Blog Topic | June 15
“Culture can become a ‘secret weapon’ that makes extraordinary things happen”
Cultural fit, which is about soft skills and personal goals, is usually assessed during the interview phase of the hiring process. How the candidate answers open-ended questions like “Can you describe your ideal work environment for me?” can help the interviewer decide whether or not the candidate will thrive within the company’s culture.
Candidates that are an appropriate cultural fit are more likely to remain at the hiring organization. In some businesses, cultural fit is so important that a human resource management representative might recommend hiring a candidate who is a good cultural fit but lacks some of the necessary hard skills for a particular position. While a candidate’s skills gap can be filled in with training, a lack of cultural fit may quickly lead to job dissatisfaction, poor productivity, excessive absences and turnover.
If recruiting for cultural fit means hiring people who will succeed in your workplace environment, you must be clear on what your company stands for and ensure your values are clearly defined. When assessing this the hiring managers consider whether the candidates’ own values align with those of the company and whether this will be reflected in their behaviour. I think it’s also important for hiring managers to talk about the workplace culture and ask candidates to give examples of how they demonstrate those values themselves.
It’s now more helpful to ask how our purpose aligns with their purpose. From their perspective, what are the moments that inspire them and energise them? What are the work environments that they know allow them to get the best out of themselves?
When working in a team, what were the attributes that made it really successful? Questions are less about how they demonstrate the values – it’s more important to understand what motivates an individual and how we might be able to address that. It becomes a two-way conversation.
More businesses are looking for diversity of experience, demographics and ways of thinking, if we focus too much on ‘cultural fit’ we might run the risk of selecting more people who ‘fit the mould’ rather than helping build a team that will add value and help drive success, while still being aligned to the business values.
Seeking cultural fit doesn’t mean hiring clones. In fact, research shows that diverse teams actually perform better than like-minded ones. It’s vital to be able to recognize a strong fit for your company, even when a candidate’s personality and ideas might be far different from your own.
Seeking candidates who can enhance their workplace by adding something.
Recruiting for ‘cultural add’ can help a business navigate through challenging times. We are working in a marketplace that is quite changeable at the moment and traditional parts of businesses are being disrupted, so it’s imperative upon us to ensure we are moving in the right direction and are as agile as possible.
We look for people with value to add to the business. It’s not just about demographic diversity or gender diversity – we want people with different interests, unique communication styles and perspectives. This can create additional challenges for HR to ensure that such a diverse workforce remains cohesive. In terms of culture add, it’s not about bringing in people’s new ideas and putting them into the exact same system, it’s about asking the business to think differently. It’s not without its challenges but the value you get out of it is worth more.
3 Ways to test ‘Cultural Fit’ during the hiring process: