The impacts culture, hiring have on companies

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I believe there are two major impacts we have on our businesses: culture and hiring.

The first — culture — is a term that refers to intangible aspects of a company’s internal social life. It consists of values, beliefs, communication and practices that people share. It can be used to define the company as a collective body.

Culture includes the material objectives that are common to a company; it’s the social structure and the economic aspects. How much time and money do you spend on or invest in cultivating your culture? Your investment in your company’s culture is what defines your culture.

Ownership and management at ABC watch everything we do as a team. How we address each other, how we address all levels of our team, and how we deal with customers. We can help or hurt our culture without even realizing it.

LIFTING ONE ANOTHER

At ABC, I believe we all are responsible for improving our culture. In employee reviews, we
go over two factors:

1. How they have done their job, from a sales and/or service aspect.
2. How they have improved the company culture.

The adage “It only takes a few bad apples to ruin the whole bunch,” is so true. We all need to be lifting one another daily and encouraging one another, from owners to service providers. If you are working in an environment or culture that is truly a relevant part of the business, you will find people who want to stay for the intangible reasons.

ASSESSING WORKERS

Raleigh Jenkins

The second major impact on our business is hiring. Hiring is what feeds the culture. The new employees we bring on will be a part of the company’s overall culture in the near future. How we screen the people we are hiring to ensure they are improving, and not bringing down, our culture is so important.

We use the Predictive Index (below) to ensure we get the right fit. We send it to prospective employees to take before we even conduct the first phone interview. Having applicants take the Predictive Index helps us determine whether they are the right fit for our company — not only for the job, but for the company culture. If they have not completed their Predictive Index, we won’t conduct that first round of interviews. Once the test has been taken, we will only review the applications that fit within the parameters we expect for the position.

We have a big challenge in front of us as a collective industry. We need to recruit great people and keep them long-term. Today, it is becoming increasingly difficult to accomplish that goal.

I know these are difficult times, and often we get ourselves into positions where we just “need a person,” so we bend the rules of hiring great people that also fit our culture. To create and maintain the desired company culture, however, we must stay the course of retaining and recruiting, and not allow our standards of whom we hire to diminish.

Assessing job candidates

The Predictive Index is not a test, as there are no right or wrong answers. According to PredictiveIndex.com, it is an assessment used to measure cognitive ability as well as behavioral drives such as dominance, extraversion, patience and formality. Business owners can use it to determine whether a prospective employee’s personality traits will be a good fit for the company.

The results enable business owners to better understand the needs of a specific role, team, project or strategy. They can also collect data on job candidates or company employees and then use that data to make informed and objective decisions.