How to preserve company culture as headcount grows rapidly

While the team is ten people, culture emerges on its own, in the kitchen and in group chats. When there are 50, 100, 150 people, it no longer rests on personal contact, and it has to be designed. Culture weakens not because of growth, but because informal communication stops reaching everyone, hiring outpaces onboarding, and managers understand the values differently.

Here is how to prevent this.

First: translate values into observable behavior. Words like “honesty” or “ownership” on a wall change nothing. Describe exactly how they show up in the work: for example, which behavior you encourage and which you don't. Practitioners advise defining values before writing a mission and doing so before mass hiring begins.

Second: hire for values, not just for skills. And it is better to look not for “culture fit,” which leads to sameness, but for “culture add”: a person who shares the values but brings a new perspective. Assess candidates against specific behavioral criteria. One piece of advice: conduct the first interviews with leadership candidates in pairs, and for high-volume positions add a separate values check at the end.

Third: make onboarding the key moment. It is in the first weeks that a person learns how work is done here, so talk not only about processes but also about values, using examples.

Fourth: managers must behave in line with the values, and the reward system must not contradict them. If you talk about teamwork but promote people for individual results at any cost, people listen to the system.

Fifth: listen as fast as you grow. Regular engagement surveys, analysis of who leaves and why, and conversations with new employees show where the values have stopped working.

And finally: preserve the core but change the practices. Early-stage simplicity and “everyone talks to everyone” communication will inevitably give way to more structured solutions, and that is fine as long as the values stay the same.

An example is Netflix. The company still relies on the culture deck it created back in 2009 and still values the same nine qualities: judgment, communication, impact, curiosity, innovation, courage, passion, honesty and selflessness. The business model has changed, but the description of behavior has stayed the same.

Sources:

1. Entrepreneur — How to Grow Your Company Without Losing Its Culture
2. Compono — How to scale culture during rapid growth
3. Pedowitz Group — What mechanisms help preserve culture during rapid growth
4. TalentCulture — How to hire based on values
5. Condia — Company culture: scaling lessons from a growing fintech