Growth succeeds when managers are developed
When a company grows, it is an entrepreneurial success story. You have won over customers, won orders and created steady to exponential growth with the right decisions.
Now would actually be the time to further develop your business areas.
However, growth changes a lot, primarily structures, processes and goals, but also the way in which you manage your company. Increasing complexity makes "management on demand" impossible.
Instead, a management structure needs to be established, because growth only works if the entrepreneur can work on the company instead of in it. It would be fatal to have an entrepreneur who deals with detailed tasks or is constantly on the move as a "fire department" in individual areas.
That's why it's important to develop leaders who
- design structures and processes,
- implement changes and
- develop the corporate culture constructively in your interests.
To structure your growth, there are a number of key measures that I will put into practice with you:
- Choosing leaders in a structured way;
- develop your own managers;
- clarify processes and procedures;
- Make HR structures scalable and
- improve the competitive position on the specialist market.
1. Select the right managers
Efficient recruitment requires accurate selection. This applies to both internal and external appointments. After all, wrong appointments are painful and cost money and nerves.
The basis for efficient recruitment is a clear organizational structure. This must give all departments a mandate that provides a clear answer to the key question: How does the department contribute to the company's growth? What core objectives should it achieve?"
The description of the respective management role is derived from this mission. The clearer the mission for the department, the clearer the role to be filled with its tasks, responsibilities and the required entrepreneurial, social and personal skills.
This clarity also helps applicants who come from established companies with a traditional structure and team understanding to find their bearings.
For example, a CFO who is applying to a growing company will naturally have specialist skills in finance. But in a growth phase, other tasks can quickly be added, such as explaining key figures in personal discussions with investors or setting up a finance department. And these can only be managed with additional skills such as the ability to engage in dialog, expertise in structured personnel selection and a strategic view of processes.
These skills needed for growth must be clearly described. Common phrases such as "flexibility" or "startup mentality" do not do this.
Instead, get to the heart of the skills that every manager needs to shape rapid company growth.
2. Develop your team of leaders
The second tool for building a leadership structure is to develop your team of leaders and turn them into ambassadors of the company culture.
You should initiate this as early as possible in the growth process.
Two things are particularly important for this:
- specific, personal learning objectives instead of general seminars and
- good support from an internal trusted person in HR.
The person of trust should understand strategies, have seniority and work on an equal footing with entrepreneurs and managers.
3. Clarify processes and procedures
Growth phases can hardly be managed on the drawing board, especially not in the case of rapid growth or hypergrowth.
Processes should, however, be clearly described so that they regulate tasks and responsibilities independently of individuals. Then they also hold a rapidly growing organization together and form the basis for the next growth targets.
This is why you should clarify and adapt your processes, especially in growth phases.
The remarkable thing is: practicable and lean processes can be set up especially during growth. In addition, the longer a company waits to make process corrections, the more costly they become and the higher the price for the upcoming company growth. And finally, clear processes attract external specialists and managers. Chaos, on the other hand, pleases no one, but only disrupts the development of management structures.
Summarizing: process clarity is important and saves time and money.
But how do you go about it?
Not all processes are the same
Firstly: Focus on the core value creation processes, especially those that affect several departments in the company.
In the area of recruiting, for example, this would be the process from initial contact with an applicant to the conclusion of an employment contract. After that, a reliable onboarding process is just as critical in order to prevent employees who have been painstakingly recruited from leaving. After all, the first few weeks are often much more crucial for newcomers than many who have not experienced a job change for some time assume.
By the way, clarifying the core value creation processes is also the basis of any digitalization. Because the following still applies: if a bad process is converted into a digital process, it remains bad - just digitally bad.
Are your employees enthusiastic about "special" processes?
The second step is: Identify pain points.
These are often "grown" processes that are "special" in their flow logic and difficult to understand. A clear sign of this is, for example, when a process
- takes (too) long,
- leads to many follow-up questions or
- provokes frustration among employees.
Higher altitudes clear the head
And thirdly: Revise such processes, or rewrite them.
Growth-oriented processes stand out:
- They have a clearly defined process objective,
- a structured process with clear responsibilities and
- the process participants in the team enjoy working with the process.
Be careful not to get bogged down. If in doubt, choose a higher level of flow rather than a high level of detail to summarize processes. You can always work out the details later.
4. Leave improvised HR systems behind
HR work needs a digital infrastructure that supports core processes early on.
