Cost Of A Bad Hire Calculator NZ 2026/27
Owners consistently underestimate what a hire that does not work out costs them, usually by a factor of several. The instinct is to count the salary paid and perhaps the recruitment fee, then treat the rest as bad luck. This page counts the rest. Salary and employer costs over the actual tenure, with KiwiSaver, ACC and ESCT applied on top because they are real money. The recruitment cost already spent, which bought nothing and will be spent again on the replacement. Training and onboarding, which is investment that walked out the door. The management hours spent on performance conversations, documentation and process, which on a role going wrong is usually the owner's own time. Then the three components that are hardest to estimate and frequently the largest: revenue lost or damaged through poor work and broken relationships, the cost of redoing work that was not right, and the drag on every colleague who absorbed the shortfall. The output is a total, a multiple of annual salary, and a percentage of your annual profit, because that last figure is the one that changes how much care goes into the next hiring decision. It also shows what catching the problem four months earlier would have saved, which is the strongest argument for dealing with it promptly rather than hoping.
Employer costs = salary paid × (employer KiwiSaver % + ACC % + ESCT %). All three are entered as adjustable rates because each varies: KiwiSaver by the compulsory employer contribution rate applying to you, ACC by your industry classification and claims history, and ESCT by the employee's total remuneration band.
Management time = hours × hourly rate. Use a fully loaded rate, and for an owner use what the hour would otherwise earn the business.
Team disruption = colleagues affected × (their average salary / 12) × productivity loss % × months affected. This is a deliberately conservative construction: it prices lost output only and ignores morale effects, which are real but not reliably quantifiable.
Exit cost = annual salary / 12 × notice months. Add any accrued leave payout or settlement separately in that field if applicable.
Multiple of salary = total cost / annual salary. Share of profit = total cost / annual net profit.
Earlier exit saving compares the salary and employer costs actually incurred against those to the month you nominate. It deliberately does not reduce the customer, rework or disruption figures, since only you can judge how those accumulated over time; the true saving is therefore larger than shown.
Not employment, tax or legal advice. Last verified: .
The full bill
| What you paid them | |
| Salary over 7 months | $47,833.33 |
| Employer costs at 8.1% | $3,874.50 |
| What you invested and lost | |
| Recruitment cost already spent | $14,189.00 |
| Training and onboarding | $6,500.00 |
| Management time, 42 hours at $95.00 | $3,990.00 |
| What it cost the business | |
| Lost or damaged customer revenue | $38,000.00 |
| Rework and correcting mistakes | $9,500.00 |
| Team disruption, 3 colleagues at 15% for 3 months | $8,437.50 |
| Getting to the end | |
| Notice period, 1 month | $6,833.33 |
| Leave payout or settlement | $0.00 |
| Total cost | $139,157.67 |
Putting it in proportion
| Total cost | $139,157.67 |
| Their annual salary | $82,000.00 |
| Cost as a multiple of annual salary | 1.70x |
| Your annual net profit | $185,000.00 |
| Cost as a share of annual profit | 75.22% |
| Salary and employer costs (would have been paid anyway) | $51,707.83 |
| Everything else, which is pure loss | $87,449.83 |
What exiting at month 3 would have saved
| Salary and employer costs over 7 months | $51,707.83 |
| Salary and employer costs to month 3 | $22,160.50 |
| Saved on wages alone | $29,547.33 |
| Revised total cost | $109,610.33 |
This reduces wages only. The customer damage, rework and disruption would also have been smaller, so the real saving from acting earlier is larger than the figure shown.
The Salary Is The Cheapest Part
On the worked example the salary and employer costs over seven months total $51,707.83. Everything else totals $87,449.83, and only that second figure is genuinely lost: you were always going to pay someone to do the job.
That is why the instinct to count the wage understates the damage so badly. The wage bought seven months of some output. The recruitment fee bought nothing, and will be paid again. The training left the building. The customer relationships may not come back at all.
Worked Example: $82,000 That Cost $139,157.67
Someone on $82,000.00 lasted seven months. Salary paid was $47,833.33 with $3,874.50 of employer costs on top at 8.1%.
