There’s an almost automatic reflex in companies: when sales grow, headcount grows too. It seems logical, even understandable, but it’s rarely questioned in depth. And that’s where the risk lies.
Expanding the workforce should answer a very simple question: why do we need more people? Reinforcing teams to handle the workload from new business units is not the same as scaling existing ones. Sometimes it’s a mix of both. But the key is identifying the real reason and projecting its consequences.
The “Accordion Effect”
If we don’t, we face what I call the “accordion effect”: expanding structure when sales rise, and contracting it when they stagnate or decline. And “contracting” is often just a polite way of saying “layoffs.” Depending on the size of the company, there may be softer options like early retirements or voluntary exit packages, but the outcome is the same: a painful adjustment that hits both people and the organization.
The problem is that inertia is often underestimated. Growing headcount doesn’t just mean hiring more people. It also means bigger offices, higher fixed costs, and long-term commitments. What happens if, to house new hires, we’ve signed a ten-year lease with rigid clauses? Or worse, if we’ve bought a new building? The accordion effect doesn’t just result in layoffs—it drags down investments, infrastructure, and decisions that are hard to reverse.
When executives recognize that growth is no longer cyclical but structural, the reflection must be different. This is not a temporary boost, but a consolidation that demands resizing the organization.
“It’s like when a suit no longer fits: you can’t just stretch it—you need a new one. At that point, what’s needed is not fear of risk, but method. Analyzing the market, reviewing industry precedents, understanding which factors are driving sustainable growth, and stress-testing them rigorously.”
And this cannot be done by a single profile: it requires input from finance, market analysts, consultants, and even key operational areas. Only then can a diagnosis be built that justifies moving to a new organizational stage, minimizing improvisation and maximizing the solidity of the decision.
Growing with Vision
That’s why, in expansion phases, the question is not so much “who do we hire” as “why are we hiring?” Do we really need to expand the team, or can we reorganize processes, automate tasks, or outsource part of the workload? Strategic vision is precisely about anticipating not only expansion, but also the possibility of contraction.
Growth is always exciting, but it’s worth remembering that every time the organization expands, it does so with inertia that can turn against it. Managing that energy well—deciding where and why to allocate resources—is what separates prudent companies from those trapped in their own accordion.
