How To Assess Culture Fit When Hiring Remotely

Hiring Culture fit employees is the biggest challenges faced by HR managers doing remote hiring.

The major question is how to ensure that new recruits are a good remote cultural fit?

Hiring a person into a culture that suits them is as important as hiring the right person for a given role. 

You need to find out if your new hires will be comfortable in your organization’s remote working environment. 

Your company culture is not just about how your remote teams perform when everything is going well but how they behave at times of crisis as well.

Thus it is important to consider if your new remote hires will culture fit in your company culture. But it’s not as easy as it may sound.

Do you also aspire to assess if your new hires are culture fit? 

And like many employers do you also find it difficult to find someone who will fit in with how your team works on top of having the right capabilities?

If it’s a yes. You are at the right place.

Let’s start with knowing the basics.

What is culture fit?

Culture fit is the ability of your employee to align with the values, working procedures, and beliefs of your organization.

It is not about their personalities but how their values fit in your organizational values. 

Is hiring culture fit employees important?

In research conducted by ThriveMap in 2018, 96% of HR leaders agreed that hiring for cultural fit was crucial.

Here are four reasons why cultural fit can play an important role for your organization –

• Hiring candidates who are culture fit leads to a higher job retention rate. When you hire qualified employees who also fit your company’s culture, you’re hiring for the long term.
• Culture fit plays a significant role in employee job satisfaction as it gives employees a sense of belonging.
• It will help your remote employees develop better relationships with coworkers.  
• If the employees find the company culture differs from their own beliefs their performance and productivity may fall to a significantly worse level. 

Have you defined your culture?

 To successfully hire for culture fit, first, you need to define what your company culture is.

Define the communication style, management style, working style, and the level of interaction between team members in your remote teams. 

Define your company’s core values to give you a sense of direction. Have clear documentation of what company culture means to you. 

How to assess cultural fit while hiring remotely?

With so many factors to be considered, assessing cultural fit especially while hiring remotely might look difficult.

Thus, just focusing on the interview isn’t enough to assess the best cultural fit for your remote team. You need to consider a few things before and after the interview as well.

According to research conducted by ThriveMap, only 11% of HR leaders are satisfied with how they hire a culture fit.

Here are a few practical tips for you to help you hire the candidates who best fit your company culture-

Before you start the remote interview

• Take the time to really understand your culture and be specific about it. For example, saying you have a collaborative culture isn’t enough.
• You need to identify what traits you need to be able to assess how your new remote hires are compatible with your company culture.
• Reflect your company culture in your job description, your social media presence, and other platforms.
• Give an inside look of how your employees feel and work inside your organization.
•  You can even ask your employees to give their reviews about your work environment on public platforms. This will attract candidates who find their values aligned with your work culture.
• Educate your hiring managers about the same so they can consider and recognize the traits in candidates.

During the interview

Openly discuss the culture of the company with the candidate and help them understand your values. Answer their queries if they have any.

If you don’t convey your cultural fit at the beginning they may leave the job later because the role wasn’t what they expected.

A survey shows that 31% of employees have left a job as the company culture wasn’t what they expected it to be following the recruitment process. The most common reason being the approach of senior leaders and the behaviour of colleagues.

Have a conversation to assess a candidate’s alignment and understanding of those values.  Ask them situational questions based on real-life scenarios. 

Ask specifically about their thoughts on their ideal place to work and how they feel they would fit in at your organization.

The trial- after the remote interview

Ask your new remote hires for a paid trial. It can last from one week to a month as per your preference.

So that you don’t have to rely fully on word of mouth. But practically assess them based on their performance.

It will also help the candidates to assess if they have a sense of connection to and belonging with their fellow team members. 

Research shows that a sense of “fitting in” plays heavily into an employee’s level of job satisfaction.

Consider having a mentor to ask questions related to values.

It will provide an opportunity for the new remote hires to dive deeper into how they are lived day-to-day in your organization.

For example, at AirTreks the potential new hire meets with four of their colleagues to just talk and get to know each other.

And the colleagues ask specific
questions to see how well the new hire fits with the company’s core values.

Tip: Emphasize your company culture during onboarding. As it is not enough to just introduce but you need to implement it as well.

Conclusion

Hiring is a lengthy process especially if it is done remotely. And you definitely won’t want to waste your time twice hiring for the same role.

Therefore these tips will help you assess and uncover the best indications of whether the candidates will be the right fit for the job without wasting anyone’s time.