What does scaling a company entail? Scaling a company means actively driving it into a growth phase. In the traditional sense, this means increasing the company’s turnover without making other major investments at the same time.
From an economic perspective, it is relatively easy to plan for this growth. You analyze and consider which areas in the company have the potential to be scaled. Then you create suitable financial plans and outline what your “dream organization” should look like.
However, things usually don’t go as planned. Are you the manager of a company that deals with corporate scaling? When a company starts to grow, you will face great challenges at the same time.
You should pay attention to the following seven points during this phase. They will help you not only to manage growth, but also to prepare the company or your department within the company for change.
1. Prepare your team for change
In growing companies, readjustments must always be made, especially when you have a clear vision of your organization in mind. It may well be that your new employees have skills that can unexpectedly accelerate growth or open completely new business areas in the process. “Handing out specific hats to the team” too early can therefore be counterproductive. Explain the situation both to the core team and when hiring new employees. Open communication with employees contributes to an understanding of the situation.
2. Develop common values early on
Common values are important and must be set on day one. The corporate culture not only determines how, but also whether you will be successful. The larger the team, the more difficult it becomes for management to personally pass on the company values. As the core team is involved in the joint creation of the “Working Principles” at an early stage, you and your team will be able to exemplify and disseminate them.
3. Use tools for improved communication
Use tools that allow management to continue to be close to the team and to communicate with customers in a personal way. As a team grows, so does communication. It is even more important to use tools that enable you to reach more people within the organization in a personal way. Short video messages in shared chat groups or the company-internal wiki can be very helpful. An online tool that is well suited for this task is Loom, for example.
4. Invest in HR infrastructure & processes for administrative tasks
Scaling a company is time-consuming. Founders and managers usually focus on their products or services, and often neglect setting up clear responsibilities and clean administrative processes.
New employees need to understand how the organization works immediately upon onboarding. In addition, things like vacation requests, expense reports and organizing and releasing training courses for employees, are an unnecessary burden if there are no defined processes. When everything “works”, you can concentrate on growth and the core tasks.
5. Share your knowledge
Sharing knowledge is essential in every company, but especially when the company wants to grow or is already growing organically. Invest in tools that share the know-how within your team early.
Rely on processes and tools that enable the team to work together right from the start. A transparent and open exchange of knowledge inspires creativity in the entire team. This creates fewer knowledge silos within the company. Whether you use Notion, Slack or other tools to build your internal knowledge database – enable your growing team to share knowledge efficiently.
6. Don’t just celebrate newcomers but also those leaving
It is always a challenge to find new employees. It is more important to make a good impression when someone leaves. You don’t just meet someone twice in your life. Positive company evaluations have a long-term effect on the attractiveness of the group. It increases the morale in the team and makes it easier to inspire new employees for your company. So, be sure to celebrate departing employees, rather than solely taking time to address the new additions to the company.
7. Accept change
Accept that nothing will turn out the way you originally planned. You have now prepared your team for changes, but you too must accept the changes and set an example.
The article was originally published by Remco Livain on Unternehmer.de, on May 25, 2021.