Recruitment had already cost $14,189.00 and training a further $6,500.00. Managing the situation took 42 hours at $95.00, which is $3,990.00.
Then the business costs: $38,000.00 of lost or damaged customer revenue, $9,500.00 of rework, and $8,437.50 of disruption as three colleagues lost 15% of their productivity for three months. Exiting cost a month's notice at $6,833.33.
Total $139,157.67, which is 1.70 times the annual salary and 75.22% of the year's profit. One hiring decision consumed three quarters of what the business earned.
The Customer Line Is The One To Get Right
At $38,000.00 the customer damage is the largest single component, and it is the one most people leave blank because it feels unknowable.
It is estimable if you approach it concretely. Which customers reduced their spend or left during that period? What was a typical annual value? How much of that is attributable to the service they received rather than to unrelated causes? A defensible estimate is more useful than a zero, because a zero produces a total that quietly excuses the next rushed hire.
The same applies to rework. Work redone is work paid for twice, and on a trades or professional services business it shows up as jobs that ran well over their quoted hours. Our Job Costing Calculator will show where.
Every Month Of Hesitation Has A Price
Exiting at month three rather than month seven would have saved $29,547.33 in wages and employer costs alone, bringing the total to $109,610.33.
The real saving is larger, because four fewer months means less customer damage, less rework and less disruption to colleagues. Those are not reduced in the table above precisely because only you can judge how they accumulated, but they did accumulate.
This is the practical argument for dealing with performance concerns early. Not harshly, and not without process, but promptly. The cost of a difficult conversation in month two is a fraction of the cost of avoiding it until month seven, and the delay rarely improves the outcome for anyone including the employee.
Prevention Is Roughly Ten Times Cheaper
A bad hire at $139,157.67 against a thorough recruitment process at $14,189.00 is close to a ten to one ratio. Almost any additional rigour at the hiring stage pays for itself if it prevents one mistake in ten.
The measures that help most cost hours rather than money: the same structured questions for every candidate so you are comparing like with like, a practical work sample rather than a conversation about work, reference checks actually completed and actually probing, and a clear written role so both sides know what success looks like.
The most expensive pattern is hiring someone adequate quickly because the vacancy is hurting. That decision feels like it is reducing cost and is usually the one that creates the bill on this page. Our Cost Per Hire Calculator prices doing it properly.
Ask What The Business Contributed
Before recruiting a replacement, it is worth an honest look at whether the conditions caused some of this. An unclear role, no structured onboarding, a manager with no time to supervise, or a decision made under pressure will produce the same outcome with the next person.
Our New Hire Ramp-Up Cost Calculator shows how long a new person genuinely takes to become productive, which is usually longer than owners expect and is a common source of premature judgement. If several hires have not worked out, the pattern is more likely in the process than in the people.
Related NZ Employment Cost Calculators
- Cost Per Hire Calculator: what a proper process costs, for comparison.
- True Cost of Employee Calculator: the full annual cost of an employee.
- New Hire Ramp-Up Cost Calculator: how long productivity really takes.
- Employee Turnover Cost Calculator: the annual cost across the team.
- Redundancy Pay Calculator: where the exit is a restructure rather than performance.
- Can I Afford to Hire?: the background to this calculation.
- Should I Delegate or Do It Myself?: the background to this calculation.
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How to calculate the cost of a bad hire
- Start with what you paid them. Annual salary and how many months they were with you. The calculator applies employer KiwiSaver contributions, ACC levies and ESCT on top, since those are real costs beyond the wage.
- Carry in the recruitment cost. Everything spent filling the role the first time, including your own time. That money did not buy anything, and it will be spent again on the replacement.
- Add training and onboarding. Courses, licences, equipment and the time colleagues spent bringing them up to speed. This is investment that leaves with the person.
- Cost the management time. Hours spent on performance conversations, documentation, planning, and the process itself. On a role that goes wrong this is frequently the owner's time and it is rarely small.
- Estimate the customer and quality cost. Revenue lost or damaged through poor work or lost relationships, plus the cost of redoing work that was not right the first time. These are the hardest to estimate and often the largest.
- Include the effect on everyone else. A struggling colleague slows the people around them. Enter how many were affected, by how much, and for how long, and the calculator prices it.