If you are responsible for hiring for your company, you have a great responsibility. You are both the recruiter and the gatekeeper. That means that you have multiple roles to play when you are in the recruiting process to find applicants to hire for your company. The one that we want to talk about today is your role to be a steward for your core values and company culture.
Company culture is a set of behaviors and norms that are observed within your company. It is the heart of your company. We found that our company culture was one of the things that helped us get through challenging times in the past. It was, in short, a group of shared values that everyone could hang onto and share together through struggles.
We have over the years held true to our belief that we hire for fit and train for skill. By doing this we make sure to hire candidates that have our core values and fit our culture. We then train them for the skills that they might not already have for our job.
These are the top 5 benefits that you could see by keeping your culture in mind during the hiring process:
- Employees work well together-When everyone has shared values it creates more of a family atmosphere than a restrictive corporate structure. Staff members help each other out in times of need and enjoy working together
- Your customers are served according to your values-when employees are hired to fulfill a mission, they align with the why of your business and service is more of a purpose than a job that they are performing. Their actions then feel genuine and helpful to your customers.
- It’s easier to correct behavior based on values that were chosen and agreed to by every candidate. When an employee is not performing the job up to your standards it is easier to counsel and correct because correction is based on something that they have agreed is as important to them as it is to you. Correction becomes about alignment instead of them being a bad person.
- There are no surprises with who you have hired-If you’ve really spent the time to get to know someone before you’ve hired them, you will be making an informed decision based on values. If you look at skills alone, you could be completely surprised by your new employee who can type the required speed and accuracy but does not value coming to work on time.
- Everyone is rowing in the same direction-When everyone shares the same values that you have curated at your company, everyone is on the same page. When problems come up that need to be solved it is easier for everyone to agree and end up with a similar solution because your core values and culture drive the decision.
So, the next time you are interviewing a candidate for an opening at your company, look further than the hard skills to do the job and look also at whether the person fits your core values and culture. You’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results.
