3 Unexpected Challenges Of Growth Hiring
Everyone knows the company has a difficult growth time. Google’s most cursory search will send you content worthy pages about handling cash flow, remaining competitive, and attracting the right talent. And quite rightly so. There is major Growth Recruiting issues. We ‘re interested in the obstacles that you may not have foreseen coming your way, though.
- The wrong priorities
At the very start of a growth period, founders are very likely to have their priorities a bit out of order. Although investment gives most companies the cash infusion required to take them to the next stage, constraints always come in. VCs are focused on the company’s long-term plan but are not necessarily perfect for recruiting managers. What will they be for? Although you can consider the product creation or sales growth for your company outlined in the investment strategy, it is doubtful that it will be the hiring plan.
From the point of view of a recruiter, this means that you will be dealing with a newly enthusiastic founding team or C-suite that is 100% purchased for product development or sales-driven strategy. This enthusiasm for delivering can lead to a cart before attitude towards the horse. The business of course wants to produce the product, but it needs the right people before it can do so.
- Damaging to morale and culture
Large teams often consist of closely connected groups of people who have several tasks to perform. Such all-rounders have done plenty and taken the business to where it is today. It is, nevertheless, a time of change and growth. You’ll need to start recruiting experts as a recruiter, rather than the generalists that make up the team as it stands.
Once the team sees the growth hiring of a new form of an employee, the gap can seem pointy. Witnessing potentially even more skilled, experienced personnel joining the team will lead to awkward and eventually turnover with the original workers. It would also leave you with still more employees to recruit, detrimental to morale and community.
A common reaction to this is to promote tenured staff, giving people from the start promotions or management positions to those who have been with the company. It can work and is often acceptable, but it is also an example of having emotions influence professional decision making.
- Job security and career progression
It is about getting stretched and irrevocably changed. When teams expand, the core team dynamics will be forced to change. And this is really the keyword they are being pushed to alter here. Throw in the nervousness about job security and career progression and you can find yourself dealing with an extremely damaged corporate culture very quickly. Unfortunately, turnover also goes hand-in-hand with bad business culture. It is a dangerous cycle you need to avoid before it begins.
It’s necessary to communicate the company’s cultural values to combat this. This will in some cases involve sitting down and describing them actually. Yet it’s a good exercise showing people how they fit in the business and offering a structure for the new hires.
Conclusion
Likewise, the communication of these values has to come from above. People need to know this change is coming and why it is going to happen. Wise founders should realize that change is huge and scary, but should also express the principles and encourage the whole organization growth hiring.