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Corporate culture & hiring for fit

By Michael Stern 4th June 2008


I have been advising clients for years to look at more than experience and potential when hiring. If you're not also assessing candidates for "fit" with your unique corporate culture —you might as well put off ordering the new hire's business cards. He or she might not last long enough to use them.

Assessing a candidate's fit has always been difficult. For one thing, many companies only vaguely know what their culture is. A recent study by Toronto's Waterstone Human Capital found that only 43% of major Canadian companies even attempt to measure their corporate culture. And that's a shame.

After all, the corporate culture at most companies represents the unique combination of behaviours and values that management and staff respect and expect. It's intangible, it's fluid, and in practice it's usually quite different from the "mission" and "values" that companies promote in their annual reports every year.

The good news is that Waterstone's latest survey of Canada's most-admired corporate cultures shows a welcome increase in business leaders' awareness of the importance of culture. The bad news is that corporate cultures are getting harder to measure and control, for several reasons:

• More factors contribute to the overall culture than ever before. Once, it might have simply been the way employees treat and trust each other day-to-day. Now it includes many more specific types of behaviour, from the way people dress at work to their computing habits.
  

  Consider three groups of executives from three different companies attending a conference. When a one hour break is declared, one group repairs to the hotel bar; one group huddles with their Blackberry devices and returns phone calls; one group goes for a run— in each case, a reflection of company culture. Any executive not conforming would be considered out of step - never a good omen for career progression.

  
  
• In the 1980s, the growing clout of women in managerial positions began transforming many testosterone-driven cultures. Now it's the increasing diversity in the workplace that's eroding the notion of a single prevailing culture. Varying religious beliefs, dietary habits and social norms are part of a healthy society, but they've changed the way organizations look at Christmas parties, poker nights, smoke breaks and dress codes.


• More and more companies are using part-time employees or encouraging staff to work at home. This gives both management and staff needed flexibility, but it also increases the differences in the way people experience the same organization.


• Demographers tell us there are now four distinct groups in the workplace —each with different characteristics. Where there was once just the baby boomers defying the conformity of the World War II generation, now it's resentful Gen Xers facing off against the complacent Boomers while Generation Y wonders what the fuss is about. And everyone looks askance at the energy, idealism and conformity of the MySpace-raised Millennials.

The latest wrinkle: new business cultures from overseas. An executive I know recently joined a company that is based in China. He's now coming to grips with a hands-on, bottom-line mentality, where family is paramount and social and business relationships often overlap.

It's not anything he can't cope with —but it's a surprising adjustment after years of working within strictly North American frameworks.

All of this is making it harder for companies to identify and measure their corporate cultures. But it doesn't relieve their pressure to find people who will fit in. In fact, I see increasing emphasis on "fit." One senior leader told me recently he's worried about one executive who is outperforming all his colleagues, but doing so as a lone wolf, not showing proper respect for peers and subordinates. "Communication and respect for others is Job 1 here," he said. "If he can't get it together, it doesn't matter what he's accomplishing."

Selfish solo players should be aware that if the economy continues to decline, so might their job prospects. In previous downturns, results mattered above all. But companies today are increasingly concerned about maintaining environments where good people want to work. If there's a square peg annoying all the round holes, it's the disruptive loner who is most likely to be removed —no matter what results he or she is producing.

The bottom line: companies have to recognize that their corporate culture is becoming increasingly diverse and complex. They must put more effort into quantifying what their culture really is. And then they have to work harder to communicate those values throughout the organization.

It sounds like work, and it is. But it's the best way for organizations to learn what behaviours and expectations are actually working for them. And it's the only way to make sure those standards will keep working for them in future.