We'll tell you the secret of success for a scientifically based cultural fit measurement in three easy steps!

Definition of cultural fit:

The term cultural fit, which comes from personnel psychology, describes the correspondence between the existing organizational culture in a company and the desired organizational culture from the perspective of (potential) employees. There is a high level of cultural fit when employees can identify with the organizational culture, i.e. with the values, attitudes and practices practiced in the company.

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While recent studies show that the perceived importance of cultural fit in personnel selection is increasing sharply, it is systematically measured in only less than 10% of selection processes. But why actually?

On the one hand, play here myths and a lot of half-knowledge a role that circulates around the term causes (read the blog article here, in which we talk with the 6 biggest myths about cultural fit clean up!). On the other hand, HR managers often simply lack the know-how and appropriate tools to integrate cultural fit measurements into their personnel selection process — not least because of the often low scientific basis of existing test methods on the market.

Step 1: What characterizes our corporate culture?

The first and yet most important step in developing and selecting Cultural Fit measurement methods is Looking inside on your own organizational culture (Current situation analysis). Despite its importance, however, such an analysis of the current situation is often not carried out or only insufficiently carried out. This is often due to the fact that managers find it difficult to describe their own organizational culture. Because it is often not so easy to put into words what your own organizational culture really represents and what values and attitudes the company stands for. Just think of how difficult it will probably be for you to summarize your own values and attitudes in just a few sentences. When it comes to an entire organization, the process is certainly not easier.

The problem: What is not defined cannot be measured. And what you can't measure, you can't steer. Another bad news: writing off the embellished statements made by competing companies, such as flat hierarchies and start-up mentality, without actually living them, is unfortunately not enough at this point.

A clear critical self-analysis of one's own corporate culture and the transfer of these into central measurable dimensions (see step 2) is therefore essential. But how does such a self-analysis work? One recipe for success is: Ask your employees. After all, what defines an organizational culture is not least the interplay of the attitudes and values of each individual. So why not ask employees (e.g. about attitudes towards teamwork, desire for structure) to find out what the organizational culture really is? Ideally, such surveys go beyond an analysis of the current situation and address equally the changes in organizational culture desired by employees (Target state, Where do we want to go?). Because this is the only way to avoid focusing on the past and consistently focusing on the future will not fall by the wayside. In addition to too much focus on the past, there is a common mistake in defining culture across departments and locations that does not sufficiently take into account the specifics of individual departments or locations. But if the values and expectations in the HR department in Berlin differ fundamentally from those in the IT department in Walsrode, this has serious consequences: Despite extensive testing, the cultural fit of new IT employees is not there, at least not to the department in which they are supposed to work on a daily basis.

As you can see, defining your own organizational culture is not that easy and there are various pitfalls lurking on the way to your goal. Particularly if you have little experience with the topic, it is therefore advisable to seek external support, for example from an experienced diagnostic service provider or a coach who provides moderated cultural feedback.

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✅ How to:

• Real valuation corporate culture based on Staff:Internal surveys
• Future instead of Past orientation (“Where are we and where do we want to go? “)
• flexibility when defining departmental and location-specific values

❌ How not to:

• glossing over your own corporate culture and lack of critical self-analysis
• past— instead of the futureorientation (“Where are we and where have we been for years? “)
• One-fits it all approach: Rigid adoption of a culture for all departments and locations

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Step 2: Define and measure the defined properties

Once the corporate culture has been defined, it is important to identify the values, behaviors and attitudes that are directly related to good collaboration and professional success. These may include preferences regarding the work environment and collaboration. Here, too, it is important to avoid a typical mistake: hiding behind buzzwords such as start-up mentality, which sound good at first but say little when you look behind the façade. Because what start-up mentality means for individuals can be very different — it is therefore better to highlight specific aspects such as a hands-on mentality, a high level of team orientation or flexibility in process design. The advantage: These can be converted into a empirical requirement profile integrate and with help psychologically based test procedure Measure directly.

Aivy does this playfully, for example, with a psychometric mini game, which are the preferences of applicants for Flexibility and stability orientation measures and compares them with actual conditions at the workplace (see Figure 1, Dreamteam Challenge). The scientific basis for the mini-game for this is provided by Competing Values Framework (Quinn et al. 1991). A cultural fit is achieved when the applicants' expectations of the working environment and the actual working environment match. Accordingly, applicants with a high flexibility orientation fit well into a company in which flexible structures prevail and have the opportunity to rethink them over and over again, while applicants who want very stable and established structures would be in less good hands here. It is therefore a question of finding out whether the company offers or can offer the working environment in which the employee is maximally productive.

✅ How to:

• Definition of measurable Cultural fit dimensions and integration of these into a requirement profile
  
• Continuous testing the connection between cultural fit and professional success
  
• Objective evaluation of cultural fit with help scientifically based test procedure

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❌ How not to:

• Imprecise definition and lack of measurability of the defined cultural fit dimensions
• Capture modern-looking Buzzword with few correlations to professional success
• Subjective evaluation of cultural fit in unstructured interviews (Unconcious Biases)
• Capture modern-looking Buzzword with low correlation to professional success

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Step 3: Continuous development and holistic integration into the process of finding, applying and developing

Another important secret of success is the continuous development of measurement methods. Accordingly, the Cultural Fit measurement must be used as a continuous improvement process be seen. Ideally, this not only includes connections to professional success and self-learning algorithms used to make the prediction of cultural fit ever more accurate and valid, but also to continuously question and adapt the underlying definition of organizational culture in terms of its timeliness.

It is recommended to carry out cultural fit tests along the entire Candidate Journey to use. For example, Aivy offers versatile cultural fit tests, which are Orientation solution (self-assessment) for candidates on the career side, when applying as early selection tool (Pre-Assessment) and as an instrument of Employee Retention (Continuous Assessment) can find their way into it. Because a good cultural fit process not only helps to identify whether the values of the company and the applicants match, but also signals when the values of the company and those of current employees drift apart (e.g. during restructuring). Because just as in private life, “love at first sight” is not enough in cultural fit: The relationship between company and employees must be maintained continuously.

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✅ How to:

• Continuous review of Connections between cultural fit and Professional success
  
• Holistic integration Cultural fit along the candidate journey

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❌ How not to:

• Implicit assumption a connection between cultural fit and professional success
• Isolated viewing Cultural Fit as a personnel selection tool

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sources

• Quinn, R.E., Hildebrandt, H.W., Rogers, P.S., & Thompson, M.P. (1991). A competing values framework for analyzing presentational communication in management contexts. Journal of Business Communication, 28, 213—232.
• 1 Meta HR Unternehmensberatung GmbH and Employour GmbH (2016): Cultural Fit Study Corporate Cultural Recruitment: Significance, Implementation, Outlook. Available at: https://www.metahr.de/wp-content/uploads/metaHR_Employour_CulturalFitStudie0516.pdf