With culture becoming more and more important when it comes to hiring, recruiters and leaders have found themselves in a new dilemma. Should you hire someone if they “fit” the culture, or should you hire someone if they “add” to the culture?
Companies have started to focus on building a culture that can cater to their values, but with every new person they bring in, they have to ponder how they will affect a culture that is already established.
While most remain wary of introducing new elements to the status quo of their existing culture, many recruiters are slowly opening up to the idea of fresh elements being introduced to their culture through new hires.
Understanding Culture Fit
Culture Fit hiring refers to the process of recruiting a candidate whose qualities align with the company’s existing values, behaviours, and ways of working. These types of recruitments allow a smooth introduction and integration of new hires within the workplace.
“I prefer ensuring that we look for a ‘values fit’ while hiring more than ‘culture fit’ Of course the values and culture should aligned, that is the expectation because wherever values and culture are different in an organisation, there are issues, that is almost certain,” Neha Gupta, Vice President & Head of APAC – People at Material, shared her thoughts.
Neha highlighted that “Hiring for values fit means that people can work without unhealthy friction and know how to act, behave, and conduct themselves while working with others. Integrity, focus and respectfulness remains paramount. The results are achieved in a constructive way that benefits the clients, colleagues, stakeholders and community.”
As Neha points out, aligning candidates’ values with the company’s provides a plethora of benefits. It leads to faster onboarding and smoother team integration, while reducing interpersonal friction. Additionally, a “culture fit” makes it easier to predict the team’s performance and behaviour.
Hiring using the “culture fit” method is best for startups in their early stages. Additionally, for roles that require high collaboration and trust, finding someone with shared values can help immensely. The same goes for companies with highly regulated or mission-critical environments
The Risks of Over-Indexing on Culture Fit
Though culture fit might seem ideal in most situations, relying heavily on this process can lead to many obstacles in the future. It can, even unintentionally, become a proxy for similarity, leading to a lack of difference in perspective.
Having only those who share a similar mindset in a team can lead to “groupthink” and a lack of innovation. In such a situation, there is a high chance that a team’s performance may stagnate in quality.
“An excessive focus on culture fit can create an echo chamber, limiting diversity of thought and innovation. As Peter Drucker said, ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast,’ but when culture becomes rigid, growth suffers,” explained Pratik Vaid, Associate Director – Talent Acquisition at Freedom Consulting.
Pratik elaborated by stating that “While alignment with core values is essential, organisations thrive when they embrace varied perspectives that challenge the status quo. ‘Sameness is safe, but diversity drives progress.’”
Apart from a lack of diversity in thought, hiring for the same values can also affect a company’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) metrics. Moreover, relying heavily on this kind of recruitment might mean your team and company are hiring for comfort rather than competence.
What Is Culture Add?
Culture Add hiring refers to recruiting individuals who bring something new to the company’s culture. It can be new perspectives, skills, or experiences that a new candidate brings to the table.
An obvious example of culture add can be hiring for a marketing team. A company might already have a number of experienced professional but to appeal to a younger audience, they can decide to bring on a new GenZ hire. Their perspective on what appeals to youth can help the company grow, diversifying the brand while keeping the product itself intact in use.
“Companies increasingly want to hire people who make the culture of an organisation even better and richer as they join rather than simply following the line,” shared Neha Gupta.
“If you hire for people who can add value, you can be assured that they will enrich the employer brand, quality of work, work environment and ultimately customer experience,” Neha added. “People look for inspiration while working with colleagues, as peer learning is a great motivator and thus hiring for values ensures that employee retention rates are improved.”
Indeed, hiring while keeping new values in mind can help drive innovation and creative problem-solving. It also builds team resilience and makes the team adaptable to fast-changing market trends. Additionally, onboarding people with fresh perspectives can strengthen diversity of thought and inclusive growth, hence future-proofing culture as the business scales.
Challenges of Hiring for Culture Add
Though culture add hiring seems like the obvious solution when planning for the future of a team and company at large, it comes with its own set of challenges. Having someone with a differing perspective can often lead to longer onboarding and adjustment periods.
Additionally, a different type of hire can create friction within existing teams due to differing working styles and ideas. As such, hiring needs to be backed with strong leadership, psychological safety, and change management. Team members should also be open to the idea of change and be welcoming to new ideas, even if they might not align with their mindset.
Most importantly, the team should have clarity on what is non-negotiable and what should be open to change. Members, both old and new, need to know what the core values of a company are and how far change should go while maintaining the integrity of the brand itself.
Culture Fit vs. Culture Add: A Side-by-Side Comparison
Needless to say, both culture fit and culture add provide their own sets of advantages and disadvantages when onboarding a new employee. Neither is without its pros, but it also has cons that cannot be ignored.
- Short-term stability v.s Long-term evolution: While culture fit hiring is perfect for short-term stability, culture add hiring often sacrifices this for long-term evolution. Depending on the team’s and company’s requirements, one might be more important than the other.
- Speed of integration vs. Breadth of impact: With culture fit hiring, the speed of integration is often high, though the impact on operations remains minimal. In contrast, a culture add hire may take longer to integrate, but their presence will create a broader impact on the team’s performance.
- Risk minimisation vs. Growth acceleration: The risks associated with culture fit hiring are indeed small, in contrast with adding a completely new element to the team. However, a culture add hire might increase risk, but can also help accelerate growth at a significantly higher rate.
Striking the Right Balance: Fit the Values, Add to the Culture
Depending on the requirements of the company and the values that it stands for, recruiters need to find the right balance between culture fit and culture add hiring. It all starts with understanding the goals and how much change is good. Keep in mind to
- Identify core values that must be protected.
- Differentiate values from habits, traditions, and preferences.
- Design interview questions to assess both alignment and difference.
- Understand the role of structured interviews and diverse hiring panels.
“The key is to hire for shared values while welcoming fresh ideas that enrich the culture. Think of it as building a mosaic, each piece aligns with the foundation yet adds unique colour,” Pratik Vaid elaborated. “As Verna Myers famously said, ‘Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance.’ Structured interviews and competency-based assessments help achieve this balance. ‘Fit the values, add the vision.'”
Pratik’s words point towards the core issue that needs to be kept in mind while hiring for culture and even skills. Change is the key to growth, but it remains imperative that neither a person nor the company lose its identity to the changing tides.
The Role of Leadership and HR
Culture-based hiring requires active participation and engagement of the company leadership as well as HR. Leaders, in particular, need to set an example on how to be open to new ideas. Their willingness to listen to a new perspective makes the team more receptive to what the new hire is bringing to the table.
HR also needs to reframe hiring conversations and success metrics, remembering that certain types of people are hired not for short-term gain but rather long-term growth. Moreover, hiring should be done with an open mind, and candidates should not be rejected simply for giving an answer that might not align with the interviewer’s thought process.
Leaders, HR, and team members should learn how to measure success beyond the idea of how well one fits in a team. Having an open mind and welcoming environment goes a long way in integrating anyone into the team, no matter their experience, perspective, or role.
In the End…
Choosing between culture add and culture fit depends primarily on the kind of culture a company wants to build. The kinds of changes the team is open to need to be considered before opting for one of the two hiring types.
The best hiring strategies are born of balancing both change and consistency. Bringing in a new perspective does not have to mean letting go of the company’s foundation. However, companies must also be open to letting go of factors that may be comfortable but may not align with the changing times.
Most importantly, hire people who align with the company’s core values, even as they challenge the established way of thinking. The goal should be to solve a problem, and a new hire can provide a path that may be different or strange, but might just be what is needed for a more effective outcome.
