Flsmidth Employees: The Hidden Cost of Not Knowing Who You're Hiring

Let me tell you about the worst hiring mistake I ever made. I was in my second year at FLSmidth, fresh off a successful project, and my boss said, "We need three more process engineers. Find them cheap."

I did.

Found three candidates willing to work for 15% below market. Thought I was a hero. Then came the real cost.

The Surface Problem: Low Salaries, High Volume

The obvious issue is finding talent. The mining equipment sector is competitive. Everyone wants engineers who understand crushers, mills, and flotation circuits. My solution was to target recent graduates and candidates from smaller firms who hadn't worked with big systems.

I hired three people in six weeks. The budget looked fantastic.

The Deeper Issue: Knowledge Velocity

Here's what I learned the hard way. An FLSmidth employee isn't just a warm body with a degree. They need to understand:

• Our specific crusher design philosophy (not just any crusher)
• The interplay between our automation systems and traditional mechanical components
• How our global project management framework works (it's not like smaller firms)
• The sheer scale of our projects (a $50M installation ain't a $500k one)

My cheap hires had zero context. One of them spent three weeks trying to source a part using specifications from a competitor's machine. That's not their fault—they simply didn't know.

I still kick myself for not factoring in ramp-up time. If I'd hired someone with 5 years of experience at Metso, they'd have been productive in 4 weeks. My hires? Average 14 weeks. And that's being generous.

The Economics of It

Let me do the math for you. Three engineers, each saving $15,000 in annual salary vs. a market-rate hire.

Annual saving: $45,000.

But their delayed productivity? Each one cost roughly 10 weeks of wasted supervision time and rework. At a fully loaded cost of $150/hour for an FLSmidth senior engineer overseeing them, that's $60,000 per new hire.

Total cost of cheap hires: $180,000 in buried supervision costs.

Net loss compared to hiring experienced staff: $135,000. In the first year.

And that's before we talk about the project delay—a three-week slippage on a major mill installation that cost us a penalty clause worth $120,000.

The Consequence Nobody Talks About

You want to know the real hidden cost? It's your existing team's morale. My senior engineers spent hours correcting mistakes. Simple stuff: wrong pump sizing, incorrect piping specs, misread datasheets. After month three, they stopped mentoring. They just did the work themselves.

The experienced FLSmidth employees resented me. Not the new guys—me. Because I'd saddled them with trainees they didn't have time to train.

One of my best senior engineers quit. Said she felt like she was 'carrying dead weight.' Can you blame her?

The Fix (Short Version)

After that disaster, I changed my hiring approach completely. I now spend 30% more on salary to get someone who can hit the ground running. No, that hire isn't cheaper on day one. But they're profitable by month three instead of month nine.

I created a simple checklist for hiring managers at FLSmidth:

• X-factor experience: Not just years, but the right project types.
• Technical breadth: Can they explain the difference between a gyratory and a cone crusher from practical experience?
• Ramp-up plan: What's the specific 90-day onboarding for this role?

Does that mean I never hire juniors? No. But I don't fill senior roles with junior salaries. It's a false economy.

Look, you can check the FLSmidth Yahoo Finance page if you want. I'm not saying we're a perfect employer. No company is. But from my corner of the org chart, I learned that value matters more than price.

Period.