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What It Means To Hire For ‘Culture Fit’ And How To Do It Well 

Finding and hiring the right person can be one of the most challenging aspects of running a business. Most hiring managers recognise the difficulty and skill it takes to find the right employee for their businesses. A person with the right combination of previous work history and career experience plus a willingness to learn new things is necessary for long-term success.

Aside from the hard skills that an ideal new employee must have, there are also soft skills that make a real difference in ultimate success. These include, for example, communication and teamwork skills, without which no employee can be expected to do well in the increasingly collaborative working environment in today’s business world. But there is another aspect that is a little less tangible to pick up on during the hiring process, even though it is equally as important: the cultural fit. Cultural fit is the idea that the candidate has the personality and social skills to work well with other current employees, bring and incorporate new ideas in a way that benefits everyone in and outside the company.

Benefits Of A Thriving Culture

The benefits of a thriving company culture are well documented amongst numerous workplaces. Some experts even believe that a quality company culture is more important than long-term production strategies. After all, a group that works well together is going to be able to come up with creative solutions and collaborate to get them done at an unprecedented rate.

Taking the time to cultivate a strong company culture pays off for employers, as a strong company culture gives the brand more of a backbone. Advertising a favourable company culture will not only attract potential investors but also attract talented candidates. Many people want to work for a company that gives them pride and something more than a paycheck and many employees are even willing to turn down high paying jobs due to poor company culture.

All of this ultimately translates into a workplace that people want to be at. Not only do companies with a great culture attract the best young talent, they also have much higher rates of long-term retention. Diverse teams that have been together for a while can work more productively together and produce the highest quality work all around.

Defining Company Values

Although the benefits of good company culture are numerous, it’s easier said than done. How does a company even start to create a company culture let alone broadcast it and encourage applications from prospective employees that will have a solid cultural fit?

The first step in this process involves clearly defining the company’s values. Figure out what it is that the company stands for and make sure that every company action speaks to these values. Holding employees and the rest of the company accountable to these values is essential in creating a productive company culture.

Essential core values of a company should be broadcasted for everyone to see, including prospective employees. This means doing things like dedicating an entire page on the company’s website to explaining the list of core values and how the company works to achieve them, as well as mentioning them in the career section of the website and in other company content marketing strategies.

Making these values a focal point of the company and mentioning them whenever possible should send a message to potential employees that cultural fitness will be something interviewers are looking for. Candidates can also illustrate their qualifications for being a good cultural fit through their resume. However, you should also look for a culture fit qualifications in further steps of the hiring process as well.

The Right New Employee

The interview process is a critical part of determining whether or not a potential employee will have the right cultural fit for the company and interview questions can be strategically designed to gauge the qualities of a candidate’s cultural fit. For example, asking them to describe an ideal working environment can help identify whether or not the company’s environment would be a good fit.

Another example of a cultural fit question would be to ask a candidate how they collaborate with others. Effective collaboration is essential to nearly every team environment and it is a foundational part of strong company culture. Ask questions that garner candidates’ communicative skills, how receptive candidates are to new ideas and how they would handle workplace disagreements.

In the age of Covid-19, it is also necessary to consider how a potential employee will handle the changes in the workplace that occurred during the pandemic. For instance, will they fit in with the remote culture that has recently developed? Will they be able to communicate and work with fellow employees that they may not meet in person for months? Hiring with these questions in mind is vital in careers where remote work can seriously impact the company’s culture.

Hiring for culture fit in the workplace can be challenging when it comes to determining who does and doesn’t have it. Be sure to make the workplace culture a focal point on the company’s website and application process and design interview questions to try to get at these qualities to better determine if a candidate will be right for the company. Making the right decision can greatly boost company culture and is well worth the effort.

Author: Beau Peters is a creative professional with a lifetime of experience in service and care. As a manager, he’s learned a slew of tricks of the trade that he enjoys sharing with others who have the same passion and dedication that he brings to his work. When he is not writing, he enjoys reading and trying new things.

Photo credits: pixabay.com

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