It can be very challenging to handle a quickly expanding workforce, no matter the success of your business. But rather than become overwhelmed by your fast scaling, keep in mind that you need the right employees, proper business structure, and measurable data to act upon. It can be a massive challenge, and the speed at which a business can potentially grow introduces the possibility of mistakes. So, here are some handy tips for handling a rapid scaling operation.
Outsource Anything Not Related to Your Service
Over 90% of modern SMBs and large-scale companies outsource at least one core task to an external service. When your business begins to expand rapidly and scaling becomes an issue, your problems also increase. But there is one solution to many problems, and that is to outsource anything not related to your core business. From hiring someone to manage your car park to managing IT solutions and everything in between, outsourcing is effective and cheaper.
Manage a Quickly Expanding Workforce with Innovation
You can spend a lot of time and money trying to find the right employees. With failed attempts, you only waste resources, and even a rapidly scaling business with positive cash flow cannot afford this. It’s bad business and doesn’t make sense. So why waste, either? The old approach of recruitment and onboarding is vital, but they aren’t enough these days. Innovative and dynamic hiring through methods such as AI can help you identify candidates for specific roles.
Come Up with a Growth Tactics Plan
There are a few examples of a business growing so fast that it was hard to handle. But it does happen. WeWork, Facebook, and even Just Eat are great examples. While we can write off WeWork, who failed spectacularly, the other two are still around and doing well. But why? Well, they kept their mission, vision, and long-term objective clear for many years. And to this day, they are continuously improving and redefining these as part of their growth tactics planning.
Ensure All Staff are Well-Trained
Your business can only run as well as the skills and competencies of your employees. Skills are demonstrable and relate to the actions your staff will take to do their jobs well, such as fixing cars. Competencies relate more to the attitude your employees are able to project as part of your operating procedures, such as being polite to customers. The great news is that these can all be improved with training. And you should ensure your staff is as well trained as possible.
Work on Company-Wide Communication
Communication is among the most vital parts of any business. Yet it is also one of the most severely lacking fundamentals in the workplace. Broken command chains, poor training, and outdated attitudes are common reasons for bad communication. Here’s how to improve it:
- Schedule compulsory face-to-face weekly sessions with all staff members.
- Plan team meetings as often as needed, but never without a good reason.
- When asking an employee to do something, politely explain why they must do it.
- Offer constructive criticism and feedback whenever you feel it is necessary.
- Provide all employees with minutes from meetings and suggestion materials.
- Listen to what staff have to say and provide official means of recording statements.
- Train senior staff to be aware of how they speak to subordinates to avoid conflict.
- Invest in advanced training for management, such as body language and NLP.
It is well known that successful businesses are excellent in terms of communication. This ensures that all staff members feel valued and where they fit in. But you must ensure all communication is clear, easily done, and always acted upon whenever this is necessary.
Restructure into Workable Departments
The risk of redundant staff and employee misdirection increases with more people filling roles. This is why it’s vital to establish workable departments, each of which is responsible for a specific task. These are often clear, such as digital marketing, PR, and engineering. But there are also instances where departments can appear synonymous, such as IT and networking. In these cases, merging can help, or you can reassess these teams to establish defined roles.
Adopt a New Organizational Approach
It helps to shake things up by department every now and then to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. But this only helps employees understand where they fit. A common approach that works well, especially for rapidly scaling businesses, is to appoint new organizational heads. For example, new CEOs, executives, and department heads. But these must be qualified people, appointed based on improvements they can bring to a department.
Measure Specific KPIs for a Quickly Expanding Workforce
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are an effective way to use data to manage all parts of a business. And you can apply them to anything. Used with employee data, you can extract specific information for productivity, efficiency, and even staff engagement. KPIs, when used correctly, fit into your company’s overall objective and can help you highlight, identify and improve specific areas. You can use this data to trim the fat to scale with less wasted resources.
Keep a Sharp Eye on Company Fundamentals
Modern businesses are different from those of the 20th century. However, there have always been company fundamentals that, to this day, the most successful businesses hold dear. These include health and safety, workplace policies such as confidentiality, and company culture. Company culture may appear to be new, but it has always been around, just neglected in some fashion. Defining and maintaining these fundamentals helps keep a growing workforce in line.
Summary
A quickly expanding workforce can easily get out of control. Companies such as WeWork are a perfect example. So you must take the reins and ensure you maintain a professional and efficient approach. You can cut responsibilities by outsourcing wherever you need to. But it also helps to ensure your business communication is effective, from the very top to the very bottom of the corporate structure, while maintaining fundamentals such as a good company culture.
