Work Culture is so essential in scaling and growing your business that some times it can make or break your business.
So – You have beta tested your product, have a nice team in the office and the funding has just reached your bank account. Congratulations! You have finished your journey from Point Zero to Point One. Now – it’s time to scale.
Every single major entrepreneurial success has been due to the entrepreneur’s ability to scale operations for value creation.
As a business operator, it has to be one of your paramount goals to scale your business.
The only problem being – scaling brings variability and unpredictability and chaos. The biggest risk scaling poses is to your work culture.
Your company’s culture is what differentiates it from the competition and other companies.
Since it has a lot of intangible value, it is important to keep it intact when you scale – if it has helped you succeed so far.
Here are four ways you can scale your office, without letting it hamper the work culture you already have in place:
1. Work Culture Need Mapping
This is the most pragmatic way to scale. When you start scaling, you will have an influx of people and their idiosyncrasies in the workplace.
With the arrival of more and more people, you will also add on new functions in the business and all of this will mean that there would be new needs to be satiated in the office.
For instance – something as basic as workstations will now have to be scaled. Now, the workstations which worked for your engineering team may or may not work for your accounting team.
Understanding this differentiation and planning for it beforehand, is all that need mapping is about.
2. Defending the Founding Work Culture
When entrepreneurs and business operators have a very clear idea of what they are doing and this has fetched them results, it is natural for them to try and defend the founding culture they had set-up in the initial days of the company.
In these cases, your goal will be to buy office furniture to match up your office design, instead of adding new elements of every level you scale.
3. Refine
Some founders understand that as they scale, they have to let go of certain elements of the culture and adapt to new ones to keep the growth momentum intact.
If you resonate with this school of thought, you should upgrade your office design. This would include adapting to the needs and habits of new team members.
Essentially, you will try to keep earlier furniture’s elements intact while still trying to add upgraded qualities.
For instance, the founders might have chosen to work in a garage while starting the company.
As they scale, they may want to keep the open office culture and frugality intact, while still accepting and adapting into the sophistication of a well-funded company.
4. Get Expert Opinion
This is by far the wisest option of all – go for a free consultation.
Several reputable interior designing consultants and furniture suppliers provide consultations especially to entrepreneurs who are scaling a business and their office for the first time.
In Conclusion
Focus on two key things – what helped you succeed till here and what parts of it will help you succeed in the future. If you can understand this one critical aspect, you will know which route to scaling is ideal for you.
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