Expanding a business is hard, but growing a workforce to meet the demand of that increased workload is even harder.

Whether growth comes from adding employees, or through M&A, most companies put little or no thought into the “soft” aspects of employee growth. They spend time crunching numbers and reviewing legal paperwork, virtually ignoring the one thing that will trip them up faster than anything. The fastest way to kill success is to ignore the human aspects of business.

How can you manage these problems? The answer is pretty simple: Think hard, and build a plan for your people.

Have a Plan

Start by forecasting what growth will look like as your company undertakes expansion, and calculate how much manpower will be needed to get it done. Be careful, though: Simply adding employees doesn’t magically lead to effective execution, unless they’re well-directed and well-oriented into your company. Not only do you have to figure out how many people you’ll need, but you’ll need to spell out what their individual roles will be.

It’s even more difficult when it’s a merger or an acquisition, because you often have duplicate roles and some daunting decisions to make. Figure out how many consolidated seats you actually have on the bus. Then look at individual talents to see if you can get the right people in the right seats.

Who Are You?

If you haven’t truly decided on your vision, purpose and intentions and can’t boldly articulate your culture, it makes finding the right people virtually impossible. New hires might last a little while, but you’re going to increase your retention odds exponentially if you develop your internal brand.

With organic growth, having vision and culture is important. In a merger situation, though, it’s absolutely imperative. If you’re considering an acquisition, look at the way the businesses operate, the leadership styles of those at the helm, the benefits, the environment, the …. well, the list goes on. It might be that there isn’t a way for those styles to blend. Better to find that out now before proceeding.

Dealing with Differences

We’ve seen so many rapidly growing or merged organizations that look like Utopia from the outside—until a year or two down the road when it’s discovered that there was no integration at all and they’re virtually operating as different companies under one roof. And it could all have been avoided if the human issues were tackled up front.

Truth is, some people might lose some things, such as position or responsibilities, and some might gain. But, if you deal with those issues head on, then people will feel as though they were treated fairly, and that’s all that any employee wants. And don’t tolerate an employee’s intentional reluctance to embrace your new world. Make it a performance expectation.

There will be differences in the way new employees think and operate, whether they’re coming to you from the open market or through your acquisition of another company, and the ride might be a little bumpy at times. If your company has a strong cultural foundation, growth won’t derail the train, assuming you’ve done your homework and laid the right cultural tracks.