of any business. So doing nothing can have severe impacts not only on other business functions but the entire business’s performance. Therefore, it’s important that HR leaders are working with management to identify what the costs of slow decision making and inaction are.

Here are 4 reasons why doing nothing in HR can cost you.

Damage Escalates, Fast

Here is an easy example. It may cost you time and money to identify employees that are more likely to commit violent actions. But if you do not mitigate this risk before something happens, the legal damages caused by violence in the workplace will far outweigh any costs it would take to avoid it. In the same way, legal damages caused from discrimination complaints can escalate exponentially if they aren’t attended to quickly. Put fires out early.

Catching Up Can Cause More Issues 

When something goes wrong, it’s normally all hands on deck to fix it and it can be a stressful rush to resolve the issue. But in this frantic rush, it’s far easier to miss details and skip steps especially when the average HR role is completely swamped with issues that need attention. So although you may fix the original problem,  chances are there will be complications and more issues further down the track.

Catching Up Isn’t Always Possible

If you aren’t taking a proactive approach, and moving fast, you will undoubtedly fall behind. When you start to fall behind your competitors, this can be detrimental to your business. How does this relate to HR? If you have a slow hiring process and you give your company a bad reputation for candidate experience. Your competitors will be doing what they can to capitalise on this talent. In turn, you lose the top candidates and your competitors’ performance exceeds yours. Now your business is falling behind the industry and it’s not always easy or possible to recover from that.

Inaction Can Become Part of the Culture

As the HR department, you set the example for your employees. This may be through the recruiting and onboarding when they’re first hired, or even just through the day to day activities of your team. The way you operate sets an example and contributes to the culture of the company. If you are a slow moving, slow decision-making team, you’re contributing to a culture of inaction and slow decision-making.

The cost of doing nothing in HR can be very expensive for your business. The most important thing to do as the HR function is to take a proactive approach in all aspects of your responsibility. Implementing the right systems early so that decisions can be made fast and goals can be achieved quicker. Putting out fires early can save you valuable time and money from issues in the future. And in the end, if you become a leader in your industry being known as a company that moves fast and achieves its goals quickly, you create an extremely valuable employer brand that helps attracts the best talent.