For the past quarter-century, American businesses have expended untold amounts of time and money trying to engage their employees and build a company culture on a foundation of core values and beliefs, attempting to drive passion, purpose and commitment.
It takes such a concerted effort, because there’s no magic button to push for obtaining a culture where employees are focused, committed and intending to stick around for a long time. Building and maintaining a vibrant culture isn’t something you do can once and walk away from, unless you define once as “continually.”
If the bad news is that there are no shortcuts, the good news is that there is one thing you can do to get a big leg up on the process: make a particular point of hiring the sorts of employees who are already on board with your values and culture. Taking your deliberate time to hire for cultural fit--and sometimes cultural un-fit--can save you worlds of trouble later.
It’s not as hard as it may sound. In our new ebook, Want Engaged Employees? Hire Them, we discuss a number of considerations for hiring for cultural fit, including whether cultural fit even accurately describes what you’re shooting for in the first place. In this guide, you’ll learn:
The critical role of managers. Each employee’s experience of company culture is directly proportional to their manager. Your leaders are far and away your most important hires.
Hiring for now, and not right now. Employees who stay with your company will likely fill a number of roles during their tenure. Even if you’re not hiring for a leadership position, assume that you are.
Recognize your bias. It’s a natural human inclination to gravitate towards people who are most like us. When hiring, this is a positive thing to a certain extent, but it can go south on you, quickly.
Interviewing with a purpose. The more carefully crafted the questions, and the more cultural takes on a candidate’s fit (both organizationally and even geographically), the better.
Hiring for cultural un-fit. Is it possible to overdose on your own culture? It absolutely is. When is it time to go against the grain?
Not fitting, but shaping. Hiring to support your values is only partially for the culture you already have. What sort will you need to have to meet future challenges and opportunities?
Building a culture of lasting passion and purpose doesn’t begin with the people you already have within your four walls—it begins with whom you choose to bring inside those four walls. Download our new ebook to learn how to begin creating a culture that will ultimately create itself.
