Culture Fit has been the Corporate buzz word over last couple of decades now and possibly one of the most defining yet abstract attribute interviewed for. Culture Fit seems to have evidentially contributed in significant terms to the employee productivity. But with times, Incremental contribution of Culture Fit diminishes especially as the organizations look at diversification, globalization, new ventures, etc.
Revolutionary HR brains then introduced Culture Add as the go to ingredient in the Corporate melting pot. It is brewing and the most successful organizations are enjoying the honeymoon phase of culture add.
An insight into what is Culture Fit, what is Culture Add and can they be co-existent makes it a good HR research topic while for CEOs it would be a good tete-a-tete over weekend rounds of golf and set it rolling in the coming week.
What is Culture Fit
Culture Fit is a top-down phenomena starting from the Founder percolating to all the rungs. It is a combination of Belief and Behaviour, the latter influenced by former. Values, Change Management, Learning, Quality, Accountability, Synergy form the framework of Culture and these govern how an employee behaves at work and outside. Once the framework is defined, it is most natural to induct new employees based not only on skill, but on how they fit into the framework.
This ensures that every individual in an organization is aligned to one culture. For instance, if gender neutrality is promoted top-down, every manager will work towards that. If organization believes data is an asset, at every level conscious effort will be made to preserve the data. If CEO believes in innovation then the division heads would promote the same within their divisions. And so on.
A byproduct of such beliefs is how an employee behaves. A gender neutral maxim would bring in more social empathy towards all inclusive, if importance is given to data then data would be used as evidence rather than empirical brain storming and if innovation is the mojo of the top person, then more ideas will float around fearlessly.
Why is it Important?
This looks all good as every wheel in the organization is moved by the momentum of culture set at top and as more wheels are added to the same vehicle, it will continue the journey obviously in the same direction of progress hopefully.
So, if everybody works with the same belief and exhibit similar behaviour you are likely to get benefit of ‘union set bigger than the sum’. The brand image of the organization, identity of every person with the Organization and work ethics across the board to name a few will be driven by ‘on par’ culture.
So is there a problem?
Pure culture fit may not be the best non-skill based assessment of a candidate. We are likely to encounter the following challenges
1. Bias – Personal preferences of hiring managers could prove to be more decisive factors and not organization goals. Selection of alumni from same school, similar personality trait, similar socio-economic background could lead to bias2. Cloning – The team, division and organization could end up believing that there is only one way of working and this is a sure change management killer. One-dimensionality is not the best recipe when it comes to catering to flavours.
3. FOMO – Once hired, new talent tend to be too eager to fit into every aspect of organization culture for FOMO. Efforts often are spent on saying ‘yes’ immediately and then going back disgruntled for not having expressed difference of opinion
4. Empiricism – In the absence of objective culture parameters, there will be assumptions on what exactly is the organization culture. A case of seven blind men defining the elephant could lead to individual interpretations and more time will be spent in interpreting manager’s wish list rather than the core work itself.
In brief, lack of diversity overwhelms the similarity and organization is likely to be left behind both in growth and employee experience.
What's new - Culture Add
Culture Add in simple terms is introducing diversity into organization culture with a hope that it will only add flavour to the meal. Getting people with multiple skills, cross-industry experience, multilateral demographics, dissimilar personality traits could be the winning formula to meet the changing customer preferences and employee expectations.
How does it help organisations
1. Challenging the Status Quo – A hiring manager looking at something different helps organizations break free from business as usual and newness is introduced. New ideas float, innovation becomes driver rather than assumed scripts
2. Employee Motivation – Inclusivity becomes one big motivation for an employee to wake up in the morning and spring to workplace. The realization that he or she brings something and there is place for that something would make working a joy rather than routine
3. Adaptability – Having employees who have gone through different life experiences drives change management. Variety rubs off on everybody and stale customs will get archived automatically
4. Social Gain – Unconsciously the Organization with diverse employees ends up being socially being more acceptable which today has today assumed wider importance
5. Crisis Management – In times of adversity, non-monolithic thinking may help withstand the storm as employees are lost for ideas. Fallbacks, Plan Bs/Cs/Ds help organizations stay more geared.
Do they work in Cross Purpose?
Culture Metamorphosis – Way to Go
On the bed rock of culture fit, if culture add is introduced in a controlled manner like adding ingredients at the right time in a master chef recipe then the organization is likely to see managed growth and managed employees.
To begin with, it is very necessary to have an objective definition of culture and very few organizations have it. A culture score and its assessment vis-à-vis organization vison, helps see what we are lacking? Go out and get to fill in the void at the same time be open to adding new elements as long as it not in contradiction with your core values. Carefully stir the pot to help blend new with the existing. Taste the success and if you do not find it fall back is easy as you have not rushed into culture add. Continue like that to let evolving culture become solving culture rather than dissolving culture. Over a period of time you would have nicely adjusted to the changing market while internally everybody would feel valued. In the long run, culture could get redefined but without hurting anybody. So there be new mantra
FAME – (Culture) Fit, Add, Metamorphosize & Evolve and the game is yours
