Have you ever made a friend who seemed really cool and interesting, but when you brought them to your larger friend group, they just didn’t fit? They couldn’t match the energy of the room, they didn’t get the inside jokes, and everything felt a bit off.
This is always the case when bringing an individual into a larger group, and it’s not just something that happens in personal groups and relationships. It happens when hiring new people and even when going with MSP staffing agencies. Here, however, you don’t use terms like matching energy or vibe; instead, you use the technical term cultural fit.
With that in mind, here’s exactly what cultural fit is, how you can recruit based on cultural fit, why it matters, and how you can recognize someone who’s the right cultural fit for your enterprise.
What Is an Organizational Culture Fit?
A culture fit is a relatively abstract concept that can be a bit harder to understand. Still, in order to use it in your MSP staffing decisions, you would have to develop a sense of what it really is and grasp the concept a bit better.
The simplest definition of a cultural fit is that it’s the alignment of a set of values, beliefs, behaviors, and social norms in an organization or a group with an individual. Therefore, it would be easy to see why an MSP company would struggle to align its values belonging to one culture with the hiring practices of employees from another region.
Generally speaking, the best approach would be to split this cultural fit into five separate concepts.
- Shared values: All the potential employees would have to pass a few tests. One of them could be regarding the alignment with the core values and mission of the organization.
- Communication style: Next, they would have to share the same communication style. In some cultures, business correspondence is more casual than in others, which could affect an employee’s fit.
- Work ethic: This is something that most people who work in two regions will notice is different. People from different regions have different work ethics. Sure, they can adjust if they migrate, but the default is always from their home region.
- Team dynamics: Teamwork and the ability to work within a team should be the key component of your organizational fit.
- Adaptability: Lastly, you need to understand that there are differences in learning styles and that you shouldn’t be too rigid when it comes to it. A successful organizational culture fit relies on your ability to make a compromise here and there.
An example
Just imagine an employee coming from a culture that prefers strict work ethics and hierarchy, avoids fraternizing with coworkers, and communicates only formally. This employee might sound ideal in one setting but might not fit in a more casual setting.
This doesn’t make them a good or a bad employee; it just makes them right or wrong for that particular hiring culture.
A mismatch in work style can be a huge organizational problem, even if the employee is hard-working and committed.
How Do You Define Your Organizational Culture?
Defining culture is difficult, even at the cultural or national level. Things are a bit more difficult when it comes to the organizational level.
At one point, you’ll have to present your organizational culture to your MSP, but in order to do so, you’ll have to define it clearly.
You have to start by clearly defining your MSPs’ culture. You should identify your core values, clearly state your communication style, and describe your ideal work environment.
So, when you use a word fast-paced, innovative, hierarchical, or flexible, this is not just an empty phrase or a filler. This is an actual description of what working for you will be like. When you say that the communication is formal, informal, collaborative, or individualistic, you need them to know exactly what you mean.
This will openly tell your MSP what kind of candidates you want and what kind of candidate would be a perfect cultural fit for your MSP setting. Great candidates need an environment where they’ll be able to thrive.
Your MSP staffing solutions cannot thrive until you know exactly what you’re looking for and what you have to offer as an employer in return. Your MSP staff are an extension of your brand, therefore your satisfaction with their performance is affected by how well they represent you – keep them happy!
What is a cultural fit recruiting process?
Now that we understand why cultural fit is important and what organizational structure actually represents, it’s time to address the challenge of incorporating it into the hiring process.
Firstly, you should ensure that some of the questions and requirements are culture-focused.
For instance, you could enhance the interview process with a few behavioral questions. This way, you can see how they would behave in a certain scenario that might actually occur in the work environment.
Open-ended questions and leading questions are not the same. Sometimes, there’s just one good answer, and it’s clear to everyone. This is something you need to avoid.
Scenario-based assessments should be the core of your process when hiring for cultural fit. This is much harder to fake, and the person interviewed will have to figure out things quickly or answer honestly. In either case, you’re getting an amazing candidate (either someone really sharp or someone really honest).
The Importance Of Onboarding and Integration
No candidate, no matter how perfect, is a perfect employee until they undergo a proper onboarding process. Even if they have worked in the exact same industry and represented a perfect cultural fit, there are processes they have to learn, habits they have to tweak, and a bit of preparatory work to keep up with.
People assimilate into different cultures all the time. There are so many international companies that manage to plant their culture abroad without much issue.
A good MSP has management that understands what’s on the line, which is why they’ll have materials ready and a team that’s already capable of handling it from start to finish. Cultural onboarding can be done better with a good mentorship program as well.
Figuring out your MSP integrations early on is a game-changer for any company looking to expand.
MSP staffing can be difficult, and when you add the issue of cultural fit to the mix, things get exponentially more complex.
Before you start, you need to understand your own regional business etiquette and your own organization. Without it, you really won’t get far. Then, you have to figure out how to integrate this requirement into your own hiring process. In fact, this issue is so important that you may want to focus on it as early as choosing your MSP partner!
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