Cheapest/most profit as the ultimate goal is potentially a cultural thing - long term versus short term benefit might be valued more e.g. in Japan. and less in e.g. the US or the UK.
What you say about the cost of replacing people IS the argument I used for getting one of my team a raise. There's no doubt it's very time consuning and difficult to get suitable new people and well worth the small amount this one wanted.
Now that I'm on the other side of the line I can see that one doesn't want to hire people who are going to fight you all the time or (even worse) fight everyone else and cause trouble. Bad/good as that may be .....
Short or long term profit is a cultural thing, even some companies value the one over the other. There are also companies, that will never pay any employee more then the industry average. Those are factors that need to be considered.
About people who fight, that's often really hard to judge. In some companies this is how change happens, and it's appreciated in the end (or not).
What you say about the cost of replacing people IS the argument I used for getting one of my team a raise. There's no doubt it's very time consuning and difficult to get suitable new people and well worth the small amount this one wanted.
Now that I'm on the other side of the line I can see that one doesn't want to hire people who are going to fight you all the time or (even worse) fight everyone else and cause trouble. Bad/good as that may be .....