Hiring one person and starting the next search only after they fail feels like the careful, cheap route. According to the source it is the most expensive one, because of the time the post stands with nobody doing the work.
Recruiting is one of the two reasons the source gives for any drop in results. And an owner who recruits only in reaction, after someone has left or failed, pays more than one who recruits early.
Turnover is a given
According to the source, the rule is to recruit in excess. Its reason is simple: there is heavy turnover in personnel, and many stresses in human society.
So turnover is something you plan around, and good management does not abolish it.
Suppose an owner who was sure the new employee would stay three years. The employee left after nine months, and the booklet calls that perfectly normal.
Or suppose an installer who knew that people in his trade move on about once a year. He always kept one candidate in touch.
How far to overshoot
According to the source, if you expect to need 20 people over the next six months, you should take on at least 40 and you will have your 20. It adds that double is a low figure.
In other words, recruiting in excess means taking on more than you think you need. Turnover comes anyway, and when it does you want someone able to carry on the work.
For a business of one, this does not mean hiring two people when you need one. The booklet gives the translation of the rule to a business of that size.
Suppose an owner who interviewed one candidate and hired her. When it failed, the owner had to begin the search from scratch.
Now suppose the same owner interviewed more than one candidate. When the first one left, the second was still available.
150 days without letters
The next example is, in the booklet's words, the strongest argument in the chapter. A firm hires a person to write its letters. After 60 days it finds that the person does not do the job, so it gets rid of them and hires another. After 90 days it finds that this one cannot do the job either, and the same thing happens again.
The source sums it up: “That's 150 days of no correspondence. It's enough to ruin any firm.”
Now take another firm, which hires three people because it feels it needs one. At the end of 150 days it has one. For the whole of that time it had correspondence, and a profit.
The two routes look different and end the same. The number of days is the same and the final result is the same: one person who stayed. What separates them is five months in which the work either got done or did not.
Every replacement in a line also sends you back to the start.
Suppose an owner who recruited three times in a row over one year. That is a whole year in which the post was not being done.
Or suppose an owner who ran two trial periods side by side. One of the two stayed, and not a single day of work was lost.
Hiring one after another feels careful and cheap, and it is the costliest route there is.
Your best employee is the one most at risk
According to the source, the higher people rise, the more their standing has market value, and the more stress hits them and breaks them apart.
So the person who is best for you can leave most easily, and is also under the most pressure. The two grow together, and both come from the same place: they got good.
Suppose an owner who kept loading more onto his strongest man, because he was the only one who could be relied on. After two years the man left for a competitor.
Now suppose the same owner gave a second employee a hat for the same duties. The pressure eased, and the first employee stayed.
In the same vein, the source says every key post should have a deputy who is in training or in apprenticeship for it. A key post is one with urgent responsibility and great expertise, and in a small business that is usually your own.
Recruiting in excess works only when hats (the written duties of each post) and training follow. According to the source, you can recruit madly, answer every frantic demand for people, and still waste all of them for lack of full hats and full training on those hats.
The booklet gives this chapter two short exercises, called calculate and act.
So when a post at your business falls vacant, part of the price of recruiting is the time the post stands empty. Whoever plans for turnover in advance shortens that time.
The booklet is general knowledge about managing people, not legal advice.