When it's time to hire, it can feel urgent. Your crew is stretched thin, a job is falling behind schedule, and bringing someone on fast feels like the responsible move. But in crane, rigging, and specialized transport work, the wrong hire doesn't just cost you money, it can put people, equipment and your reputation at risk.
A bad hire shows up in near-misses on the job site, in claims that drive up your premiums, and in the trust your crew and your clients have in your operation. Thorough screening takes longer, but out here,it's part of running a safe, reliable job.
What makes someone a bad hire in this industry?
In an office, a bad hire might mean missed deadlines. On a job site, it can mean someone who hasn't been properly vetted on hands-on experience, an operator who cuts corners under pressure, or a hire who just doesn't respect the safety culture your team has worked hard to build.
It usually doesn't show up on day one. It shows up weeks or months in, after a near-miss, after a client calls concerned about a job, after your safety manager flags the same problem twice. By the time it's obvious, the exposure has already been sitting there.
What does a bad hire actually cost you?
A bad hire costs you money. The most commonly cited figure across industries is that a bad hire can run anywhere from 30% to over 200% of that employee's first-year pay, depending on the role. Now factor in what that looks like on your crew, recruiting and vetting costs, training time on equipment and procedures, the cost of parting ways, and doing it all over again, all while a piece of equipment sits underused or a project stalls.
A bad hire costs you time. When a crew member isn't pulling their weight or isn't following procedure, someone else has to step in, a foreman, a safety lead, an owner. That's time pulled directly from running the business and it compounds the longer the situation goes unaddressed.
A bad hire costs you trust, on the crew and with your carrier. Your best people notice when standards slip. They notice who's cutting corners and who's covering for it. Morale erodes fast in a tight-knit crew and turnover has a way of spreading. On the insurance side, a pattern of incidents or claims tied to inconsistent hiring practices doesn't go unnoticed either, it shows up in your loss history and, eventually, in your premiums.
A bad hire costs you clients. In specialized transport and rigging, your reputation is built job by job. One missed deadline, one safety incident, one unprofessional interaction on-site, and a relationship you spent years building can be gone, along with the referrals that came with it.
A bad hire costs you what never happens. The contract you didn't bid on because the crew was tied up managing a problem. The safety improvement that got tabled. The client who never got a follow-up call because everyone was putting out fires instead. A bad hire doesn't just create problems, it overshadows the good work you could've been doing instead.
Time and money spent screening upfront isn't overhead. It's one of the most direct ways to protect the people, equipment and reputation you've built your business on.
None of the steps below catch everything on their own, it's the combination that lowers your risk.
Make your interviews specific to the work. Generic interview questions don't tell you how someone will handle a live job site or fit into your crew's culture. Ask about real scenarios your team has faced and see how they think it through.
Use hands-on skills assessments. Have candidates demonstrate the work, not just describe it on paper. A resume can list certifications, but a real assessment shows whether someone actually operates the way they say they do.
Bring in more than one set of eyes. Having a candidate meet with a foreman, a safety lead, and ownership gives you a fuller picture than any single conversation can.
Call references and ask direct questions. Don't just confirm dates of employment. Ask former supervisors how the candidate handled a tight deadline, a safety disagreement, or being told something wasn't done right.
Run background and credential checks. This step gets skipped under time pressure more than any other, but it's often the one that catches a problem before it ever reaches your job site.
Thorough screening takes longer. It asks for more coordination, more structure and more patience than filling the seat quickly. But weighed against the cost of a bad hire, that upfront investment is one of the cheapest forms of protection your business can buy.
The goal isn't to eliminate hiring risk entirely. It's to replace guesswork with evidence, so the people you bring onto your crew are people you can build with confidence, the same way you've built everything else in this business.
If you're not sure how your current hiring and safety practices are showing up in your claims history or your premiums, that's a conversation worth having. Reach out to the Emery & Karrigan team, we're here to help.