If founding a company is hard, scaling it is definitely no easier!
As a company grows from a few people and it’s customers to 10s or 100s of employees and 1000s of customers, things will creak and eventually break.
While no department or process is immune, it is probably the Operations teams where these challenges are most visible. The primary reason being that is where headcount increases happen most rapidly, but it’s also the least specialist department and, therefore, everyone has a view on Operations. Everyone always has a view on Operations!
Speaking to Founders, COOs and Operations leaders of scaling and scaled companies they all point to people issues as being the hardest part of scaling.
So what are the consistent dysfunctions and what can be done about them?
1. Treat everything as a pilot — in fast scaling companies it is not uncommon for a person’s job to evolve every few weeks or months. This requires a team to constantly be evaluating their priorities and adjusting. People often don’t like this. So rather than announcing you are changing the team, let people know you are trialling a new way. This way people are more often than not happy to give it a go. If it works then great, it becomes permanent and if not you roll back. It was only a trial after all :)
2. Be deliberate with on-boarding of employees — while osmosis worked when you were small, when you get above 20 people you can not assume people will know how and why things are done. You need to fundamentally re-think the onboarding process from hiring to their first few months or even longer. It may seem like overkill and you have stuff to do but it is worth it.
3. Create a culture book — you will probably have an employee handbook with all the practical stuff in it but you should also write a culture book. Give the background of the company, explain different stages in the journey, provide some highlights and some challenges faced. Explain the ethos of the company. Give this to people before they join so they have some background and context.
4. Create a formal People process — Every three weeks hold a People meeting with the key leadership team — covering:
a) open hires, progress, are they still needed etc
b) discuss which existing people are having issues and what needs to be done
c) any gaps / issues / capacity challenges in the business at the moment and is there a people opportunity
d) anyone on probation
5. Formalise probation — change the process. Don’t just let the line manager have a quick coffee and say “congratulations you have passed” — make it a more formal process. For anyone coming to the end of probation get the CEO, COO and HR Head, in addition to line manager to meet and physically sign something. Make the leadership feel accountable and you will not let poor performers through the net.
6. A Recognition process — you should celebrate when someone does something above and beyond AND that meets your company values. Create a slack channel called “Kudos” for example. Every month give a prize to someone.
7. Assign a buddy to all new joiners — for the first three months assign someone a buddy and formalise this with what is expected of them. The buddy has to be from a different team and be given time to perform the role.
8. Recognise that not everyone likes scaling — as teams grow many early employees will find themselves getting pushed away from the epicentre or being layered as new managers come it. This is very hard for some people.
Get teams to read this article — it helps articulate this dynamic clearly
https://firstround.com/review/give-away-your-legos-and-other-commandments-for-scaling-startups/
9. Be ruthless — give people support and help but remember your duty is to ensure the company grows. Sadly, some people won’t scale and those people need to leave.
10. The CEO blocker — it may not be the CEO but senior leaders are often a problem themselves during scaling. They need to adapt from doing everything to delegating more and creating the framework for others to execute. Many find this hard but if they don’t adapt then your chances of success reduce dramatically.
In summary, as your company or team scales above 20 people then you will face scale challenges and many relate to people. Rest assured this is entirely normal and there are many that have seen the movie or will be seeing it soon. The best support will come from others who have done it or are doing it as well.
Good luck?
