Re: growing a department (was: doing a good job...)

[Melissa Fisher <mfisher -at- AUTOMATEDLOGIC -dot- COM>]

Nancy, while I agree that you provide some additional good reasons to add
staff, I think the reality is that most companies will not increase the
size of a department unless there is continuing workload to support it.

>Maybe you've reached
>the place where people are a "jack of all trades - master of none."
>Then, maybe it's time to hire some people with skills that your location
>has in short supply.

As a hiring manager, I would have a tough time explaining to the folks who
hold the purse strings that we need to hire a new writer simply because
they have different skills than the rest of the department, if the
department as it is meets deadlines and produces adequate work.  I'm not
saying that you shouldn't try to improve your level of quality, but in my
experience, it's much more justifiable to ask for training opportunities
for existing staff than to ask for additional employees.  And, I think your
existing employees would much rather be given the opportunity to learn a
new skill on the company's dime than have someone else brought in to do the
work.

>Another reason to grow is to increase levels of promotability.

As for promotions and increases, I don't think that you need more staff to
give a person more responsibility or more money.  There are project
managment responsibilities that can be shared in any department.

>Perm growth in departments more often occur when budgets come around or
>when the arbitrary headcount-increase time occurs at a company.

I don't think I'd like to work for a company that *arbitrarily* increased
headcount.  If a company can be so cavalier about hiring people, it makes
me think they'd be just as cavalier about laying them off.

>When your company comes around to sizing a job (how many
>programmers are we going to need, etc.) or gets around to budgeting
>headcount for the next accounting cycle, I think it's a good idea for
>people in tech pubs to try to size themselves for doing terrific work.

I completely agree that a pubs department should try to size themselves to
produce top-notch documents.  And I don't believe that you should be
required to put in any more than 40 hours a week to do it.  But you do not
necessarily produce better docs simply because you have more people doing
the work.

My opinion only, based on my admittedly limited experience.  YMMV.

Melissa Fisher
Automated Logic Corporation
Kennesaw, GA