Scaling up is important for your company to grow! However, the hidden costs of rapid growth sometimes have some negative outcomes as many organizations want to scale, but not all businesses are ready for scaling! It’s all about preparation!

The Drawbacks of Fast Growth

If your business grows too quickly or expands too much, you could experience financial, legal, staffing, resource, and supplier problems. For business growth to be successful, it should be sustainable.

According to an article by the Queensland Government, here are some common problems caused by rapid growth:

• You could outgrow your premises in the short term. There may not be enough space for everyone to work efficiently.
  
• Morale may drop if staff cannot cope with the extra work. Productivity can decrease.
  
• There may be a shortage of cash to meet expansion costs. Taking on more and more work to generate more income places additional pressure on your premises and staff.
  
• Management may be under pressure, operating reactively rather than proactively.
  
• The quality of your products and services could drop, causing an increase in customer complaints. You may even lose customers to your competitors.
  
• Staff turnover may increase due to heavy workloads. Vital knowledge could be lost as staff leaves. Hiring and training new staff takes time and money.
  
• Your business may lose touch with competitors' activities.

In general, when your company is growing at a fast pace, this will mainly cause stress to your staff. Unhappy employees can slow down work efficiency, and the worse thing that can happen is they will quit the company.

As a leader, what can you do?

Communicate with your members – find out their struggles and feelings about current tasks.

Great communication involves both speaking and listening, or expressing and receiving. The goal is to develop a shared understanding of the information being disclosed. 1:1 conversation shows that you care for them and want to help them.

• Create a safe and healthy workplace environment.
  

It all comes down to taking into account what your employees or teammates need to feel appreciated and valued at work. A workplace that encourages work-life balance, cares about mental health and well-being, and inspires people to speak up and be authentic.

• Reallocate – place your members on more right tasks.
  

Reflect on your team's performance, and see what works and what needs to be improved. The assessment of each member’s strength and capacity is important when assigning tasks to them.

• Clear instructions and assistance.
  

Don’t assume they know what you mean, get straight to the point on what needs to be actioned or delivered, give time frames, and give examples.

• Organize bondings outside working hours:
  It’s about creating a space where people feel safe to express their authentic selves and find common ground with colleagues over more than just the weekly budget reports!

• Have internal training before scaling up:
  

Based on your employee’s needs, organize training related to your member’s struggles such as stress management, conflict resolution, intercultural management, etc.

Overall, proper preparation will set you up well to succeed when you decide it’s time to take the first big step. Getting ready to scale up is all about being critical about where you are and understanding where to go. From there you know what changes you need to make to thrive in your new form.

If you want to know what you could change to achieve better growth, TYDE can provide you with internal training that will equip your team with in-demand soft skills. Let TYDE help you grow! We provide custom training programs in communication and leadership and support the transition to the growth of leading companies in Vietnam.