Recognise This! – Top prospects know the culture they want to work in. Does yours measure up?
With company culture obviously top of mind for me right now, I was intrigued by Ben Eubanks’ post on his UpstartHR blog. He took a different perspective on culture – how to evaluate the culture of the company during your interview to work for them. Recruiters and HR Pros – I highly recommend this post as a heads-up to what your top prospects are looking to understand about you before signing on the dotted line.
A couple of solid suggestions from Ben (quoting):
- Ask what sorts of behaviour are rewarded and which are punished
- Ask what the company’s overall mission/vision is. If a random employee can tell you (at least in general terms) it could signify a strong, unified workforce.
Those two are closely linked. If your employees can’t tell you where the company is heading, how do you know they’re all working together to get to the right end goal? And you’d better be recognising and rewarding them every time they demonstrate your core values and contribute to reaching that goal. After all, research shows 49% of employees will leave to work for a company that recognises their efforts.
Ben then offers a good reminder:
“Keep in mind that there are “pockets” of culture within individual departments, so the overall company culture could differ from your specific work area.”
If you found the perfect candidate for a hard to fill role (a purple squirrel) and that candidate asked to walk around your office to speak to a few employees, how would you react? Would you panic and try to organise the walk-around for lunch time when you know most of the cubes will be empty anyway? Or are you comfortable with the idea, knowing your culture will be well reflected in your employees?
