The Importance of Culture Fit

Transcription

1 Workwithable: Leveraging the Heart of the Workplace The most important aspect of evaluating how an employee works and succeeds within an organization is culture fit. Hard skills clearly play an integral role in employee fit, but those skills can be learned, improved upon, and evidenced through work product. Culture fit, however, is an inherent quality, a combination of values, personality, and behaviors that shape not only how an employee interacts within an environment but how he or she works with peers and supervisors. Workwithable s simplified review and scoring system measures the culture fit of every employee within an organization and allows companies to take a 360-degree look at how each member impacts its overall value and success. 1 of 6

2 Defining Workplace Harmony Culture fit is defined as the congruence between the norms and values of an organization and those of an employee (Schofield). Workwithable focuses on this workplace harmony to help organizations evaluate employees and their interrelationships to generate meaningful data that can then be used to create impactful, company-wide results. A strong, mutually beneficial culture fit in an organization results in employees with increased:»» Job satisfaction»» Identification with the company»» Likelihood for retention»» Commitment»» Job performance (Schofield) Although often overlooked, culture fit in the workplace has drawn increasingly more attention, and rightfully so. Job seekers cite culture fit as their second-highest priority nearly tied with salary (Hill). Employees are not the only ones seeking out the benefits of a culture fit, as organizations are also realizing the advantage of this symbiotic relationship. Happier, more productive employees are more likely to stay with the organization longer and work harder to achieve its goals (Schofield). In a recent study that assessed more than 750 companies, corporate culture was also found to be a significant driver of innovation more than labor, capital, government, and national culture (Rao). 2 of 6

3 Proof in Numbers The majority of companies surveyed in a study stated that culture fit carries the most weight when considering an applicant out of college, while grade point average mattered least, proving the importance of soft skills over hard skills from the start of an employee s career (Peralta). Despite the value employers see in soft skills, many supervisors have noted that anything that involves people s values and behaviors and the climate of the workplace is more intangible and difficult to handle (Rao). The need for a simplified means to evaluate and easily calculate culture fit is clear. In a survey of employees and employers:»» 82% thought measuring culture fit is important»» 92% disagreed with the statement Cultural fit is just a buzz word»» 85% believed culture fit is harder to measure than job fit for hard skills»» 32% said their organization measures culture fit in recruitment processes»» 59% would dismiss a potential employee if they were out of step with the organization s culture»» 78% believed hard skills are easier to develop than culture fit (Cubiks) Due to the difficulty of evaluating culture fit, companies have given less attention to the harder-to-measure, people-oriented skills that Workwithable captures so well in a simple, measurable employee score. Workwithable s proprietary algorithm compiles and processes information to return usable data that quantifies how well an employee fits within an organization and how well they work with one another. Only one question is needed to quantify workplace harmony. How Workwithable are you? 3 of 6

4 Soft Skills vs. Hard Skills The two most important criteria in hiring employees and evaluating their performance are competence and likability. In a study that explored how these factors affect workplace fit, employees were asked to rate all colleagues in their company in terms of how much they personally liked each one and how well each did his or her job. Findings showed that personal feelings played a more important role in forming job-oriented relationships than previously thought (Casciaro). These feelings were even more important than evaluations of competence. The study found that if someone is strongly disliked, it s almost irrelevant whether or not she is competent By contrast, if someone is liked, his colleagues will seek out every little bit of competence he has to offer (Casciaro). Therefore, soft skills make up the foundation of a successful work relationship. The study s findings parallel the philosophy behind Workwithable. While hard skills are a necessary element of an organizational fit, the one factor that cannot be altered is an employee s ability to fit into the culture of an organization. The Impact of Culture Fit A mismatch in culture fit has negative consequences for both the employee and the organization, as this factor is a strong indicator of both employee satisfaction and retention (Hill). A major consideration for organizations is the financial risk they incur when replacing bad hires, which includes a loss of up to $300,000 per employee. In a National Business Research Institute study, 66% of employers experienced negative results stemming from bad hires, including:»» Declines in sales and employee morale»» Losses in productivity (equal to the annual salary of the employee)»» Added training costs (averaging 35% of the employee s salary)»» Increase in expenditures, including HR, interviews, and employment ads (Schober) 4 of 6

5 Figure 1 Retention Losses for High-Paid Employees 240k Productivity Losses Training Costs HR Costs Interviewing Costs Employment Ads 220k 200k 180k 160k 140k 120k 100k 80k 60k 40k 20k Sales Managers Financial Managers Airline Pilots & Flight Engineers Computer & Information Systems Managers Marketing Managers Natural Sciences Managers Lawyers Architectural & Engineering Managers Petroleum Engineers Chief Executives Source: Schober, Patrick. The cost of a bad hire. HRMorning.com. August 2013 Individuals at or near the top of an organization who are responsible for decision making often tend to have a more optimistic view of the organizations s culture than mid- and lower-level employees. Executives tend to rate their companies as being stronger in the more intangible, people-oriented factors than in the more tangible, skill-oriented ones. The opposite is true of employees lower in the organization (Rao). This discrepancy illustrates the need for an accurate means of measuring culture fit. As the study noted, If given to a broad enough group, the survey can help correct for these two imbalances, by, in effect, giving 360-degree feedback to capture the insights of many and bring to light things that the bosses cannot see (Rao). This feedback loop is precisely what Workwithable provides. When questioned about the greatest power to shape the environment and sustained competitive advantage of a company, one CEO summed up the difficulty best: The soft stuff is the hard stuff (Rao). Workwithable takes the difficulty out of assessing soft skills, providing organizations with a simplified measure of employees most important attribute: culture fit. 5 of 6

6 References Casciaro, Tiziana and Miguel Sousa Lobo. Fool vs. Jerk: Whom Would You Hire? Harvard Business Review. July Cubiks International Survey on Job and Cultural Fit. Cubiks. July Hill, Logan. Job Applicants Cultural Fit Can Trump Qualifications. Business Week. January Lieberman, Matthew. Should Leaders Focus on Results, or on People? Harvard Business Review. December Peralta, Katherine. Employers: GPA Not the Most Important Thing for Job Seekers. U.S. News and World Report. May Rao, Jay and Joseph Weintraub. How Innovative Is Your Company s Culture? Sloan Review. March Schober, Patrick. The cost of a bad hire. HRMorning.com. August 2013 Schofield, Kerry. Cultural Fit in the Workplace: How Personality Affects Hiring and Teamwork. ERE. June Williams, Ray B. Why Leaders Need to Be Likeable Rather Than Dominating. Psychology Today. January Learn More Workwithable is the definition of what s been lacking in workforce reviews. info@workwithable.com 6 of 6