Ever since the coronavirus outbreak, work from home culture became the new norm. Consequently, resources now have the liberty to work anytime, anywhere. However, the pandemic times also brought about various disruptions across industries. Not only were the organizations coping with the remote working concept for the first time, but also had to look at innovative measures to survive and thrive through adverse times. 

Scaling up teams: A viable solution to sail through turbulent times

Catering to the customer’s needs and demands when navigating through new work systems becomes challenging. When there's pressure to improve performance or meet deadlines, lateral hiring and brick-and-mortar recruitment processes don't suffice the purpose. Hence, scaling up the teams becomes the ideal solution. The strategy helps the team grow their output and improve their operational efficiencies. 

An efficient people management strategy is vital to any company’s success. People managers can scale teams by boosting their morale, ensuring collaboration between business objectives, and resolving employee challenges across levels. Scaling teams simply refers to the process of increasing your revenues while having the current team by your side.

One needs to reinvent the organization for speed and restructure the team with the sole aim to deliver excellence. It implies hiring a new team or resources isn’t a necessity if your current team possesses the capacity to fulfill the rising demands. However, when the situation arises, you can recruit new resources as well. 

Scaling teams with a purpose

Scaling a team is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. The first and foremost step is to identify the reasons you would require additional people in your team. The objectives could range from having an equipped team but requiring more people to increase the capacity, expanding into an unfamiliar domain, or needing someone with specific skills and expertise that your current team does not possess. Or it could also be a mix of other parameters. Skill gap and resource requirement identification in an agile way is important.

Rushing the job description is a common mistake that organizations often commit under hiring pressure. Hence, it is important that you clearly define the team’s growth path before crafting job descriptions for the new joiners. Doing so will help you save money and effort in the long run. 

Scaling teams with motivation

Scaling a team should complement the organizational work. Your organization’s vision is your goal and your values describe the path through which you want to accomplish your targets. 

Successful scaling of the team requires synchronization between what employees value and what the firm values. Their experience at the organization will speak for itself and depict what you value. If you as a company value employee experience right from the hiring period, it will indeed reflect in the reviews that employees give.

Every employee should feel valued, every team should have a clear connection and communication about the organization’s leadership and core values to be aligned with the company goals. 

Scaling a team driven by culture

Your work culture is one of the key elements for scaling your team. It should have a purpose and direction so that you can inspire your team to stay focused and deliver to the best of their abilities. According to Harvard Business Review, inspired employees are 2.25x more productive than satisfied employees. 

As you aim at growing your company, referral programs can sometimes be a boon. It is one of the quickest ways to search and hire the right, trustworthy, culturally fit resources. If implemented effectively it can lead to diversity in your organization. 

Summing Up

An organization could scale up for various reasons ranging from receiving a round of funding from investors or launching a product. It is an integral phase of rapid business growth that is usually accompanied by overwhelming changes.

Scaling up teams can indeed be a challenging process especially during unstable times. To succeed, you need to optimize and direct your efforts in the right direction.