3 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Hire One Person for Two Jobs

We’ve noticed over the years as we’ve helped hire new employees that sometimes our clients want to fill two different jobs with one new hire.

This might happen because neither job requires full-time hours and it seems easier to hire one full-time employee rather than two part-time ones. Or a company may have needs in two different departments that seem to fall into a similar category (production scheduling and general administrative work, for example).

When you find yourself grappling with a similar situation, it can seem like a good solution to hire one person for two jobs. But, in the end, that’s generally not a good idea. Here are just a few reasons why.

1. It’s More Difficult To Find a Qualified Candidate

It can be hard to find the right candidate for a job that requires multiple skill sets. 

For example, some of the jobs we’ve seen that required multiple and divergent skill sets have included:

• An accountant who processes accounts payable, accounts receivable, and payroll, and who also has the programming skills needed to manage the company website (say what??)

• A mid-level staff person in an accounting or marketing role who is also responsible for front desk reception duties

• A controller who also performs day-to-day clerical HR or IT tasks

At Red Seat, we call this layering. The more layers there are in a position, the more difficult it is to find prospective candidates who are both qualified for and interested in doing the exact variety of job duties listed.

The challenge here is to find someone with the full skill set needed to handle both roles, who is qualified for the most highly skilled function, and who has interest in the duties that are not traditionally part of the more highly skilled role.

In this job market, this kind of job layering makes finding a qualified candidate very difficult.

2. You’ll Always Pay for the Highest Skill Set

When you’re hiring a highly skilled person (an accountant, engineer, sales manager, etc) to do both a highly skilled job and a less skilled job, you’ll need to pay the wage associated with the highest paid part of the job in order to secure the employee you want.

The problem with this is that you’ll end up paying a premium rate for the less skilled job duties — i.e., much more than you would otherwise pay.

As an example, let's say a senior staff accountant is paid $40/hour, but the company wants that person to work 15 hours a week on clerical duties such as processing accounts receivable. In this case, the company will end up paying the skilled employee to complete work they could pay someone else to do for less.

The rule in hiring is that the employer will always pay for the highest skill set when hiring a new employee.

Why pay a skilled engineer to do drafting or detailing? Or a sales manager to compile a list of prospects? Or a controller to process receivables? 

While it’s not impossible to hire for these roles, it’s important to note that layering different skill levels in one position will require compensating the employee at a salary commensurate with the most skilled part of the job.

3. It’s More Likely To Result In An Unhappy Employee

A highly skilled person is less likely to have long-term interest in completing duties that wouldn’t typically be part of their job description.

Hiring a seasoned accountant to complete clerical accounting duties, for example, not only costs you more in wages paid, but it’s also more likely to result in an unhappy employee, lower morale, and higher turnover. 

On the flip side, you could hire a lower-level accountant with the hopes that they can level-up. While this is more likely to be a successful hire, you’re also risking hiring someone who is in over their head. 

Best Practices To Avoid Hiring One Person for Two Jobs

The best way to make sure you don’t hire one person for two jobs is to have a detailed conversation with your hiring manager to understand the position and its criteria as well as have an HR professional review the job description. 

An HR professional is likely to understand traditional job functions and be able to advise you if your position doesn’t fit a traditional role. If the position is a combination of two roles, they’ll be able to help you identify whether there might be another way to structure the role or move around other duties internally. They’ll also be able to clarify what you should expect in terms of viable candidate profiles and compensation requirements.

In addition, if a job you’re offering has unrelated duties, the candidate pool will indicate there is something wrong with the position. For instance, the candidates who apply won’t be qualified for the role or will ask for more money than you anticipated.  

What If You Don’t Realize You’ve Hired One Person for Two Roles Until After a Hire?

If you realize after the fact that you’ve hired one person for two jobs, the best thing you can do is acknowledge the difficulty of managing two roles and work with the employee to make a plan so they can be successful in the position. If the two functions conflict, you’ll need to identify how to better separate the duties internally.

We hope this helps you clarify why it’s not best practice to hire one person for two jobs. For more hiring tips and best practices, subscribe to Red Seat’s newsletter or follow us on LinkedIn.