Is it finally happening?

You’ve secured your next round of funding, and you’re going to get some extra hands on deck to take your business to the next level. The additional people you need goes beyond your network of contacts. To scale quickly, you’re going to have to hire people you’ve never met before.

But part of what’s made your company so successful to date is the culture. It can be hard to put into words what work culture exactly is. Or what makes it so important to a company’s every day. How can you ensure you don’t lose this when you start recruiting strangers into your organisation?

Thankfully, we have some tips to share with you that ensure your business achieves continued success no matter how many people you bring on board.

Get Clear on Your Company Values

It’s possible that you set some company values when you first began your business. But as it grew, this important piece of information may have got lost in the shuffle as you worked towards tight deadlines.

Now is the perfect time to revisit them. If you’re happy with the company values, communicate them to your recruitment partner, so they’re clear on the type of employees to look out for. But if you want to make some alterations, do this before you start scaling up your business, so you don’t get the wrong people. You can work with an external agency for this or there are some fun activities you can run yourself. We’ll share a template for this over the coming weeks

Be Clear About Your Expectations

While you might have a vision of what you need from your new employees, you need to find a way to clearly express that to your recruitment partners (whether these are internal or external). You’ll want to share as much information with them about the values and culture of your business.

It’s also important to be clear as to what the recruiters should share with candidates. Providing them with an understanding of the workplace and the way ‘things get done around here’ will give prospects the opportunity to turn it down if a culture doesn’t match their needs.

Identify Red Flags

Everyone has worked alongside a lousy employee. You can often spot them immediately. But in a job interview, it can be harder to identify a candidate’s true colours.

There are questions that you can ask to lure them out though. Between you and your recruitment partner, come up with some identifiers of toxic employees, so none sneak through the process.

Ensure the Environment Reflects Company Culture

It’s likely during the recruitment process that the potential candidates will visit the office they may end up working out of. In this instance, you’re going to want to ensure that the company culture that you’ve been promoting is reflected in the space. If people are working remotely, give candidates an opportunity to meet with a number of team members virtually to understand why they work for you and what it’s really like.

This means everything from the architecture and design through to the amount of desk space an employee has available to them. If the environment doesn’t match your description, it can scare off people.

Choose the Right Recruitment Partner

Retaining the company culture while scaling up your business is critical to your future success. If you’re clear about your values, expectations, and can weed out those potential bad fits, then you can rest assure that the secret sauce is safe.

Choosing how best to recruit at scale means choosing the right recruitment partner is vital. Talent Gateway specialises in helping businesses scale up quickly, so you get the employees you need to continue your momentum.