This calculator looks at the wider financial exposure created when a role, capability requirement and operating structure are not fully aligned.
It helps SME leaders estimate how cost can accumulate through recruitment activity, salary and onboarding, lost productivity, management time, team disruption and missed opportunity.
The result is not a diagnosis. It is a way to understand what may be at stake before the same hiring decision is repeated.
The calculator provides an indicative estimate across five areas:
Recruitment process costs: Internal time, sourcing and external recruitment activity.
Salary and onboarding waste: Salary paid before the issue becomes clear, together with onboarding investment.
Productivity and performance loss: Lost output during the vacancy period and while the role is underperforming.
Team disruption and morale: Additional management time and pressure absorbed by the wider team.
Opportunity cost: The value of delayed decisions, missed output and attention diverted elsewhere.
The figures are estimates designed to support better workforce decisions, not precise financial forecasts.
The calculator estimates the financial exposure associated with a failed or misaligned hire.
It cannot determine whether the underlying cause sits in role design, decision ownership, structural fit, capability expectations, assessment or the wider operating environment.
If you want to understand where the pressure may be coming from, the Workforce Health Check is the next step. If you already have a specific proposed hire in mind, the Before You Hire Review examines the requirement in more depth.
Start the Workforce Health Check
Explore the Before You Hire Review
Enter the role, salary, hiring timeline and outcome to see how recruitment cost, lost productivity, management time and disruption may compound.
The result is indicative and takes only a few minutes to complete.
You will receive an indicative estimate of the potential financial exposure associated with a failed or misaligned hire. The result shows the scale of the risk, but does not diagnose the underlying cause.
A high estimated cost does not show whether the issue was caused by the individual, the role, the structure or the conditions surrounding the hire.
The calculator is designed to show the scale of the potential exposure.
Understanding the cause requires diagnosis across factors such as Capacity, Capability, Ownership and Structure.
