‘Company culture’ is a term that has been bandied about for decades now. Unfortunately, over the years it picked up a reputation for being a bit of a fluffy subject to keep HR professionals occupied when things were a little quiet. However, in recent years, with the talent pool getting smaller, it’s come into the mainstream, as organisations focus on talent acquisition and retention. However, effectively measuring company culture and aligning it with corporate objectives remains a challenge.

So how do you measure this increasingly important set of beliefs, behaviours and actions that define how things get done in your company? While there is no set formula for doing so, by assessing companies with a consistent track record for success, we begin to see a number of shared qualities that can be used as metrics to gauge where the impact culture is having on your organisation.

1.  Communication
Effective communication is perhaps the most glaringly obvious trait among the best companies. In these corporations communication is a two-way street, where employees are encouraged to communicate their ideas and concerns to their bosses, while management clearly communicates any essential information to staff. Analyse your existing communications channels to see how well information is being sent, received and interpreted throughout the company.

2. Innovation
An organisation’s level of innovation can tell you a lot. It tells you how creative the company is; how dynamic it is; how open it is to new ideas and how those ideas are made a reality. Innovation shouldn’t be the prerogative of zany creatives and cool tech start-ups. Innovation is about thinking up ways to do things better, leveraging resources to improve productivity, establishing processes that make the workplace better, identifying new markets to target and a whole lot more. Take a close look at your business and ask just how innovative you are; are you open to new ideas; in what ways do you show your innovativeness.  

3. Wellness
As the saying goes, a happy worker is a good worker, and a healthy employee is productive one. Employee wellness is about investing in your employees’ mental and physical wellbeing. Workplace wellness encompasses the mental and physical health of employees. Multiple studies have shown that companies that run a dedicated employee wellness programme are more productive, have greater employee satisfaction and report fewer sick days. For more information on employee wellness, checkout these 5 Reasons Why Employers Should Promote a Healthy Workforce.

4. Collaboration
As is the case with effective communication and innovation, strong collaboration between employees, teams and departments is a common trait amongst the best companies in the world. The benefits of collaboration are manifold. It helps give workers a better understanding of the role their colleagues play. It may reveal opportunities for them to cross-sell one another’s services/ products. It ensures plans and processes are considered from many different perspectives.  Look to see how much, where and why your teams are collaborating. If the results aren’t great, invest the time in encouraging a more collaborative environment.

5. Responsibility
Believe it or not but many employees want more responsibility. They want to feel that the work they do matters and to take ownership of that function. Greater autonomy also has been shown to speed up decision making processes and streamline company activities, all resulting in greater productivity. Measuring this might seem a bit tricky but it can be done. Look at the ways in which your company promotes autonomy and encourages employees to take more responsibility. Make this part of your performance policy to ensure everyone works towards it.

So there you have it, five metrics to help you start measuring and monitoring your company's culture.

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Organisational culture and cultural fit have become hot terms in the past year. What was once considered a ‘wishy-washy’ element of HR is now recognised as a crucial part of attracting and retaining a company’s very best employees.

Business owners are waking up to the fact that skills aren’t everything; that hiring someone who perhaps lacks the experience of other candidate, but fits very well with the company’s culture, is very often the smarter decision. Remember, skills can be thought and experience gained, but a person’s core values and beliefs are practically impossible to change.

So why should you bother hiring based on cultural fit? Research has shown that employees who fit well with their organisation and colleagues tend to demonstrate superior job performance, express greater job satisfaction and stay with their employer’s longer. That means less time spent recruiting and training staff and more time making money for your business.

What is Cultural Fit?

Before we continue any further I think it’s important that I clarify just what I mean by cultural fit. In recent months, I’ve encountered a number of HR managers and business owners worried about focusing on cultural fit in the hiring process for fear that it might inadvertently lead to discrimination against candidates, promote group think and hamper diversity.

Let’s be clear, hiring for cultural fit does not mean seeking out clones or people you could see yourself sharing a couple of pints with on a Friday after work. The best recruiters and employers recognise that even when a candidate’s personality and interests differ from their own, they can still be a strong fit for the business.
Cultural fit is the likelihood that a candidate will mirror and adapt to the core beliefs, attitudes and collective behaviours of an organisation.

For example, someone who places a lot of emphasis on team work and working through problems together, will thrive if your business places a lot of emphasis on collaboration. While someone who prefers to work by themselves will struggle to adjust to the way your company operates.

Here are some simple measures you can take to help identify if a candidate is a good cultural fit for their organisation:

#1. Identify Your Company’s Culture
If you haven’t already done so, the first step you need to take is to identify your organisation’s own culture. Every organisation, whether it has just one employee or 5,000 staff, has a culture. Your culture is the set of beliefs and values that drive you and your employees to do what you do.

What three or four words/ expressions sum up your beliefs and values? Perhaps you’re client centric and putting the customer first is the basis for everything you do. Or maybe innovation is your top priority and you place creativity and innovation above all else.

Your mission statement and company vision can help define what it is you stand for but it’s also worth asking staff and getting their input to ensure everyone is on the same page. Aligning your culture with your values deserves its own blog entirely.

#2. Use Personality Tests
Personality tests go beyond traditional IQ tests to give employers an insight into a candidate’s emotional qualities, and how they adapt to and behave in certain situation. There are many personality tests for companies to choose from, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or the Hogan Assessment, all of which use very different and in depth approaches to assess a candidate’s personality.

Personality tests typically measure five personality dimensions in an applicant: extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. So if you’re looking for an outgoing leader, with an ability to make balanced decisions under pressure, then you might want to take a closer look at your candidates’ personality test results.

I previously wrote a blog on the Advantages and Disadvantages of Employee Personality Tests, which provides a lot more information on the topic.

#3. Mix Up Your Questioning
We all know interviewees prepare for interviews by rehearsing answers to the questions they know we’ll ask. Quite often these are geared to what they think the interviewer will want to hear, sapping all sense of authenticity and personality from the response.

Think outside the box when it comes to the questions you ask. Taking candidates off the expected script will help glean information about them that they otherwise might not have shared, allowing you to better understand their core values and beliefs and how they match up to your organisation’s.
Among my favourite culture focused questions to ask in an interview are:

• What was your first job and what did you learn from the experience? 
  

We don’t necessarily care what job they had. What we’re interested in is the values and ethic they took from it.

• If this were your company, give me three words to describe the kind of culture it would have?

What we’re looking for here is how similar the interviewee’s responses are to the company’s culture. It also provides an opportunity to dig deeper into the candidate’s core values.

• Tell me about the best manager/ supervisor you ever had. What did you like most about them? What did you dislike?

This question gives us an understanding of the kind of environment they like to work in and how they like to be managed. For example, if they describe someone who was very supportive and continually monitored their work, then a company where autonomy and initiative is prized is likely to be a bad fit.

#4. Involve Your Employees
Whether you’re the owner, CEO, HR manager or recruiter, it’s unlikely that your new employee is going to be working directly with you as much as they will with other members of your staff. For this reason, it’s especially important that the candidate gets along with their future colleagues.
 
A tour around the office will give the candidate a chance to see first-hand how your business works and the dynamic of the business. More importantly, it will allow you to see how they interact with your employees.

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