Ensure Your People Strategy Supports High Growth: Top 6 Steps

Ensure Your People Strategy Supports High Growth
If your organization is poised for rapid expansion — or determined to get there — your people strategy must be just as growth-ready as your business strategy. Our organizational alignment research shows that talent alone drives 29% of the performance gap between high- and low-performing companies, making it a powerful lever for scaling with confidence.

Avoid the People Pitfalls of High Growth
Too many companies hit the growth curve only to see employee burnout, disengagement, and turnover rise just as momentum accelerates. If you want your people strategy to truly enable high growth, make sure your organization doesn’t become one of them.

6 Ways to Drive Engagement During High Growth
Here are six ways you can prepare for keeping your people engaged even while the company is expanding by leaps and bounds. Essentially, it’s all about looking to the future and making sure your people strategy supports high growth in terms of systems, processes, and business practices.

1. Keep Senior Leaders Front and Center
   One of the most common frustrations in high-growth environments from our corporate culture assessments is a growing sense of distance from leadership. When companies are relatively small, employees know the decision-makers; as organizations scale, leaders become harder to reach and everyday connections erode.

   During periods of rapid growth, leaders must be visibly present and consistently engaged. That means spending time where the work happens, having real conversations, and listening closely to what people are experiencing. Put simply: increase meaningful contact and close the gap between leaders and employees.

2. Do Not Compromise on Hiring
   With high growth comes pressure: to move fast, meet demand, and seize opportunity. In this rush, many companies make a critical mistake: they compromise on hiring standards.  The consequences of poor hiring decisions during growth are far-reaching. A single mis-hire can disrupt team dynamics, slow down execution, and erode the culture you’ve worked so hard to build.

   Compromising on standards may provide short-term relief, but it undermines culture, productivity, and long-term success. Invest in rigorous hiring practices now to secure the talent that will drive sustainable growth and high performance.

3. Communicate Regularly about Current and Future Changes
   High growth accelerates the pace of organizational change — and with it, say change management consulting experts, the level of uncertainty employees feel. Your managers must be equipped to lead change deliberately and confidently.

   Leaders should foster steady, transparent dialogue so employees maintain a sense of influence over their own future and the company’s direction. Invite input early, listen without defensiveness, and ensure people see how their perspectives shape decisions. This is how you keep anxiety in check and engagement high during rapid expansion.

4. Update Your Rewards and Recognition Plan
   When companies are small, recognition at weekly meetings and discretionary bonuses is often enough. In a high-growth environment, however, rewards and recognition must be woven into your overall talent management strategy. Deliberately design how you acknowledge exceptional effort and achievement — it’s a critical driver of a high-performance culture.
5. Prepare for a More Competitive Compensation Program
   As your workforce expands, compensation naturally becomes both more critical and more complex. With additional job categories and a greater demand for highly skilled talent, your approach must evolve. To support growth, your compensation program should be competitive, equitable, and consistent — while remaining simple to understand and easy to administer.
6. Provide Career Development Opportunities
   Now that your organization is operating on the “grown-up” field, career development must become a core part of your employee experience. Managers need the skills to hold meaningful career conversations with each team member.

   When employees can see a clear path forward, engagement rises — and the temptation to seek opportunities elsewhere diminishes.

The Bottom Line
Growth is a sign that your strategy is working — but the real advantage comes from having a people strategy that matches that momentum. When your talent strategy aligns with your growth strategy, you’re not just expanding — you’re building a high-performance organization that can sustain and accelerate success.

To learn more about taking your people strategy to the next level, download The Top 3 Ingredients Required for Talent Management Success