Many business founders work late into the night, drinking cold tea while managing many tasks. At first, doing everything yourself may seem efficient, but this habit can slow your business’s growth.
According to Time etc, UK entrepreneurs spend about 36% of their workweek on minor administrative tasks. This means a significant portion of your effort is spent on tasks like managing invoices and emails rather than focusing on business growth.
To scale your company, you must hire people who share your values and delegate key responsibilities. Focusing on company culture makes it easier to delegate tasks while keeping high standards.
At Ascent Business Network, we help you foster a vibrant ecosystem of mutual support and connection among diverse businesses striving for collective success.
In this guide, we provide six strategies for building a team with a strong cultural fit from the very beginning.
When Founders Become the Bottleneck
As businesses grow, they often face the same challenge. More orders come in, emails stack up, and you end up approving every single decision. Your schedule becomes the bottleneck for the whole company. Identifying this turning point is essential for scaling effectively and refocusing on high-impact strategy.
You’ll know it’s time to change when you start cancelling sales meetings to deal with tiny issues, or when the quality of work drops as soon as you’re not around. If talented staff leave because they do not have the freedom to take initiative, that’s another sign. If any of these situations sound familiar, don’t just hire more people to help out. Instead, look for individuals who share your company’s values.
It is easier to teach someone new skills than to instill a good attitude, honesty, or real concern for customers. By hiring people who fit your company culture, your business can start to operate on shared principles rather than requiring your consistent oversight.
Key Tips for Cultural Hiring
Here are six key tips to make culture the backbone of your recruitment process:
Define Your Core Values
A 2026 Harvard Business Review report says that when employees leave because they really don’t fit the company culture, it costs businesses about 50-60% of that employee’s annual salary. For a small company, just one bad hire can wipe out months of earnings.
To avoid these costs, think about three to five values that are important to you and that you live by every day. Avoid using general words like “passion.” Explain how your team interacts with customers, handles deadlines, and deals with mistakes. Then, before you even interview anyone, check whether each candidate matches your list.
Hire for Attitude Over Polish
A polished resume highlights a candidate’s past achievements, but it doesn’t show how they manage stress or challenges. It is more effective to ask job candidates about times when they owned up to a mistake or supported a colleague, without expecting anything in return. Their answers can reveal their true character faster than any diploma could. To see how focusing on character instead of just traditional qualifications can make a difference, check out this helpful guide.
Involve Team in Interviews
The first people you brought on board have a good understanding of your company’s atmosphere because they see it in action every day. It’s a great idea to let them meet the candidates you’re seriously thinking about, perhaps over coffee. Try to actually listen to their opinions. If your entire team has concerns, it is important to consider them.
Share the Whole Truth
It’s important to be honest with potential staff about the job, including its challenges. Let them actually know about the small office space, the busy times when things might get overwhelming, and that everyone pitches in on tasks such as making tea. When people have clear expectations from the start, they stay with the company longer and have fewer complaints.
Get Expert Help With Hiring
Founders often have a lot on their plates and may not have the time to manage hiring on their own. Making hasty decisions in this area can lead to expensive mistakes. It can be helpful to work with partners like the VMA Group, who specialise in connecting leaders with candidates who genuinely fit their team’s culture. Leveraging this kind of external expertise allows you to sidestep common hiring pitfalls, ensuring you spend less time on recruitment and more time on the growth of your business.
Let Go and Trust People
When you have the right people working for you, give them real responsibilities instead of just tasks. Clearly explain the end goal and agree on what success looks like. Then, let them do their job. Avoid constantly checking every draft or decision. When someone achieves a goal you once watched, it clearly indicates that your business is growing successfully.
Conclusion
Running a business by doing everything yourself creates a job, not a scalable company. To grow, you must hire people who align with your values. Start by defining those core principles, then hire candidates who embody them. Commit to listing your company’s core values this week. For more insights, check out our blog on the Ascent Business Network page.
