Imagine this: Your entire team is remote and you have a pool of equally competent candidates. Each one meets the requirements for qualifications and experience. But now, how do you select the candidate who will be a good cultural fit for your organisation? This is why the evaluation of candidates based on the cultural match is valuable, especially doing remote hiring.
Cultural fit emphasises that the match between the organisational culture and employees is crucial for achieving workplace cohesion, employee satisfaction, and organisational effectiveness. That’s why when the employees embrace the organisational culture, they are not just workers, they are your brand bearers.
Let me explain why cultural fit is important and how any HR professional can do it well.
Index
What is Cultural Fit?
Cultural fit is the match of the candidate with the organisational culture in terms of the values, goals, and preferences of the work environment.
It is not about hiring new individuals who have similar perspectives of the organisation but it is about how the newcomer can be made fit to the environment. For example:
- Whereas team competitiveness thrives with team-oriented people.
- An innovation-driven company requires people who appreciate innovation and willingness to embrace risk.
- Companies adopting work-life balance policies align with candidates prioritizing work-life balance and mindfulness policies.
Why is Cultural Fit Important in Remote Hiring?
- Promotes Teamness: Remote teams depend on virtual collaboration. There will be no clash of business and personal values with culturally aligned hires. So the team will be efficient in communication and workflow.
- Employee Engagement: When employees fit with their organisations’ culture, they are more engaged, committed and productive even if they are working remotely. It helps them develop loyalty and trust in the organisation.
- Less Turnover: Employees who conform to the organisational culture will stay longer, hence higher employee retention and lower re-hiring costs. A lack of cultural fit may lead to job dissatisfaction and high turnover rates.
- Brand Reputation: It is also a way of building a robust employer brand by hiring people with the right cultural attributes as yours. Developing a strong culture attracts new talent who are searching for valuable experiences in the workplace.
- Boosts Adaptability: Culturally congruent employees are more likely to assimilate into the organisation’s processes. They commence work and respond faster to new changes in the remote working model. They are more willing to accept change and bring positive input to team goals.
How to Assess Cultural Fit During Remote Hiring?
1. Define Your Company Culture
Record the facts, mission, values, and other cultural differences of the company. List actions or processes that demonstrate your culture (i.e., communication, proactivity, creativity, etc). Use this information to introduce candidates to the company culture via website, job posts, or pre-screening material.
2. Use Structured Cultural Fit Assessment
Use behavioural questions to understand their values, which may fit well with your organisation. Ask candidates to come up with examples that show their compatibility with the company’s values.
Questions include:
- Explain the challenging situation you faced during remote working. How do you tackle it?”
- “What are your team’s collaborative approaches in a virtual environment?”
- “Which work environments inspire you most and why?”
3. Conduct Screening Tests
You can make use of personality or situational judgement tests that mirror your organisational culture. Cognitive ability tests provide information on a candidate’s behaviour, problem-solving qualities, and flexibility. Tools like Big Five personality traits or DISC profiles can provide such data.
4. Involve Team Members While Hiring
Collect questions from particular team members or choose an interviewer from a different department. It’ll be helpful to determine from their viewpoint about the fit of candidates into the team. Such an approach covers multiple aspects of a company’s values and culture.
5. Observe Communication Style
Remote jobs require the candidates to be comfortable with communication technology. So assess their communication skills in the recruitment process. Check their language to understand how they respond to emails and messages, and their clarity with technology.
Check how they express themselves in reply emails, how promptly they attend interviews, and how effectively they can use collaborative tools.
6. Apply Virtual Job Modules
Organise assignments or exercises that reveal their real job roles and responsibilities. Performance assessments test their skills and engagement with the team on receiving feedback. Remote project simulation could draw their focus to teamwork and critical thinking.
7. Introduce Cultural Add
Instead of looking for individuals who seamlessly integrate into your existing organisational culture, hire people who would offer a new vision but maintain the core organisational values. They can contribute to the change and improvement of your organisation’s climate positively and productively.
8. Request for References
Check with the previous companies on how the candidates work, how flexible they are and how well they fit your organisation as observed by their former managers. References are an important aspect of evaluating a candidate’s organisation match.
9. Encourage Open Conversations
Make candidates feel relaxed to express their opinions on the aspects of values, preferences and expectations. This element makes the two parties identify levels of compatibility and lays the foundation for a successful business relationship.
Conclusion
Cultural fit is the foundation of the remote environment and a key to organisational development. While evaluating how culturally compatible the candidate for remote hiring is, it’s not just about hiring people who just fit but people who improve organisational culture. Recruit candidates who can perform well in a remote environment without direct face-to-face interaction and those who will benefit the company in the future.
Remote hiring may have its drawbacks – but they can be minimized if you hire the right ones with the best workplace culture.