The importance of cultural fit when hiring remote employees

Why you should be looking at your company culture

Company culture has always been important, but it has gained more and more important in the last decade or so. Now, as we get used to the new normal and the perks and challenges of remote work, company culture has become even more important as the modern workplace continues to evolve.

But first, what is company culture? It is the set of shared values, practices, and goals that characterize an organization. In other words, it refers to the common ethos of a company, its nature, and the way its workers live and breathe the company’s core values, from the CEO to the newest intern. Simply put, company culture is how workers live and work within the workplace. It is how they feel about the work they do, the values they abide by, and the goals that motivate them day by day. 

So why is it so important?  According to Fobes, there are clear benefits to having a strong, unified company culture:

• Identity. Company culture contributes to the identity and values of your company. It’s a good way to set and maintain the direction of your employees, and without it, it’s hard to keep your company’s work coherent.
• Retention. When workers feel like they belong to an organization, they’re more likely to stick around for the long term. A strong company culture attracts better talent and, more importantly, retains that talent.
• Image. Corporate culture also adds to your brand identity. If you maintain a good employee experience and healthy atmosphere, your customers will see you as a good brand to be associated with.

The importance of Company Culture goes far beyond the environment of the office; it impacts every facet of the business. Therefore, it is no surprise that companies that actively manage to keep a good and permanent culture maintain higher employee retention and boast higher employee engagement rates than those with weak cultures. 

Cultural fit for the win

As stated above, company culture is the essence of a business and impacts every asset of it, from how the work is organized internally to the way the company does business externally. Therefore, it is not sufficient for companies to maintain a strong culture; it is crucial to find talent that holds cultural compatibility with your business and that will aby to your company culture at all times. In other words, it is not enough to find candidates with the right skills; companies should be looking for talent in sync with their personality and values too. This is what we call cultural fit. 

Let’s think about it like any type of relationship; finding a good cultural fit means finding someone who believes in your company's mission and shares a similar outlook and attitude as their potential colleagues. Therefore, you should be looking for candidates that share similar beliefs, attitudes, and values aligned with your company.  

If you are struggling to identify your company culture, there are plenty of tools to help you start. In the meantime, don’t stress and keep it simple; just identify what makes your company tick and align your recruitment accordingly. For example, if your company focuses on innovation and risk-taking, you should be looking for employees who are eager to participate and challenge the status quo to constantly find ways to innovate and develop new ideas. On the other hand, if your company follows a strong hierarchical structure, your HR team should be looking for candidates that prefer an established order regarding power and decision-making. 

So, why is cultural fit so important? Well, as in any type of relationship, when there’s a good match, the union thrives. When a company hires the right people, people actually want to work every day and enjoy collaborating with their co-workers, as they feel valued and appreciated within the organization. Here are some advantages of achieving a strong cultural fit:

• Fewer turnovers. People stay in jobs they like, as simple as that. Cultural fit allows workers to feel more invested in the success of the company, which makes them more likely to stick around.
• Better performance. When workers feel like they belong, they are more likely to be active participants in the company’s projects and become more productive.
• Better collaboration. Employees who are excited about their work will create a healthy working environment. They are more likely to share their knowledge and experience with others as they don’t see them as competition but rather work together as colleagues.
• Improved communication. When employees feel supported by their managers and team leaders, communication is hardly an issue.
• Increased employee satisfaction. Happy employees are productive, engaged, and motivated to succeed.

No wonder why 75% of recruiters say that cultural fit is more important than work history and experience in the hiring process. 

Cultural fit has become even more important since remote culture became the new trend. Mainly because when a team doesn’t interact physically every day, it is easy for employees to start pursuing their own goals instead of the company’s goals. The lack of strong cultural fit at the time of hiring will eventually different teams to have different cultures.

How to hire for culture fit

Not having a strong cultural fit when hiring remote employees results in a lack of collaboration (which in turn leads to loss of time and money and project delays). Also, it will be challenging to grow a team because it will be difficult to know what makes a successful employee in a given team. This leads to lowered team performance, higher turnover, and bad hires.

At Intersog, we would never want you to go through the aforementioned struggles, so we gathered some helpful tips to help you achieve a strong cultural fit from the get-go when hiring remotely.

• Know your culture. First and foremost, it is important to have your company culture clear. Remember, if you don’t know what you are looking for, you won’t find it. Therefore, it is crucial for you and your team to have a clear understanding of your company culture and always have it in mind throughout your recruitment process.
• Know what you need. It is common for a recruitment team to know what skills to look for in the search for new talent; however, it is as important to know what kind of values a potential hiree has to fit right into the company. Your Human Resources should get crystal clear on the values or attributes that will support the position and add value to the team.
• Know the background. Try to incorporate some general cultural background checks within your hiring process. Find out more about your potential employee, how they solve problems, and their attitude toward certain situations. This will give you a sense of a cultural fit possibility.
• Know what to ask. Try to plan your interviews around questions that go beyond skills. If you already know what cultural attributes you need from a potential hiree to make a good cultural fit, try to lead some questions around how a candidate has demonstrated competency in specific areas. Behavioral questions are fantastic for identifying if a candidate has what you need.
• Know how to partner with. The hiring process for remote talent can be daunting. Having a local partner like Intersog can save you lots of time and resources. Having an ally that it’s established in the region will help you spot the right talent that aligns with the cultural, social, and business values that benefit your business operations.

Finding the right cultural fit for your company can positively impact your business in more ways than one. The end goal is to identify your culture and hire the best candidates whose skills and attributes match the organization’s core values with the help of an expert partner already established in the region. ​​

With over 15 years of experience providing top-performing staffing solutions that help businesses succeed in the digital world, let us help you extend your engineering team with highly skilled global talent that will fit your company perfectly. Let’s ride the tech wave and make great things happen.