Do You Really Need to Hire Another Communications Person?

When a communications team is overloaded, adding another person can seem like the obvious solution. In some cases, it is. But before opening a requisition, it is worth taking a closer look at the nature of the demand.

A highly capable team can still need more support. The important question is whether that need is permanent, temporary, specialized, or being amplified by the way communications work is organized. Those situations can look similar from the outside, but they call for very different solutions.

Start With the Nature of the Demand

The first question is not simply how busy the team feels. It is why the team is busy.

If communications demand has increased permanently because the business has grown, responsibilities have expanded, or the organization now serves more stakeholders, additional headcount may be warranted. But many communications teams operate in environments where demand rises and falls considerably.

A transformation, leadership transition, market launch, acquisition, major internal initiative, or period of heightened external visibility can create significant workload for six months or a year without creating a permanent need. Hiring to accommodate that temporary peak can leave the organization with more fixed cost than it needs once the period passes.

That is why duration matters.

Determine Whether the Demand Is Ongoing or Temporary

One of the most useful ways to assess communications capacity is to look at how long the current level of demand is likely to continue.

Leaders should ask whether the same workload will still exist a year from now, whether it is tied to a defined initiative, and whether the organization experiences predictable periods of higher and lower activity.

If the answer points to sustained growth or permanently expanded responsibilities, hiring may be the right investment. If the demand is cyclical, project-based, or concentrated around a transition, a more flexible model may make better operational and financial sense.

Consider Whether the Need Is General or Specialized

Another common mistake is assuming that any communications gap requires another generalist.

Sometimes the team has enough people but lacks a capability it only needs periodically. That might include executive communications, organizational change, corporate narrative and positioning, thought leadership, stakeholder engagement, media strategy, internal communications, or communications measurement.

For a smaller or mid-sized team, it may not be realistic to keep every possible specialty in-house. A permanent role makes sense when there is enough sustained work to justify it. When the need is intermittent, external expertise can give the team access to the capability without adding a full-time position that may later be underutilized.

The issue is not whether the expertise is important. It is whether the organization needs it continuously.

Look at How Senior Talent Is Being Used

Workload problems can also show up in less obvious ways.

A communications leader may still be meeting deadlines and keeping the function moving, but spending too much time on production, editing, coordination, and routine execution. That is often a sign that the team needs additional capacity somewhere in the system.

Senior communications talent is most valuable when it is focused on judgment, alignment, executive counsel, risk, reputation, and strategy. If highly experienced leaders are routinely pulled into work that could be handled at another level, the organization may not need another senior hire at all. It may need enough execution capacity to allow existing leaders to return to higher-value work.

That distinction can significantly change the type of support required.

Make Sure the Problem Is Not the Operating Model

Adding people will not always solve a communications workload problem.

In some organizations, demand is being inflated by unclear priorities, duplicative work, inefficient approvals, fragmented ownership, or leaders who are not aligned before requests reach the communications team.

A team can be very busy because it is working inside a system that produces unnecessary work.

Before increasing headcount, it is worth examining how requests are prioritized, how decisions are made, how approvals move, and whether the team is being asked to compensate for ambiguity elsewhere in the organization.

If the operating model is the real problem, adding another person may increase output without improving effectiveness.

Four Different Problems Can Create the Same Symptom

A team that appears understaffed may actually be dealing with one of four different conditions.

A permanent demand increase may justify additional headcount because the organization has created a lasting need for more communications support.

A temporary demand increase may call for flexible capacity during a defined period of heightened activity.

A specialized capability need may be better addressed by bringing in expertise only when that expertise is required.

An operating-model problem may require changes to governance, workflow, priorities, or decision-making before any staffing decision is made.

These distinctions matter because the wrong diagnosis can create additional cost without solving the underlying issue.

Headcount Is One Option, Not the Starting Point

Permanent employees provide continuity, institutional knowledge, and dedicated capacity. When the need is sustained and clearly defined, they can be exactly the right investment.

But headcount should be the result of the diagnosis, not the diagnosis itself.

Organizations now have more ways to extend communications capacity than simply hiring another full-time employee. Depending on the need, they can use project-based support, specialized expertise, embedded external partners, or flexible communications capacity that expands and contracts as business demand changes.

The objective is not to avoid hiring. It is to match the resourcing model to the actual business need.

Ask the Better Question

Before opening a communications requisition, ask:

Is this a permanent need, a temporary increase in demand, a specialized capability gap, or an operating-model problem?

That question creates a much clearer basis for deciding what kind of support the team actually needs.

A busy communications function may need another employee. It may need additional capacity for a defined period. It may need access to a specialist. Or it may need a better way of organizing the work.

The most effective staffing decision starts with understanding which of those problems you are trying to solve.