As businesses continue to navigate the worlds of in-office, hybrid and remote working, maintaining and developing company culture has become a bigger consideration than ever before.

In a candidate-driven market, today’s job seekers have more choices than ever and place greater emphasis on company culture, their values and their experiences.

Traditionally, businesses have sought to bring people onboard who are a perfect “fit” for the culture and who are similar in their personality traits and values to those already working there.

Instead, when hiring you should be looking for people who can add to your company’s culture, bringing new perspectives and different experiences.

 

What’s wrong with hiring for culture fit?

Hiring in this way is a tried and tested method, however, this approach has its limitations and quite often can lead to great potential being passed over for the opportunity.

It’s important for businesses to avoid thinking “we’ve always done it this way” when entering the recruitment process as it often results in…

Unconscious bias, which will inevitably find its way into the recruitment process and often we look for what we know and trust, whether we realise it or not.

Doing things as they’ve always been done and hiring the same type of person will stop new ideas from coming through and impact the growth of your business and culture.

Unclear rejections can also be the case for many candidates when companies look for cultural fit during their recruitment process. If told they weren’t the right “fit” many are left wondering what they were being assessed on in the first place which can lead to a negative perception of the business.

 

Why you should start hiring for culture add

By changing your mindset and focusing on what potential employees can “add” to the culture and your team, you’ll be able to…

Build a diverse team, which has been a key consideration for many over the past few years. For businesses to achieve this, they need to fully retire the old ways of looking for people who fit the mould and embrace new ways of attracting and engaging candidates.

Hiring for culture add not only allows you to fish from a more diverse candidate pool, but also encourages more diverse candidates to apply. If they can see people from underrepresented groups in greater numbers, they will be far more likely to want to join.

Gain new ideas and perspectives as you start to engage with candidates from outside of your established culture.

Looking beyond what a candidate looks like on paper and finding out what they have to offer and potentially bring to your business that may not already exist within your team makes them extremely valuable if you’re to enhance your culture and your business.

The more diverse the team, the higher the business value, the greater the innovation and creativity and ultimately, the better the company’s bottom line.

 

Naturally progress and develop as opposed to simply stagnating. Your business will struggle to grow and keep pace with competitors if the culture and type of employee remain the same as they’ve always been.

Hiring people with different experiences and from a variety of backgrounds will only allow your business to become more attractive and enable better growth in the future.

 

So, what’s next?

Being proactive and moving towards a culture add approach to hiring is hugely important for businesses if they’re to improve their chances of attracting and retaining top candidates.

As greater emphasis gets placed on creating working environments that people want to be a part of, those that get this right will see their business go from strength to strength.