4 Steps to Ensuring a Good Team Fit in the Hiring Process
A positive company culture is a very carefully curated thing; as a result, making new hires can sometimes be daunting, particularly within smaller teams. If a new personality doesn’t align well with the existing ones, this can have an adverse impact on the team environment, impacting morale and productivity. Indeed, recent research has shown that a good cultural fit leads to 90% greater job satisfaction and 84% improved performance for the individual¹.
A successful hiring process involves a comprehensive assessment of both the candidate’s hard skills and knowledge plus their soft skills and personality. In recent times soft skills are continuously highlighted to be just as important as the harder skills. Costly mistakes can be made if overlooking the impact of the person on a team and the culture of the organisation. In this article, we present our advice for ensuring a good team fit when you hire a new member.
Clearly Define Your Company Culture
Set aside some time and really consider your current working environment. How would you truthfully define your team culture? When you define your office culture, you can better understand the type of person that could positively contribute to it. Make a list of desirable attributes for a new hire, which are separate to the necessary skill set. For example, if your organisation has a strong social environment and the role requires significant liaison with stakeholders, you might want to seek out someone who is able to engage in regular interactions – focus on those who have demonstrated history of building excellent working relationships and those who enjoy the vibrancy of a highly cooperative atmosphere. Additionally, it is important to also consider the degree with which a certain characteristic is represented i.e. what level of sociability is required, or is it more the need for interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence?
Ask the Right Questions
When you are interviewing candidates, your goal should be to leave the interview with a sense of both their skill set and their personality. In a traditional formal job interview, you can achieve this by asking a range of situational (‘What would you do if …’) and behavioural (Can you describe a time you demonstrated …’) questions . You could also introduce a more informal interview style, designed to find out more about a candidate’s personality fit. We are big proponents of an informal coffee or Teams meeting whereby you can really glean an insight into somebody’s more relaxed and genuine character. This more informal setting takes some of the potential nerves out of the hiring process, allowing you to see a candidate in a more relaxed setting, and get a feel for their day-to-day personality. Skills-based queries can be initially addressed through somebody’s reputation or CV and investigated as a subsequent step.
Finally, it is essential to gain a thorough reference. When you contact a candidate’s reference, you should aim to receive more than a few boilerplate sentences of praise. Ask the reference direct questions. In your initial contact, consider how to highlight the traits you want in a new hire. For example, if you are hiring a sole attorney to work in-house for a manufacturer, you might ask about their ability to work independently and their self-motivation.
Involve Your Team
In some interview processes, the team don’t meet the person they will work with every day until that candidate is offered the job. This was the case in 48% of hiring processes, according to a recent survey¹. If you want to ensure a cultural fit with your team, it’s a good idea to involve key stakeholders in the hiring process. This might involve having different members of the team carry out parts of the interview to gain multiple perspectives; engaging in activities to simulate day to day responsibilities, which can be delivered by various team members; or going for lunch or a coffee to connect on a social level.
Streamlined Onboarding and Clear Communication are Key
When a candidate joins the team, onboarding is crucial to ensuring a seamless fit into the organisation. You should have a clearly defined onboarding process, which emphasizes both an introduction to the tasks of the role and to the company culture. Your onboarding should again reflect the priorities of your team environment and emphasise the team’s norms and practices. You might also assign the new employee a mentor, to help them integrate smoothly into the team. During a new hire’s initial few months, communication is especially important. Regular check-ins can go a long way to help support new team members. You might also ask a team member who works closely with the new person to provide you with feedback on how they are fitting in with the rest of the group.
The above points will enhance your ability to conduct a comprehensive hiring process; one designed to evaluate both a candidate’s suitability for the role and their suitability for your team. If you can anticipate how a new personality will fit into your team, you can ensure that wellbeing and productivity remain high.
References:
- chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.robertwaltersgroup.com/content/dam/robert-walters/country/united-kingdom/files/whitepapers/Robert-Walters-Cultural-Fit-Whitepaper.pdf
