Taste of Work — Part 5: When a Good Company Starts to Change

Have you ever joined a company and thought:

“I really like working here.”

The people were good.

Your manager trusted you.

You knew what was expected of you.

You had freedom to get on with your job.

Things weren't perfect, but they worked.

Then the company started growing.

And slowly, things changed.

More people joined.

New managers appeared.

Then directors.

Then departments.

Then HR.

More meetings.

More processes.

More KPIs.

More approvals.

More policies.

More layers between you and the people making decisions.

And one day you look around and think:

“What happened to the company I joined?”

Growth changes everything

When a company is small, everyone tends to know everyone.

You can walk over to someone's desk and have a conversation.

Decisions can happen quickly.

The founder might sit in the same room as everyone else.

You know why something is being done because you were probably part of the conversation.

There isn't much bureaucracy because there isn't enough company to need it.

Then the company grows.

And growth is usually a good thing.

More customers.

More money.

More employees.

More opportunities.

But growth creates complexity.

You can't manage 500 people in the same way you manage 20.

You need structure.

You need policies.

You need reporting.

You need managers.

You need HR.

You need systems.

You need processes to make sure things don't fall apart.

The strange thing is that many of the things introduced to help the company can also make it feel less human.

The company you loved may not have disappeared

Sometimes we blame people when the real problem is the system around them.

The manager who used to make quick decisions now needs approval from their director.

The director needs approval from someone else.

A simple decision that once took five minutes now needs three meetings.

Nobody necessarily decided to make the company worse.

The company simply became bigger.

And bigger companies need different ways of working.

That's the uncomfortable part.

A company can be successful and still become less enjoyable to work for.

It doesn't mean everyone has become a bad person.

It doesn't mean the company doesn't care.

It doesn't even mean the company is doing something wrong.

It may simply mean that the company you joined no longer exists in the same form.

You change too

There's another side to this.

You aren't the same person who joined the company either.

When you first start somewhere, everything is new.

You learn.

You meet people.

You prove yourself.

You build relationships.

You become comfortable.

Maybe you get more responsibility.

Maybe you become one of the people others come to for help.

Then the company changes around you.

And sometimes you change with it.

You might become a manager yourself.

You might become responsible for people who weren't there when you joined.

Suddenly, you're part of the system you used to complain about.

That's an interesting moment.

Because you start to realise that management isn't always about making the perfect decision.

Sometimes you're balancing ten different problems at once.

The danger is losing what made the company good

Growth isn't the problem.

Losing the things that made people want to work there is.

A company can grow without losing its humanity.

But it takes effort.

People still need to feel respected.

They still need to feel trusted.

They still need to understand why decisions are being made.

They still need some freedom to do their jobs.

They still need managers who treat them like human beings rather than numbers on a spreadsheet.

And perhaps most importantly, people need to feel that the company remembers that there are human beings behind the targets.

Because eventually, every company has targets.

Revenue.

Profit.

Customers.

Growth.

Productivity.

Performance.

But none of those things happen without people.

When processes start replacing judgement

One of the biggest changes as companies grow is the rise of processes.

Processes are useful.

They create consistency.

They protect companies.

They make things easier to manage.

But processes can become dangerous when people stop thinking.

You start hearing:

“That's just the process.”

“That's what the policy says.”

“We can't make an exception.”

“That's above my pay grade.”

And suddenly nobody feels responsible for the decision.

The process has become the decision.

That's when a company can start feeling very different.

Good companies use processes to help people make better decisions.

Bad cultures use processes to avoid making decisions.

What should you do when your company changes?

First, don't immediately assume the worst.

Change is inevitable.

Some changes will be good.

Some will be frustrating.

Some will take time to understand.

Ask yourself:

Has the company actually become worse, or has it simply become different?

Those aren't the same thing.

Look at what has changed.

Is there less trust?

Less autonomy?

More unnecessary pressure?

Are managers becoming more controlling?

Has communication become worse?

Are people afraid to speak up?

Are good people leaving?

Are you being asked to do things that conflict with your values?

Or are you simply finding it harder to adjust to a company that has grown?

Those questions matter.

Because sometimes the answer is:

“I need to adapt.”

And sometimes it's:

“This place isn't right for me anymore.”

Don't confuse loyalty with staying forever

If you've been somewhere for a long time, change can feel personal.

You remember the good years.

You remember the people who helped you.

You remember when things were different.

You might even feel that leaving would somehow mean you're being disloyal.

But companies change.

People change.

Your needs change.

Loyalty is valuable.

But loyalty shouldn't mean ignoring what is happening around you.

You can appreciate everything a company has given you and still decide that the company isn't the right place for you anymore.

There is no betrayal in recognising that.

Sometimes the company needs to grow up

There is another possibility.

Sometimes change is uncomfortable because the company genuinely needs to mature.

A startup can survive on informal conversations.

A larger company can't.

A founder can know everyone personally.

A CEO of a much larger organisation can't.

You may have to introduce HR.

You may need proper financial controls.

You may need compliance.

You may need managers.

You may need structure.

None of these things are automatically bad.

The question is:

What happens to the people when the structure arrives?

Does the company become more organised while remaining human?

Or does it become organised at the expense of being human?

That's the real challenge.

Remember what made you join

When a company grows, it's worth asking a simple question:

What made people want to work here in the first place?

Maybe it was the people.

Maybe it was the freedom.

Maybe it was the culture.

Maybe it was the feeling that your work actually mattered.

Maybe it was being trusted.

Maybe it was simply that people treated each other well.

Whatever it was, those things shouldn't automatically disappear because the company got bigger.

Growth should mean becoming better.

Not simply becoming bigger.

And sometimes the change is the warning sign

There comes a point where change stops being normal growing pains.

When fear replaces trust.

When politics replaces collaboration.

When managers protect themselves instead of their teams.

When targets become more important than people.

When nobody feels safe questioning decisions.

When HR becomes something employees are afraid of.

When good people start shrinking themselves just to get through the day.

That's when we need to pay attention.

Because a company doesn't suddenly become toxic overnight.

It can happen slowly.

One change at a time.

One new layer.

One bad incentive.

One controlling manager.

One unnecessary process.

One ignored complaint.

One person leaving.

Then another.

Until eventually people look around and wonder:

“How did we get here?”

And that's where we're going next.

Why do good companies become toxic?

Because sometimes, nobody actually sets out to create a toxic workplace.

It just happens.

And understanding how it happens might help us recognise it before it's too late.