Sometimes an employer will find themselves faced with what appears to be the perfect candidate. This individual has all the necessary skills, a great work history, solid references, an all-around ideal match on paper and in the interview process. To make things even better, the position being offered, with its duties, compensation, and benefits, is exactly what this candidate is looking for. A match made in heaven. So the company hires this individual and, at first, everything is perfect. However, over a short period of time this dream pairing begins to sour; the employee becomes disenchanted with the work, and the company begins to find that something just doesn’t quite click right with this new hire.
Though neither party may be able to say exactly what the fault is in this situation, chances are this is a simple matter of the employee not being a good match with the company’s corporate culture. Such situations can be easily avoided if companies would follow just follow a few simple guidelines recommended by executive search firms.
To begin with, employers will need to make sure that they have a clearly defined concept of their company’s corporate culture. While some companies may already have this in writing, for those who do not, a good place to start is by examining the organization’s mission statement and using that as a starting point. From here, a clear understanding of what it takes to succeed within this company should be identified, listing out those personal traits, such as entrepreneurialism, ability to take risks, etc., which an individual must possess in order to work effectively within the company’s existing structure.
Other factors that should be taken into consideration when working to define a company’s corporate culture are the ways in which the organization recognizes and rewards its employees successes, the level of team work that takes place there, the degree to which communication exists between the management and the employee, and an examination of the actual physical environment in which employees must work. A great deal of these culture clash issues can be identified and avoided by the simple act of arranging for potential hires to shadow existing employees for a period of time, and then convening again to gauge the candidate’s reaction to the company’s environment and inner workings.
Finding a proper cultural match between employee and employer should be a priority concern when conducting an executive search as, while a poor cultural match may not result in any real harm for the company or the employee, it is by no means an ideal circumstance and should be avoided as best as possible. What many seem to forget is that, for most, the workplace is where many spend a large portion of their time, and for so much time to be spent within an uncomfortable environment is no way to have to exist. Also, while no harm may come from these bad pairings, given an ideal match, in which the company and the individual can work well together and complement each other, the result can mean a much higher standard of productivity and overall effectiveness, which should be the real goal of any hire.
Published by Conselium Executive Search, the global leader in compliance search.
