Orgnaizational Development: When It's Time to Hire

Organizational Development: When It’s Time to Grow the Team

If you’ve followed Hickey Global long enough, you’ll know that we’re big on strategy. We believe marketing calendars, business retention efforts, and even incentive program build-outs should be executed with an end goal in mind, based on data that can be tracked over time and evaluated for performance.

These are finite strategies that can be guided by past successes or shortfalls and reveal themselves more readily “in the numbers.” What happens, though, when you need to do something that can have a huge impact, but may be a little softer around the edges, like hire a new team member? As we’ve recently grown our team with the addition of a new business development role, here are three things we considered when deciding to add a role.

Is our capacity limited?

Assessing capacity is crucial before hiring. If the current team is stretched thin—unable to respond quickly to new business inquiries, manage ongoing projects effectively, or keep up with stakeholder engagement—then limited capacity signals a clear need for additional staff. Expanding the team can help ensure the timely execution of economic initiatives, improve responsiveness to local business needs, and allow for more proactive outreach to attract investment.

Are we filling our strategic gaps?

Economic development organizations often have ambitious goals—such as workforce development, business retention, or supporting entrepreneurship—that require specialized skills or dedicated focus, and that the community expects you to deliver on. If there are areas where the organization is falling short, such as a lack of expertise in digital marketing, grant writing, or other fundraising, or industry sector engagement, hiring can strategically fill those gaps. Bringing in a new team member with targeted experience equips the organization to better deliver on its mission and address evolving community needs.

Is there a practical benefit to adding this role?

Before expanding the team, it’s important to weigh the tangible benefits. For an economic development organization, practical advantages might include increased capacity to secure grants, improved stakeholder relationships, greater ability to launch new initiatives, or enhanced service delivery to local businesses. If the new hire will drive measurable outcomes—such as job creation, increased investment, or improved community engagement—the addition is justified from both an operational and a strategic perspective.

Making the case for growing the team can be challenging, but showing evidence of the need or the organizational improvements that will result from adding new staff can make the process much easier. If your organization has been treading water and needs the most effective approach or justification for adding a new team member, connect with our team today!