The Cost of Getting It Wrong: What VP of HR Hires Actually Cost Your Organization

I have been doing this for 25 years. In that time, I have learned to read the signs of a struggling senior hire early. Not because I enjoy the conversation that follows, but because the longer you wait, the more expensive the mistake becomes.

A VP of HR misfire is not like a misfire at other levels. The head of HR sits at the intersection of everything: how leaders spend their time, people strategy, vendor relationships, employer brand. When that hire does not work, the cost does not stay contained. It spreads. And in most organizations, how much has been lost does not become visible until the next search is already underway.

Here is what that spread actually looks like.

Leadership Time Does Not Come Back

The most immediate casualty of a VP of HR misfire is leadership capacity. In companies without a strong HR leader, that work tends to pile up in one place: the COO, the CEO, whoever is senior enough to hold it. Performance management, compensation decisions, retention planning, policy development. None of it belongs on an executive’s plate permanently. All of it lands there anyway when the HR function has no one qualified to own it.

The entire reason for making this hire is to relieve that pressure. When the hire does not take, that relief never arrives. The executive who was supposed to be freed up is not freed up. Often, they are less free than before, because now they are managing the integration and the fallout on top of everything else.

Then there is the work product itself. The output produced during those first weeks, the policies drafted, the frameworks built, the processes documented, often does not survive the transition. A new leader brings a new philosophy. They do not build on what the previous person started. They start over. That work evaporates. Two months of effort, gone.

But there is something more costly than wasted output: wasted alignment. Every conversation where an executive adjusted their expectations, shifted their planning, or reorganized their thinking around this VP’s direction has to be worked through again. The organizational map everyone was drawing in their heads gets erased. That reset takes longer to recover from than most organizations expect.

The Organization Was Watching

When you bring in a head of HR, the entire organization notices. Direct reports reset their expectations and start building a working relationship with someone new. Department heads update their thinking about who owns what. Vendor contacts get introduced to the new point of contact and start treating them as the decision-maker.

When that person leaves, all of it has to be unwound. External partners who thought they knew who they were dealing with now have to be reintroduced and rebuilt with whoever comes next. If the company was mid-process on anything, an HRIS evaluation, a benefits review, a compensation audit, those conversations have to restart. The people who noticed are often the ones you most want to impress.

Employer brand is not just what a company posts on LinkedIn. It is what your vendor contacts, peer executives, and prospective candidates observe when something goes sideways. A misfire at the VP level sends a signal. The company that handles it well moves on. The one that does not is still managing the fallout when the next search begins.

Coach First, Decide Quickly

My first instinct when a senior hire is struggling is always to try coaching. Before any decision is made, the person deserves clear feedback, honest conversation, and a direct opportunity to course-correct. A VP who has never received a candid performance conversation is not the same as a VP who has received one and still could not deliver. That distinction is worth holding onto before any decision is made.

But once you have had those conversations, do not wait. Two weeks is too early. Two months is fair. In a fast-growing organization, the function cannot stay in limbo while you hope things improve on their own. Every week you delay is another week the costs compound and the team absorbs what the hire was supposed to relieve.

The early signs are usually readable by the end of month two. The new hire feels overwhelmed. The feedback has not been direct enough to redirect. The handoff the executive was counting on has not happened. And the executive who was supposed to step back is still fully in it.

The distinction I come back to is not coachable versus non-coachable. That framing puts all the weight on the candidate. The better question is whether the conditions for success actually existed. Clear expectations, direct feedback, enough context to orient. If those things were present and the person still could not perform, you have a fit problem. If they were not, you have a conversation to have about what you will do differently next time.

A Clean Exit Sends Its Own Message

How you handle the departure is not separate from the cost calculation. It is part of it.

When a VP of HR is not working out, the employees closest to that leader usually already know it. The announcement, when it is handled well, often brings relief rather than alarm. That is the version of this story a company recovers from quickly. The version that lingers is the one where the departure felt abrupt, unclear, or handled without dignity.

It is also a tough transition for everyone involved, including the person leaving. Treat them accordingly. A clean break on day one sounds efficient. It is often costly. Two months of contacts, processes, and institutional knowledge walk out the door in an afternoon. A short handoff window, even two or three weeks, protects the team left behind and reduces the hole the next person walks into. Be transparent about what is not working. Give the departing VP time to find their next step. Most people, when treated with that level of respect, respond in kind. They want to leave cleanly too.

Your employees are watching how you handle this. What they see tells them something about how they might be treated. If the reasons for the change are clear and the process was handled well, most employees will accept it. Often, they will be relieved.

Searches sometimes fail. That is not the lesson here. The lesson is that a VP of HR misfire is not a contained problem you correct eventually. It touches your leadership team’s time, your employees’ confidence in the function, your vendor relationships, your employer brand, and the months of search time it takes to get back to where you should have been.

We screen hard because we understand what is at stake. When something goes sideways despite that, we stay in it. Part of our guarantee at Schechter Reed is exactly this: we do not disappear after placement day.

The best outcome is always the one where we get the hire right the first time. But when that does not happen, the way you recover counts for just as much as the way you hired.