Cultural Fit

My definition of cultural fit is the assessment of how company evaluates the new hire in terms of work performance and working relationship with internal colleagues as well as the satisfaction level of the new hire when settling in the new role and working environment including workplace and stakeholders. The process of how the new hire settle in the company plays a part in how soon the new hire can start to make positive contributions to the organization.

What qualify as a successful cultural fit? Is it just simply passing the probation period and getting the confirmation letter? Will it be the length of service with the company? How about a top performer or high potential in the organization? I think this depends on how the company benchmark an individual who is deemed a successful cultural fit.

After deciding the qualifying criteria that constitutes a successful cultural fit, what are the predictors that resulted in the employee being a successful cultural fit? Can it be the hiring process such as expectations of new join and immediate supervisor before accepting the offer to join the company? What about probation period including satisfaction level from both new join and immediate supervisor for the first three to six months? Will it also include ongoing feedback and appraisal sessions? In my view, use a combination of the different predictors will be important although ensuring a vigorous and robust process starting from hiring to confirmation will be key in resulting an outcome of successful cultural fit.

There are various factors to consider that will determine the outcome of a successful cultural fit. They include the job level, expectations of the new hire and hiring manager during the interview and acceptance of the role and mode of recruitment such as employee referral, job posting or search firms. 

The hiring process right from the start is a crucial aspect since you reap what you sow. At the beginning of the hiring process, identification of the qualities required to be successful needs to be done and this is followed by getting an agreement from all parties involved in the hiring process especially hiring manager and HR. Questions are formulated from those agreed qualities and they will be used to assess shortlisted candidates in the selection process. To achieve the outcome of a successful cultural fit, reference checks from previous immediate supervisors and colleagues who worked closely with the candidate will be thoroughly considered.

Having a good hiring process is the first step and its importance cannot be overlooked. This is followed by the newly join’s first year with the company. This first year with the company is divided into three stages which are the first three months, half yearly and one year.

For the first three months, an employee satisfaction survey is provided at the end of first week of join where ratings are given by the newly join on relationship with colleagues including immediate supervisor and impression of department, company and role. Besides ratings, there are action items to worked on and measure for first three and six months. There will be on going regular meet ups organized informally or formally to discuss the progress of the action items. All these steps and processes are taken to ensure that expectations are aligned, and cultural fit is judged on work performance, working relationships with internal and external stakeholders and candidate’s feedback and satisfaction.     

Confirmation for the newly join is a milestone during the first year of stay with the organization. Also, there is the added follow up of post probation employee satisfaction survey to compare against the one done at the end of first week of join. This is to review the progress made and identify the gaps which will be continued to be worked on moving forward. Informal sessions for discussion will be on going and these will subsequently be incorporated in informal appraisal sessions at regular intervals.

Data will be complied from employees who moved out of the organization with one year or less tenure with the company. This will include interviews with department heads and immediate supervisor of new joins who resign within twelve months, pre and post probation employee satisfaction survey and exit interviews. All information will be analyzed and presented to management with the intention to gain full support for any initiatives to be implemented arising from sharing the findings.

Also, success stories will be shared within the organization to applaud and recognize the work put in by all parties involved. This keeps the momentum going in having a mindset of continuous improvement for practices put in place which will benefit the organization. These practices are the core components of what transpired, and they must be reinforced to take the organization to the next level. 

It takes a tripartite partnership of HR, management and newly join to ensure the success of cultural fit. Every single one must work hand in hand right from the beginning. There is no one size fits all when it comes to having successful cultural fit since different companies have different objectives. In fact, this is also different across different departments in the same company.

Hence, regardless of companies or departments, there must be a mindset of continuous improvement on existing practices put in place for having a successful cultural fit and not settling for status quo. This will be from bottom up and top down which will create a unique company culture that benefits the organization meeting its goals as well as being known as an employer of choice externally.