Generalists VS Specialists
When you are expanding your organisation and building a team, sooner or later you will face the question whether you should hire more generalists or specialists. There is no right or wrong approach here but you should be conscious about this decision.
Generalists
People who know a bit of everything are especially useful while you are still running a small operation. They can easily be moved around based on current business needs and they are the ones who have a great level of understanding of how things are connected.
On the other hand because they don’t have in-depth knowledge in any particular area they might be much slower getting things done and they are also at risk of overlooking certain things due to the lack of knowledge. Having them do all sorts of different things can lead to losing focus too.
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Specialists
People who specialise in a particular area are great because they are extremely knowledgeable about their topic, which usually also makes them quick at that particular task. Because they have so much knowledge they can be a good source to train others about their expertise.
“Specialists can be good at training others in their area of expertise.”
On the other hand, because they focus on one thing they might develop a certain degree of tunnel vision and not be that mindful about the rest of the company. Also if their workload drops for whatever reason you can’t move them around as easily to still make use of their time.
Which one then?
It will come down to your specific needs and circumstances. Generalists are great to have especially while you are a small operation and you don’t have enough to do for a specialist and everyone does a little bit of everything. As your company grows you should start building up teams with people who specialise in their fields to improve on the quality of that team’s output.
Even when you are a large organisation though it is worth keeping some generalists around who can act as glue between different departments and also step in to fill any gaps that appear. Even better, if you can, try to find people who specialise in one particular area but also have other skills and enjoy a change of pace and task.
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