Two people doing the job of half a process
Hiring into a broken handoff produces overlap, rework, and blame. The new person is not slow — the system has no single queue, no named owner at the wait, and no definition of done that both sides recognise. You added salary to confusion and called it capacity.
Before recruiting, ask honestly: if we fixed the handoff, would we still need this headcount? Sometimes yes — real growth, a genuine skill gap. Often partially — one hire instead of two because the work stops bouncing between people.
Map before you advertise
Map the process for the slice this role touches — start, stop, systems, waits. Remove duplicate checks where two people verify the same thing because nobody trusts the record. Automate only what is stable; do not encode chaos to justify the hire.
Write the job around the queue you want owned — "you own quote-to-job handoff" is more honest than "support the team." Interview with a real scenario from your map, not generic competency questions about teamwork.
Signs the handoff is broken
Work ping-pongs between departments with no timestamp. Everyone busy, nothing moving — the coordination tax piece covers this. The new starter is told "ask Dave" for half the process. Metrics show hours up, cycle time flat.
Fix the owner and the tool first, then hire into a path that works. When the leak is a single system gap rather than a genuine headcount shortage, integrate before you replace often solves it.
Onboarding that proves the fix
Set a first-month metric: jobs completed without a shadow spreadsheet, or the equivalent for the role. If the new hire rebuilds a personal spreadsheet, the handoff is still broken. Listen to that signal. Fix the process, not the person.
Recruiting into clarity
Job descriptions that say "fast-paced environment" often mean "broken handoffs." Rewrite around outcomes — "you own intake to dispatch within four hours" — and tools — "status lives in X, not email." Candidates self-select and you waste fewer interviews.
Involve the person who holds the truth today in interviews — not to gatekeep, but to test whether the candidate understands the queue you are building. If they propose another personal tracker, that is a useful red flag.
Share the ROI framework with finance when debating headcount versus a thin build. Sometimes one integration costs less than a year of salary on overlapping work.
Retention suffers when new hires inherit chaos. They leave, you hire again, and call it a talent market problem. Fix the handoff and then hire into something that looks like a career path, not a firefight.
Run a two-week shadow on the handoff before the start date — paid if you can, honest about why if you cannot. The shadow exposes broken steps better than any interview question about teamwork.
Agencies and recruiters cannot fix your queue. Brief them on the process truth, or they will sell you generic "organised self-starter" profiles that are a good match for the chaos rather than for the path you intend to run. A good hire into a bad handoff still leaves within a year.
Book a review — Teesside and the North East. Audit before headcount, and build when the queue needs a thin fix.