Over the past few years, there has been a marked increase in hypergrowth companies across the globe. First coined by Alexander V. Izosimov in the Harvard Business Review in 2008, “hypergrowth” refers to the steep part of the S-curve, where industries and firms grow at an explosive pace. Businesses rapidly expand, company valuation skyrockets, and the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) hits 40%+. Human capital also grows dramatically, as employee count steeply rises to support business growth.
Scaling Culture in Fast-Growing Companies
Over the past few years, there has been a marked increase in hypergrowth companies across the globe. Hypergrowth refers to the steep part of the S-curve, where industries and firms grow at an explosive pace. Since they are scaling so rapidly, these firms need to quickly ensure that they have the right people and systems in place to withstand the speed at which they are growing. If they don’t, the organization can quickly fall apart.
While hypergrowth companies face many obstacles, research shows that talent is their primary growth challenge. And one of their biggest talent priorities is how to scale and maintain culture. There are four ways that hypergrowth firms can scale their culture to hundreds (or thousands) of employees across the globe. First, define culture in terms of clear, observable behaviors. Second, build an accessible, digital library of learning content. Third, use blended learning programs to scale culture training. Finally, ensure managers relentlessly reinforce target behaviors through recognition.