The Headcount Trap
· 10 min read
The meeting room smelled of burnt coffee and fear.
Sarah from HR had forty-seven people under her now. Last year: thirty-two. The year before: twenty-one. Her bonus grew with each head she collected. Meanwhile, the engineering manager's jaw tightened—his team had been waiting three months for approval to hire two developers who would write actual code that would generate actual revenue. But Sarah's department needed five more recruiters first.