When growing your business, think twice before adding to your personnel; it might not be necessary. In fact, adding to your labor costs could make it harder to reach your organization’s scaling goals.
It’s a common misconception that if you want to see massive growth, you need to onboard additional people. This common belief—infiltrating circles of seasoned entrepreneurs and HR executives—often stems from the fact that it’s relatively easy to understand and measure the impact of hiring more people. In contrast, it’s much harder to understand and measure other methods of scaling a business, such as investing in technology or switching up your marketing.
Additionally, hiring is typically seen as one of the most effective ways to increase the capacities of any organization. Hence, it’s closely associated with growth, even though sudden hiring can actually hinder scalability rather than help.
This isn’t to say that you might not need extra hands to support a generous growth spurt. However, hiring for hiring’s sake rather than part of a diversified scale-up strategy can lead to unwanted consequences. For example, many companies that go this route find themselves unable to fulfill their growth objectives because they’re dealing with personnel problems, such as high levels of turnover.
The bottom line is that before you begin building, you have to make sure your foundation is ready to handle the load. That’s what Slack did, which is why the company didn’t have to hire an entirely new team when it scaled up.
Slack was able to successfully scale up its business without adding headcount by focusing on the company’s core workplace collaboration and communication platform. Slack’s people concentrated their energies on continuously innovating their product and refining it to meet their customers’ needs.
By doing so, they were able to provide users with a better experience. The company’s efforts enabled it to gain a larger market share without resorting to recruiting and hiring. Today, Slack has become one of the most popular organizational engagement tools in the world. And its rapid rise to the top didn’t put too much of a strain on its HR department.
If you’d like to promote growth at your company, set aside the expectations that you need to begin by posting job advertisements. Instead, try these strategies. They’ll help you make the most of the team you already have and still get a nice improvement in your reach and revenue:
1. Invest in training your workforce.
Upskilling and reskilling can be a huge help if you want to become more efficient and productive. The nature of work has changed dramatically, after all. An Amazon-commissioned study from 2022 found that 78% of employees surveyed didn’t feel they had the skills needed to remain competitive. That’s a very high percentage of people uncertain about their ability to get the job done.
Training your team members will help them feel more qualified and become more efficient. The easier and faster it is for them to get their work done well and accurately, the more they can tackle without feeling overwhelmed. As a result, your company can expand its business without expanding its staff.
2. Leverage artificial intelligence-based systems.
It’s no secret that AI has become many a company’s best friend these days. You can leverage AI to automate mundane tasks and spot trends before they take off.
One logical way to start leaning into AI more effectively is by looking for ways to automate all repetitive duties.
For example, nearly anything that’s done manually again and again can probably be fully or partially handled by an AI-fueled software or process. By allowing your AI technologies to take over those responsibilities, you’ll free up your workers to engage in more innovative, high-level thinking. Additionally, you won’t be as tempted to hire because you won’t feel like everyone on your team is constantly maxed out.
3. Implement self-service options.
We’re living at a time when consumers are surprisingly eager to fix their own problems. According to a NICE report, 81% of people want self-service options from their favorite companies. In other words, they want to take work off your people’s plates—so let them!
How can you make the most of this desire? A simple solution is to offer content and support that enables self-supporting actions. This resolution could include adding a chatbot for “service triage” to your website or creating a library of how-to videos to solve your customers’ and clients’ FAQs.
Is hiring sometimes necessary? Certainly. Nevertheless, it shouldn’t be your first instinct if you want to scale your business effectively. Fine-tuning the methods and mechanisms you already have in place is all you need to begin making bigger industry waves.
Eric Watkins is the president of outbound sales at Abstrakt Marketing Group, a business growth company that provides lead generation solutions.
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