How To Ensure Cultural Fitment in Remote Hiring

Introduction

With remote work here to stay, strategizing ways to maintain a successful remote workforce is essential. Company culture is an important aspect of any business, consisting of your company’s values, work environment, leadership styles, communication styles, and more. While in-person company culture is built through in-person interactions, remote company culture can be more difficult to cultivate.

Although remote work provides numerous benefits, it can be harder for remote workers to feel like a part of a team. Thus, it’s important to create a remote company culture strategy. Only then can you recruit candidates who will align and add value to this culture.

When we hire employees that align with the company culture, there’s a better chance they will excel in their roles, stay employed with your company, increase productivity, and help your business grow. Creating a clear strategy for remote cultural fitment can help your business find the right employees to hire.

Keep reading to learn why cultural fit is so important, how to ensure fitment in a remote setting, and how to best assess it during the recruitment process.

Why it is important to hire culturally fit employees in a remote setup

In today’s hiring world, some recruiters are hiring for cultural fit before skills. The thought process behind this is that skills are buildable, while cultural fit depends on the inherent qualities of an individual.

Employees also look for cultural fit when job searching. A survey by Glassdoor revealed that 73% of respondents would not apply for a position unless they aligned with the company culture. With applicants evaluating cultural fit themselves, employers should also consider the importance of cultural fit when hiring.

Employers have discovered that employees who are good cultural fits excel in their jobs and help drive long-term success. Longer employee retention also means that employers save time and costs in the long run by not having to constantly hire new employees.

Assessing cultural fit in the recruitment pipeline ensures that new employees are not only qualified for the job, but will also:

• Stay with your company longer
• Have a smoother onboarding process
• Become a part of the team quickly
• Have higher morale and productivity
• Contribute to growth faster than others

Company culture is, however, a lot easier to cultivate in in-person work environments than online. In remote working environments, employees aren’t able to have physical interpersonal interactions. It may be harder for remote employees to feel like they are part of a team, leaving productivity and retention at risk.

Cultural fit matters in the remote world too, and it’s important to assess candidates' abilities to work and communicate remotely. Employees should have the right skills to contribute to your company culture while working remotely and interacting virtually with colleagues.

With this in mind, it’s essential to have strategies in place to cultivate a positive remote work environment, as well as foster teams of employees who align with these goals.

When ensuring cultural fit for remote work, there are various strategies of assessment to keep in mind to determine how an employee will fit in remotely.

Ways to ensure culture fitment in remote hiring

Although dispersed remote teams may require extra strategizing to feel like an empowered unit, it is possible to cultivate a united company culture while working remotely.

To have a positive remote culture, you first have to get clear on what you want your company culture to look and feel like. Take the time to ponder your company’s values, your mission, what working for your company will look like, and what qualities your employees should have.

Once you’re clear on what your company culture means to you, you can start to build teams that reflect that. To hire employees who align with your company culture, you should:

Display your values on your company site, social media, and other profiles

Having a "values" or "mission statement" page on your company site makes it easy for people to see what you’re all about. By making this information readily available, you will attract the right people to join your team.

Detail your company culture in job listings

Tailoring job listings to reflect your company culture helps applicants decide if they’re a good fit before applying, making the recruiting process that much easier. Describe your company culture or provide a link to your "Values" page.

Discuss the values of your company in interviews

Discussing company culture from the start of the interview process will show candidates whether you're the right fit for them. This will help narrow down your hiring pool to the most qualified fits.

Ask questions that reveal candidates’ values

During the interview process, it’s vital to ask the right questions that reveal more about your candidates. Ask questions tailored to assessing their personalities, values, communication styles, and more.

Create an impactful onboarding process

Ensure cultural fitment from the start of employment by implementing a welcoming onboarding process. This will help new hires actually feel like part of the company.

Include work culture in company branding

Online platforms like social media often give the first impressions of your brand to potential employees. To ensure you attract candidates who align with your company culture, consider showcasing your brand values and work environment in your company branding. By doing this, you can attract people who are enthusiastic about the opportunity to join your company.

To attract candidates who work well remotely, include glimpses of your remote work environment in your branding. This will appeal to those motivated individuals who excel in remote environments.

Demonstrate your remote culture in the interview process

To maintain the right people throughout your hiring stages, create an interview process that aligns with what daily remote work is like with your company. Use the same communication styles, virtual platforms, and project management tools as you would with employees.

For example, use the same video call applications as you do for regular meetings to see how candidates carry themselves and communicate virtually. For test projects during the interview process, use your usual content management tools and content strategies to see how candidates handle your company’s virtual workflow.

Nourish a remote environment

To ensure cultural fit in a remote environment, you’ll want to have a plan to nourish employee morale and relationships. This can be done through:

• Having team-building meetings
• Planning virtual events, luncheons, and more
• Sending virtual or mailed gifts and care packages
• Using the right tools for your global team
• Having effective HR strategies

How to assess culture fit

In addition to having these hiring strategies, recruiters should be on the same page about how to best assess the cultural fitment of candidates.

Assessing cultural fitment can be done through the interview process, perhaps starting with a written response from your applicants. Ask questions that reveal more than just candidates’ skillsets, but also their values. An initial written questionnaire can reveal a lot about an applicant and help you decide whether or not to move forward.

When moving on to virtual interviews, continue to discuss topics about company culture, values, working styles, communication, and more. Make sure candidates clearly understand your company culture from the get-go by describing typical workdays, what you look for in candidates, and the environments of specific teams.

Some specific questions to ask candidates to best assess their cultural fitment are:

• What are your most positive and negative personality traits?
• How would a friend describe you?
• Tell me about yourself.
• What are your values?
• What are you passionate about?
• What communication style works best for you?
• What leadership style works best for you?
• What type of work environment do you thrive in?
• Can you describe a time when you had to handle a difficult coworker?
• How do you resolve issues in the workplace?
• Do you resonate with our company values?
• Why do you want this job?
• How important is [insert value] to you?

Asking these types of questions reveals more than just their work experience — it provides insight into who they really are as people. This will help you evaluate whether their characteristics work well with the teams you're hiring for.

When assessing a candidate’s fitment for your remote company culture, you’ll need to touch on topics related to working remotely. Some important questions to ask to assess their ability to work remotely include:

What is your experience with remote work?

A candidate is much more likely to succeed in a remote role if they have already had one. Asking this question gives insight into their ability to handle the positive and negative aspects of a remote working environment.

Why do you want to work remotely?

This question reveals a candidate’s motivation behind seeking a remote job. Do they truly flourish in a remote environment, or are they hoping for an easier role?

Another vital aspect of assessing cultural fitment is acknowledging the candidate’s level of interest or enthusiasm about the role. Is the candidate asking important questions about the role? Are they expressing interest in moving forward? Are they expressing personal alignment with your values?

Their responses throughout the interview process will eventually reveal the extent to which they align with your remote work culture.

Conclusion

Assessing cultural fit for remote roles ensures that you’re hiring employees who will excel in their job duties, stay with the company longer, add value to teams, and help your business grow.

Hiring remote employees who align with your company culture is essential for long-term success. Collaborating with a global hiring service like Skuad can help you discover, hire, and onboard top remote talent for your business.