Kristen Brown is the Owner and Chief Creative Officer of Hoot Design Company, a creative branding agency building resilient brands.
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When hiring, do you see culture fit as a “nice to have” or a necessity? My hard and fast answer is that it’s a necessity.
The core disagreement that I run into with others on this topic is that many people believe that an employee’s skill level and work experience matter more for operational effectiveness than their values or how well they fit in. While I’m not trying to say that having a skilled team isn’t critical, I am saying that culture fit—how well one’s values align with an organization—is more important.
Knowing what makes someone a good culture fit begins with really knowing who you are. Because how can you find success in values-based hiring if you don’t know what type of culture you want to foster in the workplace?
If this is a new idea for you, I’m going to let you in on three steps you can take to improve your recruitment efforts and hire the right people for your organization.
Step 1: Discovering Values
At my company, we understand why discovering your values is important because we’ve experienced what it’s like to not be clear on who you are. A few years ago, a long-standing employee told me they didn’t understand where we were headed as they reflected on our agency’s purpose. This was a lightbulb moment for me.
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It’s common for business owners to make this same mistake. Why you’re in business and what your values are may seem so obvious to you because they’re core pieces of your own identity—but that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone else is on the same page.
It takes work to really dig deep and discover who you are at the heart of it all. We do this with our clients through a process called Brand Heart that we developed with psychologists. This process facilitates space to start asking the hard questions needed to identify your purpose, your values and your vision. It helps you create an anchor for your business and your employees so that when you grow and shift, you always have common ground to come back to.
To put Brand Heart into action, try asking yourself:
• When I’m at my best, what actions am I demonstrating to my team?
• How are my long-term company goals supporting our future world?
Step 2: Messaging Values
Once you know who you are, you must then be able to articulate it to your audience—think clients and employees alike. During this step, you figure out how to talk to your team, how you work with clients, what language you use in job descriptions, how your values affect what you say and don’t say on social media, and more.
To put this into practice, try using a do’s and don’ts chart. Under the “do’s” column, create examples of things you would say in response to a social media comment. Maybe your brand values humor, so your responses are witty or cheeky. While you like to keep things lighthearted, you might decide that under the “don’ts” column, you’ll never be offensive or pointed. Finding what fits best for your brand voice helps everyone on the team feel more aligned.
From the client perspective, it’s important that your clients understand who you are and why you’re in business if you want to have more than a transactional relationship. Great client engagements begin with building meaningful relationships rooted in shared values. The same is true for employees.
It’s one thing to have defined values, but it’s another to actually use them to inspire your team and foster a culture of inclusion. Aim to live your values—meaning that you do more than simply share your values. Practice them. Outline what behaviors support your core values so that your team knows how to act on your values in a way that’s aligned with your company’s culture.
When communicated effectively, your values create space for others to use their voices. This creates a team environment where empowerment and accountability are the norms.
Step 3: Values-Based Hiring
Once you’ve determined what your values are and you’ve discovered how to communicate them, it’s time to take to the hiring process.
Hiring for culture fit includes examining what skills your team needs and determining the threshold of skills necessary in the role. For example, to work on our team, a brand manager needs to have strong relationship-building skills, but we can coach them about the brand itself. When you place more value on a good culture fit, you help keep everyone on your team aligned. And when done correctly, we have seen that hiring based on value alignment enhances team identification and job satisfaction.
When approaching this type of hiring, try using values-based prompts and questions. These might sound like:
• Tell me about a time when you chose to do something hard that felt true to yourself versus what others were encouraging you to do. Why did you choose to do the hard thing?
• How do you know when you’ve done a good job? What does that look and feel like for you?
• What does serving yourself look like? How do you manage stress?
The answers to these questions can give you crucial information to help you decide whether or not someone would fit into the wider culture of your team.
Something we have instituted within my company is requiring that every new hire take psychological assessments to identify strengths and growth areas so that managers can be set up with good data to support them from their first day.
Culture work is never-ending. It’s the sum of the behaviors of everyone on your team. In my own experience, recruiting people who move your culture forward is a worthy investment in your company’s mission and bottom line.
Knowing yourself is crucial for knowing whom to hire. It’s hard work to get there, but the reward at the finish line is an invested, focused and committed team that wants to show up on Monday mornings.
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Author: Kristen Brown, Forbes Councils Member
