And just about every business, regardless of size, industry, or what they do, is going to need to follow this.
But it doesn’t always happen the way it should, though.
So, as you know, growth sounds great until the business actually has to function under the weight of it.
Like, more customers?
Well, sure, that’s pretty brilliant.
More orders?
Yes, clearly that’s great.
More money coming in?
Obviously, yes, please.
All of these are great, and you should expect these too, of course.
But then the little cracks start showing.
You could even say the business is just cracking under its own weight, like things not being on file that they should, a new person got hired, just way too many people asking the exact same questions, someone’s doing a task “the old way” because apparently there are now four versions of the process floating around.
Well, these are examples, but you probably get the point.
But growth doesn’t just bring more opportunity, it brings more pressure.
If the systems are already a bit messy, adding more people can make everything feel even more tangled, which makes things more dangerous in the long run, therefore, a bigger liability.
You can’t grow if theres liabilities left and right.
Which is why you need to focus more on safety and improving the system, ideally before you hire more staff, even if it’s one person.
More Staff Won’t Fix a Messy Process
So, hiring more people sounds like the obvious answer when a business gets busy.
There’s too much work, so bring in more hands.
Simple enough, right?
Well, not always.
If the process is already messy, adding more people can just spread the confusion around.
No, really, just go ahead and think about it for a moment here, because the staff needs clear instructions, proper training, and a decent idea of what happens next.
If nobody can explain the process properly, that’s not really a staffing issue; that’s a system problem with extra witnesses.
A growing business needs to know how work actually moves from one stage to another.
Who handles what?
Where is information stored?
What happens when something goes wrong?
If the answer is mostly shrugging or guessing, well, that needs sorting before hiring becomes the next headache (and again a liability on your hands).
Training Can’t be a “Figure it Out as You Go” Situation
Alright, sonow, with that said, training is one of those things that gets underestimated all the time.
Someone new starts, they get shown around, they watch someone else do the job for a bit, and then everyone hopes they’ll just pick it up naturally.
Sometimes that works for small things.
But when a business is growing, that casual approach can cause mistakes, delays, confusion, and a whole lot of awkward “wait, nobody told me that” moments (and those do happen a lot, especially when the business is still fairly new).
But there absolutely needs to be good training, something more than an online course or just watching a series of outdated videos (very 90s, but it’s still an issue, believe it or not).
So, staff should know what’s expected, what tools or systems to use, who to ask for help, and what mistakes really need to be avoided.
In hands-on workplaces, safety needs proper attention too, because business owners should understand how to minimise work accidents before scaling teams around equipment, vehicles, tools, stockrooms, kitchens, or busy shop floors.
Poor Communication Gets Expensive Fast
While it’s not the biggest deal if there’s poor communication in a small business, like four people, for example, but the second it hits ten, fifteen, twenty, and so on, well, that’s a major issue that you can’t afford.
But really, if everything important lives in random chats, memory, or someone’s notebook from 2021, that’s not exactly a stable setup.
Hope you’ve found our article, Why Growing Businesses Need Better Systems Before Getting More Staff useful.
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