The hidden cost of a cheap senior hire in the UAE. The salary is the smallest part.
You are the bottleneck, so you hire a senior person at a small salary to take work off your desk. It feels like a saving. It is often the most expensive hire you make.You hire a cheap senior person to take work off your desk. It feels like a saving. It rarely is.
- A cheap senior hire is often a junior with a senior title. The title is cheap. The judgement is missing.
- In the UAE you pay for the visa, the months of learning, your own hours and the exit.
- A new person on a broken step is the same broken step, with a salary on top.
- Write the step down, decide who says yes, then hire. Pay properly for the people who decide.
In this article
Every yes in your firm waits for you. Every client question, every price, every small problem lands on your desk.
So you hire a senior person to take some of it away. To save money, you pick a big title with a small salary.
This is my opinion from running a business here. A cheap senior hire does not save money. You pay a hidden tax on it every month.
01What you think you are buying
A senior hire is not hands. It is judgement, someone who can make a call without you.
A cheap senior hire is often a junior with a senior title. The title costs nothing to give. The judgement is what you needed, and it is not there.
What you wanted and what you got
Made without you
Sent back to you
Pushes back when you are wrong
Says yes to everything
Trust them from day 1
Ask for you by name
Gets lighter
Gets heavier
A senior person who is paid well tells you when you are wrong. A cheap one says yes to everything, and bad decisions slip through.
02The real cost list
Owners look at the salary and stop. Here is the full bill.
5 costs that sit under the salary
- 01Getting them here
The visa, the residency papers, the recruiter and the travel. In the UAE these are yours to pay.
- 02The months before they help
They are learning your clients, your team and your way. You pay a full salary for half the work.
- 03Your hours
Every hour you spend training them is an hour you are not selling or leading.
- 04Clients they touch while learning
A wrong reply or a missed detail lands on a real client, not on a test.
- 05The exit, if it does not work
Notice, money owed by law, and a new search that starts from zero.
Cost 3 is the one most owners never count. Your hours are the most expensive thing in your company.
03What the UAE rules add to the bill
Some of these costs are the law. I read them on the UAE government portal today.
The employer pays to bring the person in. The UAE government portal says the costs of recruitment, travel and the residency permit are borne by the employer, and charging a new hire a recruitment fee is illegal.
Then comes the trial. Probation can last 6 months at most, and if you end it, you give 14 days written notice. If they stay past a year, end of service gratuity starts to build at 21 days of basic salary for each of the first 5 years.
- 6 monthsis the longest a probation can run
- 14 daysof written notice if you end it during probation
- 21 daysof basic salary per year of gratuity, for the first 5 years
This is fair to the person you hire. It also means a wrong hire costs real money to undo. Your contract and free zone set the details, so check with your lawyer.
04You end up doing 2 jobs
The new person gets a task. They are not sure. So they bring it back to you.
Now you do your own job, and you check theirs. You hired someone to take work off your desk, and your desk got heavier.
It takes months to find out it did not work, and months more to find someone new. That time never comes back.
05A new person on a broken step
Most of the time, the hire was not the real problem. The step was.
Nobody wrote down how the work gets done. It lives in your head, and only you can say yes. So every new person waits for you, just like the old team did.
A new person on a broken step is the same broken step, with a salary on top.
Every salary should own 1 result, like new clients signed or jobs delivered on the day you promised. If you cannot write the result, the seat is not ready yet.
06The test before you hire
Before you post the job, answer these. If you cannot tick all 5, fix the step first.
5 questions to answer first
- Is the step written down, in plain words, so a new person can follow it?
- Who says yes, and for what? Is it written down who else can decide?
- What 1 result will this person own?
- What does good look like at the end of probation?
- Am I paying for judgement, or only for a title?
Different seats need different things. Pick the 1 trait the role really needs, and hire for that, not for the CV.
07What to fix first
No big plan. Just 4 plain moves, in this order.
Fix the step, then hire for it
- 01Write the step down
Pick 1 thing only you can do today. Write how you do it, step by step, in plain words.
- 02Write who says yes
Money above a line, a client about to leave, a hire or a fire. Everything else gets an owner who is not you.
- 03Give the seat 1 result
Write the 1 result this person will own before you write the job post.
- 04Then hire, and pay properly
Pay well for the 2 or 3 people who make decisions. Save money everywhere else.
Sometimes, after these 4, you do not need the hire at all. The step was the problem.
Look at the last hire you made to take work off your desk. Ask 1 question: did my desk get lighter? If not, find the step under that seat and write it down.
08Questions, answered
Is a cheap senior hire ever a good idea?
It can work when the step is written down, the person owns 1 clear result and someone checks the first months closely. Without those, the low salary hides a high cost.
How do I know if my senior hire is not working?
Look at your own desk. If more work comes back to you than before the hire, the hire is not taking load off you yet.
What does it cost to end a hire in the UAE?
It depends on the contract, the time served and the free zone. During probation you give 14 days written notice. After a year, gratuity starts. Ask your lawyer for your case.
Should I hire senior people or fix the process first?
Fix the step first. Then decide if you still need the hire. A good person on a working step grows fast. A good person on a broken step gets stuck.
If you want to see which steps in your firm still wait for you, that is one of the first things the Capacity Diagnostic looks at.
Digital PratikA 37 year old, smiling, practical Gujarati, a Kathiyawadi businessman. Founder of JorrDaar LLC, Dubai.
