In the field of business, the term growth is mentioned with reference to increases in bottom-line, market share, and portfolio. Traditionally, success in any of these three aspects, obtaining higher profit than the previous year, gaining more clients or customers, or expanding the scope of goods and services. However, a truly successful business can only be attained if there is a balanced growth in all of these features at the same time. Unlike having the sales and marketing department handle the growth and expansion of the company, there is a rising trend of having an effective growth team in today’s business.
What can be considered to be a typical growth team?
It is a person’s go-to reaction to relate a positive surge in numbers as growth. This works aptly if you consider departments like marketing, product development, data science and design. Hence, all the growth team has to do is to quantify the results based on results or performance of the departments. However, in the last 5 years, much has changed with the concept of growth hacker marketing.
Until only a few years ago, a company had to market itself using billboards, television ads, print ads and whatnot. Consider a company at this age. Before even officially thinking of marketing methods, they would have already done some kind of marketing through the internet and also unknowingly taken up suggestions and feedbacks. After the rise of the internet, and with it the possibility of instant feedback and improvements, many different departments have been brought down to the click of a button.
Now while we talk about growth, one might feel that everything that a company depends on for growth is covered and calculated. We analyze every output that comes for mistakes or signs of growth but there is one thing people tend to often overlook; the source of the output. Research suggests that people are one of the most overlooked aspects of growth across most companies.
Why are people the most overlooked aspect of growth?
Every great leader, successful entrepreneur, and great industrialist had made it clear that people are the most important part of the business, we are on a constant chase of creating the best possible process and system. The one forgotten factor that the best process fails is when it does not focus on the right people to hold the fort. This leads to yielding unfavourable outputs, which ignites the blaze of involuntary employee attrition. After the cycle has completed a few turns, the blazes up the “most ideal process“in place.
Growth equation and the variables impacting them.
An employee is the combination of the investment, the growth rate you expect and the growth that is accumulated over the years. This could have been easily made into an equation if only there existed no variables. However, in the business world, it is not as ideal. Irrespective of the kind of control you have on the business, there will be these three factors which make every recruitment different.
1. The recruitment process:
The recruitment process is nerve-racking not just to the interviewee but more for the recruiter. Based on a few tangible or intangible tests or interviews, the recruiter should be able to find the best fit for their company. This does not only include analyzing the person’s expertise in the department they apply for. It also includes how well they gel with the company culture and understand the expected growth in the company. The planning and forecasting to the interview process to asking the right questions and finally finding personnel you are 90% sure will give out their best while being comfortable working for you is nothing less than a hectic task.
2. Onboarding Process:
Unless you have a clear cut idea of your goals and objectives and more importantly how exactly you hope to achieve this, it will be near impossible to promise in advance that you will have all necessary resources to help you and the employee to give their best. If the reason why the employee decides to join your company is because of what exactly you offer, then there are minimal chances of mistakes and maximum chances of ideal output.
3. Retention & Motivation:
Talent retentions can be very challenging to you if you are not sure of how to ensure tenure after you find the right talent. Recruiting the right fit for your company doesn’t just stop your work. The real work is making sure they have a reason to stay in your company. Nobody likes a monotonous work life. Job enrichment is what keeps the workforce engaged so that they do not look for a change. Another big part of retention is to ensure that you either recruit personnel who are comfortable working in the work culture you have for the company. Make it a point to convey to your employees about the work culture they are expected to understand before recruiting them.
Staffing might not be the sole reason that is responsible for the company’s growth, but it most definitely is one of the major reasons. Though technology seems to be taking over jobs from every department, the need for human touch will never be obsolete.
Investing in a people solutions consulting periodically will ensure the right sizing of the company, performance enhancement of the employees, right retention strategy by the HR and the perfect hires by the talent acquisition
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