Farewell to Excel spreadsheets: Scalable HR systems are better
Increasing a company's workforce as it grows means intensive recruiting. Manual solutions with Excel spreadsheets, extensive mail folders and Outlook reminders quickly reach their limits. Breakdowns in core tasks and search times are inevitable, and it is difficult to achieve your goals.
This is why investing in a scalable digital HR system is a relief for everyone involved - for applicants, managers, entrepreneurs and recruiters. Digital systems also have various evaluation options. This means that every recruiter can use analyses to evaluate their work, compare themselves and improve. This contributes to strategic goals.
Structure the decision: Best-of-breed or best-of-suite
There are very good HR IT solutions for all company sizes. However, the market for HR software tends to be fragmented, which complicates the decision for a solution. Particularly in growth phases, such selection processes can be time-consuming.
Basically, two approaches to introducing a digital solution can be distinguished:
- There are systems that help to manage individual tasks, such as recruiting tools or payroll systems. The company decides on the right solution for a specific area. In this case, we speak of best-of-breed.
- And there are systems that map all or almost all HR tasks in corporate growth, from recruiting to master and employee management to target agreements and learning opportunities: The company relies on a complete software solution. This can be a provider that offers a complete HR solution or even a provider that can map the processes of the entire growth company with its software solution. Such complete solutions are called "best-of-suite".
How do I know which system is right for my company?
First of all, both approaches have advantages and disadvantages.
In favour of the best-of-breed systems are:
- They (often) come from specialized IT companies that have put a lot of heart and soul into their development.
- The manufacturer itself often provides support, which is often above average.
- They are usually significantly cheaper than large complete solutions.
Best-of-suite solutions, on the other hand, have this advantage:
- The HR IT landscape looks like a single unit, as if "from a single source". This makes work easier for many users.
There are also three other aspects:
- The specific requirements for the solution form the basis for the pre-selection of providers. HR is responsible for defining these requirements. In growing companies in particular, it is important to include future target processes such as succession planning during growth, target agreements and digital personnel development offerings. This means: What should the solution offer the company, which target processes should it serve?
- Another stakeholder is added to HR, as aspects of the technical infrastructure also have an influence on decisions regarding HR IT systems. In other words: How does a system fit in with the company's technical infrastructure?
- The selection of software is therefore a joint project between IT and HR. Both can be guided by the following key question: Does the solution make everyone's life easier, now and in the future?
For growing companies, it can be a good strategy to start with one or two best-of-breed solutions whose data flows via interfaces.
In the end, you have to examine each individual case.
5. Strengthen your position in the skilled labor market
The fact is: success in company growth is not only determined by the customer market, but even more so by the skilled labor market.
The topics
- Reputation Management,
- Einarbeitung und
- employee retention
can therefore not wait - especially as the competition is not sleeping when it comes to the skills shortage. Skilled workers are the key bottleneck to growth, now and in the future.
Managing company reputation
Reputation management is important in order to maintain and strengthen a company's reputation as an attractive employer.
Employer review sites are a source of information for skilled workers who are considering applying for a job. Experience in recruiting shows that many interested parties read the comments of current and former employees. Which is not surprising: After all, such comments reflect the culture of a company.
This makes it all the more important to follow what is happening on these platforms. On the one hand, to remain in dialog, especially with critical commentators, but above all to react quickly if the tone of comments slips into the negative.
Training managers
Managers who do not master their role create more problems than they solve, even in growth phases. The transition from employee to manager in particular requires good support from an internal trusted person in HR.
The support of a trusted person with a low-threshold, yet professional coaching offer for critical leadership situations has proven to be successful here.
Retaining employees in the long term
Employee retention is becoming increasingly important, as skilled workers are constantly being courted by other companies and the chances of changing jobs are better than ever.
In this situation, early internal personnel development is the most effective tool for retaining employees in the company. Individual and realistic objectives with suitable development opportunities are therefore not just nice-to-have, but mandatory.
Conclusion: Building a management structure requires several measures
A growing company must adapt its management structures in order to cope with increasing complexity.
This requires a series of measures that reinforce each other.
In my practice as a management consultant, the following steps have proven effective:
- Select specialists and managers in a structured manner;
- Develop managers;
- Clarify processes and procedures;
- Make HR structures scalable;
- Conduct reputation management for the company.
This is how you drive the growth of your company.
