Council Post: How Leaders Can Prioritize Company Culture When Hiring

By John Rampton, founder of Palo Alto, California-based Calendar, a company helping your calendar be much more productive.

A company’s culture involves multiple factors beyond its core mission, vision and values. It encompasses how its leadership is structured, how teams engage, how communication flows throughout the organization and how people interact with one another.

The culture of a company is what contributes to—or doesn’t contribute to—the well-being of its employees. And well-being ranks right up there with compensation as a priority for employees in today’s competitive talent market.

Leaders should hire employees who align with the company culture. That alignment will create happier, more productive employees who stay around. It may be tempting in a tight recruitment market to stick a warm body in an empty chair, but don’t. You’ll simply create discontented employees who come and go rapidly, leaving unhappy co-workers, customers and clients in their wake.

Moreover, you run the risk of gutting the corporate culture you have labored to build when you knowingly hire employees with the wrong fit. With all this at stake, prioritizing company culture in recruitment and hiring is paramount. Here’s how you can.

Put Company Culture Front And Center In All Communications

Everything that can be viewed about your company is an opportunity to emphasize your culture. Of course, job postings should describe your company culture as part of the employee value proposition. But your social media accounts, website and content should also address it in some way.

You can talk about it directly by saying what kind of place it is to work. You can let others speak about it. For example, use employee testimonials or videos showing employees at work to illustrate your culture.

Employees looking for positions at a company that meshes with their values are doing their research. They’re looking at your website, your social media channels and news coverage about your company. They aren’t just buying into what you say about yourself in your help-wanted ads.

And remember, how you talk about your company culture is as important as what you say about it. If what you publish isn’t engaging and focused on people rather than profit, prospects will move on to the next potential employer. Grabbing their attention for all the right reasons is an opportunity you don’t want to miss.

Cultivate Culture Ambassadors

There may be many individuals involved in recruiting new hires for your company. When was the last time you talked to all the people a potential employee encounters? You should make sure every one of them embraces and exemplifies your company culture.

This isn’t just about your human resources department. Of course, HR is key to communicating company culture when recruiting new talent. But this is also about the people who answer your phones, greet people at the door and become future co-workers.

The people who already work for you have a dual role. First, they’re giving a recruit an example of what it will be like to work for your company. Second, they should be providing feedback about whether they think the recruit is a good match for your culture.

You need to rely on your people to embody what your company is all about. That may mean you need to weed out a few misfits already on the payroll when looking for new employees. All your employees should also be excellent ambassadors of your culture.

Make Sure Onboarding Reflects Your Culture

You’ve hired an employee who thinks your company will be a great place to work. Don’t sit back and relax, believing your job is done. It’s going to take a great culture-centered onboarding process to seal the deal.

Just because a recruit has said yes to your offer doesn’t mean the test is over. Onboarding gives recruits the opportunity to experience company culture. They’re assessing transparency of communication at all levels and watching how teams really interact.

New hires are also looking for ways to engage in their own interests and figure out where they fit horizontally and vertically. They’re trying out their voices and seeing whether they are listened to and respected. If your company culture isn’t reflected in how you welcome employees, they won’t outlast probation.

Your company culture might look like the make and model a recruit was looking for. But if the test drive isn’t smooth and comfortable, they’ll leave it on the lot. Emphasizing your culture in the onboarding process confirms a new hire’s decision to get on board with your company.

It’s Personal

Prospective employees aren’t just looking for the biggest salary and most generous benefits package. Of course, those things are important. But working for a company where they feel valued, connected and cared for is a major factor in the current climate.

Today’s employees are far less likely to consider their employer an organization they’re subject to. Regardless of where they are in the hierarchy, they’re looking for a culture that’s more akin to a merger than a takeover. You might say it’s personal.