We’ve all heard the term, “culture fit”, or “ensuring congruence between the candidate and the values and norms of the business”. Which sounds like a standard factor to focus on when pairing a candidate with a company. But what if we said that instead of finding a similar “fit”, you should focus on “adding” to the current company culture? Here’s why you should focus on “culture add” instead of “culture fit” for 2020.

It Encourages Diversity

Culture fit creates uniformity amongst a company, but it can also create a shortage of diversity. However, when focusing on “culture add” you increase the chances of having a team of various personalities, backgrounds, and talents. If you are looking to “add” to your company, you’ll want to ask questions like, what value would this employee bring? How do they “add” to our current company culture?

You Open Yourself Up to More Talent

Referrals are generally common when hiring for new employment, which is great! However, they can often be standardized to fit within the current company culture. The referred employees, tend to possess similar qualities, and skills as the existing team. Hiring for “culture add” expands the candidate pool, and opens you up to different types of talent that you may not already have or would have considered.

It Eliminates Subconscious Bias

Going off the previous point, hiring for “culture add” eliminates a subconscious bias – meaning that even if a company is unaware that they’re doing it, there is a level of bias that is being developed with “culture fit”. You end up hiring for a candidate that you feel would fit well with the culture, instead of thinking outside the box of “how will the differences of this candidate benefit our company?” or “What can they bring to the table that we’re lacking or is not already present?”Focusing on “culture add” encourages you to consider different candidates.

Increases Innovation and Benefits the Companies Success

“Not only do you get the aforementioned benefits of culture fit hires, you have the added boon that diverse workforces bring”. Diversity allows companies to be more inventive, relevant and competitive. For example, think of a company having most or all of the same type of employee. The same work habits, skillset, knowledge, and background. Although their day-to-day productivity may be in sync and can get work done efficiently – they’re only as good as that avenue of talent. Whereas if you hire for diversity – different habits, skillset, backgrounds, personalities – you bring a lot more to the table. This opens you up to so many more opportunities and allows you as a company to see things from many different lenses.

 

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