In the energy industry, where a single wrong operational decision can affect thousands of people, billions of dollars in assets, and the stability of the supply chain, hiring the wrong people is something businesses cannot afford to ignore. Yet, “bad hires” still happen, even with the most experienced leadership teams.
The consequences extend beyond an awkward exit conversation. An unsuitable hire can silently erode safety cultures, derail progress, and quietly drain the best talent from teams.
This article will explore:
- The real impact of wrong hiring in energy businesses
- How psychometric assessments help solve the problem
- Why platforms like Great People Inside (GPI) are becoming crucial tools for identifying the “best fit” for key positions
“Bad Hire” – A Time Bomb in the Energy Business
The cost of a “bad hire” varies by position and company, but the higher the level and salary, the greater the expense.
Beyond tangible costs such as wasted salary and additional recruitment expenses for rehiring, businesses also face intangible financial losses, including loss of earnings, temporary staffing costs, lost productivity, and a significant drain on management time.
According to SHRM, the cost of replacing an employee can range from 50% to 200% of their annual salary, including transition time and adaptation training. For energy companies, the real damage is not limited to payroll. It lies in missed opportunities, ineffective operational decisions, and a quiet erosion of trust within the team.
Read more:Unstructured interviews reflect the unfairness in hiring
Why Energy Is Uniquely Vulnerable
The impact of misaligned hiring in energy businesses typically extends across four key areas.
1. Severe safety and compliance risks
Safety is always a non-negotiable factor in the energy industry. Poor judgment, low attention to detail, or weak teamwork skills can increase the risk of workplace incidents and regulatory violations. Whether dealing with renewable energy, oil and gas exploration, or electrical grid operations, these sectors are highly regulated.
2. Project Delays and Revenue Losses
Personnel who lack the right behavioural traits or problem-solving skills often struggle in high-pressure environments, leading to lower productivity and project delays.
Energy projects, such as building solar power farms or upgrading grid infrastructure, require tight timelines and high levels of collaboration across multiple departments. An unsuitable hire for a project manager or engineer often leads to bottlenecks, poor decision-making, and missed deadlines.
3. Financial Strains
The true cost of a “bad hire” lies not only in the hiring cost. Loss of productivity, retraining, project delays, and the risk of compliance violations can all create significant financial pressure on the business.
For energy industry leaders, hiring is no longer just about filling vacancies but about building a sustainable, effective long-term team. Replacing employees is expensive, especially for specialised or leadership positions that require extensive onboarding and training.
Read more:One Critical Task HR Managers Often Overlook: Costs of Bad Hires
4. Team and Cultural Erosion
High-potential employees often lose motivation or leave when a poor-fit colleague is hired above or alongside them. In a sector already facing workforce ageing and a scarcity of specialist skills, the loss of even a single key engineer or leader can trigger a chain of resignations that can take years for a company to recover from.
According to Edmondson’s research (1999) on psychological safety within teams, even one wrong hire at a leadership level can erode internal trust, suppress reporting of near-misses, and gradually undermine the behavioural norms that maintain safe operations.
How Psychometric Assessments Help Address the Problem?
Case in Point:An energy infrastructure company once hired a highly experienced operations manager with impressive technical credentials, industry certifications, and more than 15 years of field experience.
On paper, the candidate appeared to be the perfect fit.
However, several months after joining the organisation, problems began to emerge. The manager struggled with destructive feedback, resisted collaboration, and reacted poorly under operational pressure. While technically capable, their behavioural style created tension within teams and negatively affected workplace performance.
After this experience, the company introduced psychometric assessments into its hiring process. Alongside resumes and interviews, candidates were evaluated on:
- Problem-solving ability
- Communication style
- Emotional resilience
- Behavioural and cultural fit
The result was more effective hiring decisions, stronger team compatibility, improved collaboration across departments, and improved employee retention.
This case demonstrates a growing reality across the energy sector: technical expertise alone does not guarantee workplace success. Psychometric assessments enable organisations to uncover the behavioural traits and working styles that traditional hiring methods often miss.
