Being overworked is an excellent reason to hire. It shows that you are about to lose your team due to burn-out or extended sick leave.
I took the original comment to imply that when employees are overworked, it is due to a failure in planning to assure a project is adaquately staffed from the beginning. That is when you should hire, not because you just began to notice you failed to plan appropriately.
Sure, if someone is being overworked, hire to spread the load (if new person can ramp-up fast enough). But don’t put your employees in that position to begin with, because some of them won’t return to full productivity, even after you resolve the problem. Overwork for any duration comes at a cost.
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I took the original comment to imply that when employees are overworked, it is due to a failure in planning to assure a project is adaquately staffed from the beginning. That is when you should hire, not because you just began to notice you failed to plan appropriately.
Sure, if someone is being overworked, hire to spread the load (if new person can ramp-up fast enough). But don’t put your employees in that position to begin with, because some of them won’t return to full productivity, even after you resolve the problem. Overwork for any duration comes at a cost.