Recruitment lag time lasts six weeks before new recruit replaces leaver

Thirty working days are lost on average between an employee leaving an organisation and their replacement starting, research has revealed.

The Adecco PayCheck Survey 2008 questioned 700 medium to large employers to explore the impact of recruitment and retention.

It found that an average of six weeks was taken from last days to first days, with skilled managers requiring almost seven weeks to replace.

However, the workers left to cover the gap are not overly burdened: only one in five employers said staff worked longer hours before a replacement was found, and 36% said workloads increased.

Steven Kirkpatrick, managing director for Adecco UK and Ireland, said: "With the average time to replace an employee at a skilled manager level at nearly seven weeks, companies need to consider a more efficient approach for sourcing the right employees."

The average length of employment tenure in the UK is 5.6 years, according to the survey.