Lift-outs and multiple appointments
Moving a team is not four searches at once
When a group moves together it brings its relationships, its way of working and its restrictive covenants. The sequencing is the job, and the sequencing is where these go wrong.
What a team move is
Capability that arrives already working
Hire four people separately and you spend a year waiting for them to learn to work together. Move a team that already does, and you buy the working relationships along with the people - which is the entire point, and the entire risk.
Team moves come up in two situations. Either you have identified a group whose capability you want and cannot build quickly, or you are standing up a new function and building it one hire at a time would take longer than the opportunity lasts.
Both are legitimate. Both are also more exposed than a single appointment - legally, commercially and reputationally. A team move that leaks is usually a team move that stops, and one that ignores the contractual position invites litigation from the business being left.
Where team moves fit
The case for moving a group rather than building one
Consider a team move when
- You need a capability standing up faster than sequential hiring allows
- The value is in how a specific group works together, not in their individual CVs
- You are entering a market where an established group brings relationships you cannot buy
- A competitor is unstable and a capable group is genuinely reconsidering
- You have the leadership bandwidth to absorb several senior joiners at once
- You can move quickly and quietly once a decision is made
Use something else when
- One appointment would change the picture on its own - run a search
- You are not yet sure the function should exist in this shape - start with research
- You need capability now and the covenants make a move slow - interim bridges it
- The attraction is the cost saving of hiring in bulk rather than the capability itself
- Your own management layer cannot absorb several senior joiners in the same quarter
The honest part
Where team moves go wrong
The covenants were never read
Non-solicit, non-compete and non-deal clauses vary person by person, and the most senior member of a group usually has the tightest. Sequencing a move without knowing exactly what each contract says is how a lift-out becomes an injunction.
The team organised itself
If members of a group co-ordinate their own departure, that is a different legal position from each of them independently responding to an approach. The distinction matters a great deal to the business they are leaving, and it is easy to blur without meaning to.
It leaked
The more people involved, the more conversations, and the shorter the window before someone talks. Once the incumbent employer knows, garden leave and counter-offers arrive within days and the move is usually over.
One person did not move
Groups have a load-bearing member. If the deal is structured so everyone comes or nobody does, one late refusal collapses it. If it is not, you can end up paying for a team and receiving a fragment of one.
Nobody planned for after
A team that has worked together for years arrives with its own culture, its own hierarchy and its own view of how things are done. Dropped into an existing function with no integration plan, it either takes over or is rejected.
How we run one
Sequenced deliberately, and slowly at the start
Establish the position
[CONFIRM: typical duration]Before anyone is approached, we establish what the group actually is - who the load-bearing people are, what each contract restricts, and whether the capability you want survives if one or two do not come. This stage often ends with the advice to run a single search instead.
Approach individually
[CONFIRM: typical duration]Each person is approached separately and assessed on their own merits, through us rather than through each other. That protects everyone's position and it also tests something worth knowing - whether each of them would be a hire you wanted anyway.
Structure the sequence
[CONFIRM: typical duration]Who resigns first, how far apart, and what happens if someone withdraws. Notice periods and garden leave rarely align, so the group usually arrives over months rather than on one day. That schedule is agreed with you and with your employment counsel before any resignation goes in.
Land and integrate
Through to the last arrivalWe stay engaged across the whole staggered arrival, including the gap where some of the group are in and others are still serving notice. That gap is the most fragile part of a team move and the part most often left unmanaged.
To be clear
We are not your lawyers
Team moves sit close to employment litigation. We can tell you where the risk usually is, structure an approach that does not create unnecessary exposure, and work alongside the people advising you - but the contractual position on any individual is a question for qualified employment counsel, and we would expect you to take that advice before anyone resigns.
[CONFIRM: Nick to confirm exactly what Enticeable does and does not do here, and whether there is a legal partner we refer clients to. This section should not go live on assumption.]
The alternative
Sometimes the answer is one appointment, not five
A good number of team move conversations end with a single hire who then builds the team themselves. Slower, considerably less exposed, and often the better answer. We will tell you if we think that is your situation.
How search worksNext step
These conversations start confidentially
If you are considering a team move, the first conversation is about whether it is the right instrument at all - and it stays between us either way.
Talk to us in confidence