According to Deloitte, 94% of executives, and 88% of employees believe a distinct workplace culture is important to engage employees and create business success.
During a time when a good working culture is all the more crucial, as discussed in our previous blog, ‘Why Company Culture is Particularly Important Right Now’, we now look at how you can incorporate essential culture requirements into your recruiting methods.
Promote your company culture by incorporating it into your brand presence. This is one of the best ways to attract and recruit candidates who fit into your cultural dynamics. Make sure your website, job listings, reviews, social media, and third-party partners, all market your company culture to some extent. This provides the best chance of attracting candidates who share similar values. Your cultural values need to be clear across your whole online presence, by not only showcasing what those values are but, also how you operate by them.
Create job adverts with culture in mind. Not only will embracing your company culture in your job adverts attract the right candidates, but it will also encourage more applicants, as corporate culture continues to be one of the biggest determinators when accepting jobs offers. Use it to showcase the personality of your company and define your environment.
As a hiring manager, represent your brand during the recruitment process. Recruit and onboard with the company’s vision, purpose and values in mind and incorporates these at every opportunity. Take this opportunity to foster culture into every communication channel whether that is online, through word of mouth or during the interview process. Internally is just as important as externally. If your employees are happy and aware of your values, they are more likely to share it with their network independently. This is a powerful and trustworthy way to portray your message, which can lead to employee referrals, an underrated source of talent.
If you appoint an external recruiter, ensure they have the knowledge and expertise required to not only hire talent of the specified requirements but, also based on their cultural fit. Describe the values and behaviour of an ideal candidate and the company values they need to be promoting while hiring on your behalf.
It can be hard to judge a candidate’s suitability through formalised traditional recruitment methods, especially to do so unbiasedly. To ensure candidates are the right fit, and to eliminate the risk of later unsuitability, multiple forms of assessment, such as personality tests and situational judgement tests, can be incorporated during the recruitment process.
As discussed earlier, employees are a trustworthy source, so why not get them involved in the recruitment process. For example, the use of written or video testimonials from existing employees. Give candidates offices tours, employee introductions and encourage employees and the interviewee to engage with each other to answer further questions and provide a clearer visual representation of what it would be like to work for your organisation. It also provides employees with the opportunity to express their opinion on potential hires. An important opinion to consider, as they are the maybe working directly with them.
Whilst asking for their own personal traits is a good start, you will benefit more by asking them specific questions around your company values, determining their fit from the physical reactions and verbal answers the provide. For example:
VS
Rather than just asking a candidate to repeat your values, the answers they give from the below questions will provide a better insight into their personal motivations and drivers and get a sense of how they would interact within the team and culture. By doing this each time you interview, you will quickly find out which candidates best resonate with them. While doing so, remember to ensure they have the best possible candidate experience. It is easy to say what your values are, but how you action them will reflect this more.
To reinforce the importance of your cultural dynamics, introduce them at the start of the induction process. Set aside time specifically for the topic away from their corporate responsibilities, health, and safety talks, etc, to ensure they are comfortable, and understand your culture. Then, follow this up later down the line to see how they are adjusting and use it to discuss expectations, and ensure that they feel happy and comfortable in what they are doing. It is also a great opportunity to seek feedback from a new starter. Ask them what they think of your culture and the team, get new suggestions, and ask where to improve. This is the best time to ask, as they have freshly evaluated your culture first-hand internally and externally, which they can compare to their previous employment and what they would have expected.
Do not be afraid to recruit by what they could bring to the team and the business, regardless if they appear to stray away from the usual stereotype of that profession or fail to be an exact personality replica of yourself. For example, the engineering sector is primarily male dominated, therefore, to introduce a woman into the male sociocultural workplace may be initially daunting. But in fact, this only provides the opportunity to create a more dynamic workplace, by introducing new ideas and encouraging further business growth. We discuss diversity in more detail here.
Employers should understand that company culture does not form overnight. It is defined by your values, expectations, and processes, and has been adapted and actioned with a lot of effort over a long period.
Hiring dynamically does not mean hiring to meet only technical or cultural demands, both should work hand in hand.
For more example interview questions or help seeking cultural hires, contact Rikin Suchak directly on 0115 786 0443 or email opportunities@source-talent.co.uk.
