In yesterday’s Advisor, we discussed the idea of hiring entire teams instead of individuals. We outlined some of the possible benefits of doing so including increased likelihood of collaboration and less time to full productivity. Today, we’re taking a look at some of the potential drawbacks of this hiring method.
Potential Pitfalls of Hiring Teams
Here are some of the possible drawbacks when hiring entire teams:
- There may be fallout if you have to break up the team. If you discover that only some of the team members are going to work out long term, and you have to terminate one or more of these individuals, it could be more detrimental to employee morale than other terminations would be.
- This method can be expensive. You’ll be bumping up the payroll budget to incorporate an entire group of people, even if you would not have hired each one of them individually at that point.
- You could miss out on a great individual hire. If you hire a group “all or nothing” you may miss out on a high-performing individual on a team who didn’t rise to the top.
- Hiring an entire team can disrupt existing social hierarchies in the organization. It can cause power struggles. Be aware of this possibility, and take steps to ensure the team gets integrated into the greater organization.
- There may be resentment among other employees that this new team is viewed as somehow better. Take care to manage emotions of other employees when taking this route. Be careful not to step on others’ toes when elevating the status of the new hires.
- You may have to update your process. If your hiring team is used to hiring individuals (as most of us are!), it may take some adjustments to get the process done well.
In summary, this method is not for everyone, but it may help organizations looking to have fast ramp-up times and faster integration of new hires. Clearly, since this is not the norm in hiring, it will likely take time to get it up and running as part of your recruiting process.