How to build agility within your communications team

If you’re like most organizations today, your team is doing more work than ever, while your headcount stays the same. As hiring continues to slow in some sectors and budget belts tighten, what’s the best approach to plan your talent acquisition for next year?  

The “old way” of bringing on talent as needs arise is no longer an effective or practical approach, nor is it a viable option for most organizations. But the work still needs to get done. So as I talk with my clients and prospects, I suggest a different approach to take, an approach I like to call agile team building.  

What Agile Really Means for Communications Teams  

The term “agile” is not new in the professional world, though most people think of it with software development methodologies. But it exists for communications leaders as well, referring to the ability to scale your team's capability up and down based on actual demand, not predicted demand.  

Traditional team building assumes steady, predictable workloads. You hire for your average capacity and hope nothing too big hits at once. But we all know the real-world seldom complies and steady and predictable are the exceptions, not necessarily the rules. Along with the day-to-day, you have other factors to contend with, like mergers and acquisitions, leadership changes, product recalls, competitive responses, regulatory changes, economic shifts and crises.   

The truth is you can’t build a team for peak demand with full-time employees because it’s financially impossible. But you also can’t build it for average demand because when the peak hits, it will break you. So, what’s a corp comms leader to do?   

The solution is budgeting for a team that can flex, bringing on fractional or contactor work on an as-needed basis.  

The Strategic Advantage of Fractional Expertise  

You can bring in fractional work for other reasons, too. In fact, as I’ve worked with clients finding corp comms talent, I’ve found that the highest-performing teams don't just use fractional expertise to handle workload overflow. They also use it strategically to access capabilities they could never afford full-time.  The agile approach is becoming more and more popular as communications teams plan on adding fractional help throughout the year.  

So as you plan for 2026, my advice is to focus on building a blended workforce to help balance the need for on-demand expertise as well as institutional knowledge.   

For example, you could bring in fractional help where there’s a niche skill your department lacks, an urgent skill gap you must fill or a specific project that needs hands-on help; you can hire FTEs for positions that require institutional knowledge and for strategic leadership and continuity.  

Considerations when planning for fractional and contractor help 

While you may think hiring fractional or contractor talent is more expensive than hiring full-time employees, it actually allows for budget flexibility because you typically only pay for the hours worked or project output. This makes the spend an operational or discretionary expense rather than a fixed overhead cost, which is helpful in an uncertain economic environment.  

You may also think that the ramp-up time is too long because external people don’t know the culture or situation. Evo Communications consultants have at least 15 years of experience and can ramp up in days, not weeks or months. What’s more, their experience often enables them to provide insights and perspectives that internal teams don’t see because they’re too close to the situation. And finally, you can be sure they deliver high-quality work with their deep, cross-industry expertise.  

As you plan for next year, it may be impossible to know when stuff will hit the fan. But the trick isn’t necessarily knowing when you’ll need it, but rather that you’ll need it. And by building an agile communications team, you ensure you plan to get what you need when you need it.  

Wondering how agile team building can work for you? Feel free to contact me and let’s discuss!