Read more:Increase Your Quality of Hire with These 12 Pre-Employment Assessments
Beyond Resumes: What Psychometric Assessments Actually Measure
For energy organisations, the most critical psychometric factors include:
Cognitive ability and problem-solving under complexity
This refers to a candidate’s ability to process complex information, identify patterns, and draw accurate conclusions under time pressure. In the energy environment, with its complex operating systems and constantly changing market conditions and regulations, flexible thinking is almost a fundamental requirement for many positions.
Read more:Psychometric vs. Personality Assessments – Are They the Same?
Risk orientation and rule compliance
Every energy environment has non-negotiables: permit-to-work systems, process safety barriers, environmental compliance obligations, and stringent legal requirements.
Personality traits such as conscientiousness and rule orientation are considered among the strongest predictors of safe behaviour and compliance in high-risk industries. Assessing these traits before an appointment is one of the most direct investments an energy company can make to strengthen its safety culture.
Strengthening Collaboration Across Technical Teams
Large-scale energy projects require close coordination between engineers, project managers, contractors, field operators, and senior leadership. Miscommunication or poor teamwork can cause project delays and increase operational risks. Psychometric tools help businesses better understand communication styles, teamwork tendencies, and leadership behaviour, thereby supporting the development of more balanced and effectively collaborative teams.
Read more: Key Criteria to Consider When Selecting Psychometric Assessments
Using Great People Inside to Identify “Best Fit Talents” for Key Positions
A Platform Built for Precision
Great People Inside (GPI) is a comprehensive online psychometric assessment platform designed to support the entire employee and executive lifecycle, from talent acquisition and onboarding to performance management, development, and retention. For energy businesses under pressure to recruit the right people from the start, GPI offers a suite of tools that go beyond conventional personality inventories.
TRG International provides GPI assessments and surveys to businesses of all sizes and across industries. The platform’s assessment frameworks are configured and validated in real-world energy operating environments, rather than being adapted from general enterprise tools.
Read more:Unlock Your Hiring Potential: Discover Great People Inside (GPI)
A Multidimensional Assessment Suite
What sets GPI apart from simpler recruitment tools is the depth and breadth of its assessment system. The platform analyses the underlying factors of human thought, behaviour, and emotion through a range of purpose-designed tools:
This diversity allows energy organisations to select assessment suites precisely tailored to the demands of each position—from field operators to senior leaders overseeing large-scale conversion programs.
For dispersed workforces across multiple locations, GPI also offers specialised assessment suites such as GR8 Remote Employee, GR8 Remote Manager, and GR8 Remote Teams, designed specifically for independent and self-managed work environments—characteristic of offshore platforms, remote power plants, or multinational project teams.
From Hiring to the Full Talent Lifecycle
GPI’s value extends beyond the initial selection phase. This platform helps businesses identify leadership potential by providing in-depth metrics on characteristics and work styles, effectively supporting promotion and succession decisions. It pinpoints development needs to build personalised training programs and better understand the factors influencing talent retention in hard-to-replace professional positions.
For energy companies simultaneously facing an ageing workforce, skills shortages, and a rapidly changing technological landscape, having an integrated platform that supports all HR decisions, not just recruitment, offers a significant operational advantage.
TRG International supports clients through system setup, role-specific benchmarking, and continuous optimisation, ensuring that GPI evolve alongside the company’s human resource strategy rather than becoming a static tool.
Read more:What Are the Available Tools to Identify High-Potential Employees?
The energy industry operates at the intersection of technical complexity, compliance pressures, large financial scale, and human safety, a combination that makes every critical hiring decision a high-stakes one.
The cost of getting it wrong is not just measured in months of suboptimal performance. It is reflected in an eroded safety culture, derailed projects, disengaged teams, and years of damage to the corporate reputation.
The next critical hiring decision is closer than you think. When it happens, will you be relying on instinct or data? Our team is ready to show you how Great People Inside helps identify the right person for the right job, every time.
Get in touch with us today!
Sources:
- Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) – The myth of replaceability: Preparing for the loss of key employees (2022) https://www.shrm.org/executive-network/insights/myth-replaceability-preparing-loss-key-employees
- Edmondson – Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams (1999) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.2307/2666999
