One of the most quietly corrosive things a company can do is overhire.
Not because people are malicious or lazy. Quite the opposite: high-performing folks want to contribute. But give a smart team too much idle time and not enough real problems, and something sneaky starts to happen:
They invent work.
And it feels productive.
Why This Happens (and Why It’s Not Evil)
Before we get too cynical, let’s acknowledge something: this is human nature. When someone’s job starts to feel optional, they’ll look for ways to make it indispensable.
Idle bandwidth creates a kind of psychic discomfort—especially for high-achievers. So people look for problems to solve, initiatives to start, systems to build.
And without external pressure from customers or the market, they often turn inward.
Here’s where it goes sideways.
The Three Most Common Symptoms of "Invented Work"
When overhiring leads to idle hands, these patterns pop up like clockwork:
1. Pet Projects With No Customer Pull
The classic. A team starts exploring an idea that sounds exciting internally but has zero signal from users.
It might be a new onboarding flow, a dashboard redesign, or an experimental feature that solves a "problem" no one has actually complained about.
These projects often have:
- Beautiful design mockups
- Clear documentation
- Zero external traction
You’ll hear phrases like:
- “I just felt like this was missing…”
- “We might need this eventually.”
- “This will differentiate us from competitors.”
The problem? They're solutions in search of a problem—and they quietly consume real engineering time.
2. Process Inflation
When bandwidth exceeds external pressure, teams start optimizing internally. And then re-optimizing. And then documenting the optimization.
You’ll see:
- Ever-growing Notion wikis
- Process diagrams for edge cases no one has encountered
- Weekly meetings to align on the meeting calendar
It feels like alignment. It feels like scaling. But in reality, it’s entropy.
Some teams build internal process scaffolding so elaborate they forget the house they were trying to build.
3. Internal Tooling Obsession
Now, don’t get me wrong—great internal tooling is chef’s kiss valuable when you’re solving real pain. But tooling for tooling’s sake? That’s the trap.
Symptoms include:
- Building admin panels no one asked for
- Rewriting internal dashboards every quarter
- Creating new frameworks instead of shipping features
Internal tooling should unblock teams. But when the tools become the project, you’re no longer optimizing—you’re decorating the garage while the car sits idle.
The Hidden Costs
These activities don’t just consume time—they mask deeper problems.
- Misalignment: If a team has time to build internal playgrounds, are they connected to the real work?
- Signal loss: Phantom projects make it harder to see what’s actually delivering value.
- Culture drift: Teams begin to reward polish and process over outcomes. Progress becomes presentation.
And worst of all: it feels like momentum. It looks like productivity. It checks every box in a status report. But it’s not driving the business forward.
How to Course-Correct Without Crushing Morale
So what do you do when you notice this happening?
1. Re-anchor to Customer Pull
Before approving a new project, ask: what external signal justifies this?
- Is there data?
- Are users asking for this?
- Does it unblock real usage?
If the answer is no, it might be worth pausing. Not killing—just pausing until the signal is there.
2. Reassign Surplus Talent to Real Problems
Got talented folks with time on their hands? Don’t waste them on busywork.
Instead:
- Pair them with customer support to surface real issues
- Embed them in onboarding or product marketing to tighten feedback loops
- Challenge them to improve existing features, not invent new ones
3. Treat Process as a Cost Center
Processes aren’t free—they’re overhead. Useful when needed, wasteful when not.
Whenever someone proposes a new one, try asking:
- What pain is this solving?
- Who’s requesting it?
- How will we know if it’s working?
Set expectations that processes should be minimal, practical, and revisited often.
Final Thought: Abundance Without Intention Is Dangerous
Overhiring isn’t inherently bad. But idle teams without real constraints don’t stay idle—they start building castles in the clouds.
It doesn’t happen overnight. It creeps in. One internal doc here. One phantom project there. Until one day you look up and realize the team’s been incredibly productive—at the wrong things.
Tight bandwidth isn’t just a constraint. It’s a focusing mechanism.
If you have the luxury of a big team, the job is to channel that abundance with ruthless intention.
Not to let it drift into a well-intentioned illusion of progress.