Lately, we’ve been paying attention to the idea of transforming and changing cultures within a business to create a more accepting, open, transparent culture, benefiting employees and the company overall.
How can everyone benefit from these changes? It couldn’t be simpler, content employees who love the company they work for give more to their job, they work harder and work at their optimum when they feel accepted as themselves. So creating an environment in which employees are happy and can feel comfortable to express and be themselves should be moving rapidly up your to-do list!
Approaching this change can come in numerous forms, large and small; however, today we’re focusing on one small change, one phrase actually – culture fit.
How is ‘culture fit’ holding your organisation back from creating a welcoming and open company culture? You may think that by considering culture fit when recruiting that you are ensuring the recruits who join you are going to be the happiest within your company, however, you are in fact limiting opportunities for your candidates and for your company.
A focus on culture fit when screening candidates can isolate and limit your options, pushing out those who are different in terms of experience, personality, approach or way of thinking, and see you hiring pretty much the same candidates time and time again.
You’re depriving your company of the new different approaches and innovation which can come along when you side step ‘culture fit’. As talent specialists, instead, we suggest adjusting your recruitment mindset to that of ‘culture add’. What can candidates add to your company culture in terms of perspective, experience and idea generation to help you evolve and develop as a team and a business?
When all organisations are encouraged to operate as open and accepting, this is the best possible way not only to ensure you are not subconsciously showing bias and exclusivity to those who are ‘your kind of people’ but also that your team does not become stale, unchallenged and unimaginative by introducing new blood to the office! Creativity is fueled by questioning the norms and changing perspectives.
As your search begins for your next recruits, whether you do this yourselves or with the help of a talent and recruitment agency, ensure that your conscious of approaching with culture add in mind and not culture fit; think ‘what could this recruit add to your company culture?’, and not ‘where could they slip in unnoticed?’!
