In our last Community Services sector bulletin, we shared some key tips to hiring great managers and leaders include getting your role brief right first up and charting the essential competencies for each position. We spoke of thinking laterally about hiring people from outside your sector and remembering that recruitment is a two way street. We suggested that your process must be considerate of the candidate and allow them the chance to ask you questions and build an understanding of why they would want to work for you equally as much as understanding why you would want them to work for you.
In this edition, we will discuss how you can recruit more successfully by considering cultural and motivational fit and share some practical questions for you to use when interviewing.

So how do we recruit for cultural and motivational fit? What does this even mean? In simple terms, cultural fit means an employee’s beliefs and behaviours are in alignment with the employer’s core values and culture. How is this a good thing? Research indicates that people who “fit” well are more likely to perform better, remain with the organisation longer and express greater job satisfaction.

1.    Identify values and behaviourscultural-fit
You first need to identify your organisation’s values and top three or four practices or signature behaviours that define success. You might already know your organisations key values or you might do this by looking at recognised high achievers and see what behaviours or strengths make them stand out in your organisation eg working collaboratively, entrepreneurialism, customer centric capacity, showing empathy.

2.    Some great questions to ask to determine cultural fit
Then you need to ask interview questions that help you determine if there is a strong values and behaviours match or “fit”. Some examples:

  • Tell me about a workplace culture or environment you thrived in?
  • Share 3 of your organisation’s values then ask the candidate to discuss which one they relate most closely to and why?
  • What qualities have you most admired in your previous leaders and managers?

3.    What about motivational fit
Motivational fit is similar but more directly focuses on whether your role and organisation will be a good fit for the candidate based on their individual motivating preferences. These motivating preferences can be both extrinsic (remuneration, benefits, work environment) and intrinsic (degree of autonomy, level of interaction with colleagues and superiors, challenge within the role) and can be uncovered by asking two simple questions:

  • When have you been most satisfied in your career? Why/ Tell me more?
  • When have you been least satisfied in your career? Why/ Tell me more?

Think about building in some of these questions to your next interview and we hope you’ll agree that hiring for cultural and motivational fit is equally as important as qualifications, technical skills and experience.

A time of change may require a fresh approach – Briscoe Search & Consulting is working with others in your sector. If you’d like to consider how we can partner to improve your success rate in recruiting and retaining top talent with creativity and outside the box thinking, call Emma Oldfield or Brian Briscoe on 6382 1100 for a confidential discussion.