Founder & Director, The Engagement Effect - Interim HR and People Change & Transformation Recruitment Specialists | Because better employers make better businesses.
Does recruiting for 'cultural fit' promote diversity & inclusion? This is a topic that comes up from time to time with our clients. I'm asking this here on LinkedIn because being able to gather differing and diverse perspectives is one of the best things about this platform. Does the type of role matter? Is it a simple yes / no answer? #culturalfit #recruitment #hrrecruitment
Unmeasurable statement and subject to discrimination if to dig further.
Jake H.
7mo
It's competence vs likability trade-off - this is constructed in terms of how well someone would “fit” and how much peers think they would like working with someone, leaving their experience getting overshadowed. Its often a sign that a hiring manager hasn’t done enough to define what success looks like for the role and how to measure for that, leaving it ambiguous and then defaulting to “culture fit” as a loaded term for “this person doesn’t fit the mould of what I think they should be”
I’m in the “it depends camp” Sure, you can align cultural fit with diversity, but clarity is key. If an orgniation’s culture champions flexibility, innovation, and customer focus, then bringing in diversity of thought and lived experience can enhance and push that culture forward. On the flip side, if your culture is more homogenous, introducing diversity becomes tougher because the foundational culture doesn’t change just by adding different people. To truly make this work, we need to clearly define culture, goals, and the inherent biases our hiring managers might bring to the table. Only then can you assess how and if you can achieve both.
Radhika Jadeja
7mo
Understanding culture in terms of values, mission and vision of the company is one thing and aspiring to achieve these creates a sense of belonging, however the term in the sense it’s used within the recruitment process literally hinders diversity and inclusivity. Any organisation that truly values diversity and inclusivity should not hide behind the term “cultural fit” and should take a leap of faith and hire the candidate that “does not fit culturally “ and see the diverse perspective they bring to the organisation.
When ‘cultural fit’ is emphasized as being of great importance in an interview it raises red flags to me from a diversity perspective. It sometimes feels like 'cultural fit' is just another term for a ‘cliquey’ environment, potentially fostering homogeneity rather than diversity. Diverse teams thrive on varied perspectives and experiences, which might not always neatly fit into a predefined notion of 'fit;,
I’ve seen cultural fit on interview feedback forms for years too John but happily am seeing much more focus on «cultural add» among my clients these days. I don’t think cultural fit promotes DEIB but it depends how it is «implemented» With «cultural add» you look for alignment and synergies on values and principals only, and are much more focused on seeking diversity in your candidates.
SHIWANGI SARAF
7mo
Your open minded approach to gathering diverse perspectives is truly commendable.
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7moTypical answer - it depends 😴 if you have a problem with your current culture not being diverse or inclusive enough, there's a chance that any recruitment efforts will just perpetuate this, rather than actually improve it. So it actually hurts it. Unless we train our HMs really well, their natural state is to recruit people who look, sound and feel like them. That's never going to improve diversity without changing this natural state. However, cultural fit is important. People who don't fit the way a business works probably won't last there, and probably won't be productive (either to the person or to the organisation). Therefore, I guess we need to be really clever about how we assess cultural fit and ensure it's truly about values and behaviours, rather than what we as impressionable humans PERCEIVE to be cultural fit 🙃