Making the Difference: Understanding the Difference between Culture Add and Culture Fit
When you’re hiring for your healthcare facility, it can be confusing trying to differentiate between what you’re looking for in a fitting candidate for your workplace culture and a candidate that can actively contribute to your workplace culture. In a perfect world, you could find a candidate who could do both and combine the two concepts of culture add and culture fit.
But unfortunately, merging these ideas can be quite difficult in practice. When looking for a new hire, you need to be careful to consider both culture add, and culture fit during your recruitment process. In this blog, we’ll delve into the intricacies of each of these two concepts to help you make the best hiring decisions for your healthcare facility.
Defining Culture Add and Culture Fit
The terms ‘culture add’ and ‘culture fit’ stem from the field of organizational neuroscience that applies the principles of psychology to understand better how employees fit into (or don’t fit into) the workplace. Culture add is how a candidate performs in the role and adds to the culture of the workplace. Culture fit refers to how well the candidate fits with the existing team based on their values, beliefs, interests, social norms, and attitudes. The two often work together, but it’s important to note that there is a difference between the two and that it’s possible to fail at both.
Creating an Environment to Bringing Out the Best in Everyone
Ideally, healthcare executives want to hire a candidate that fits the culture of the healthcare facility and is a good culture fit (by having similar values, interests, social norms, and attitudes) while also having something unique that they can bring to the team — culture add.
This way, you have engaged an individual who can add something new to the organization while also fitting into the dynamic of the existing team. This type of collaborative partnership allows both team members and executives to benefit by bringing to the table something that each can offer to the other. It fosters a sense of trust and understanding within the team, as well as promoting innovation and growth.
Learning to Work with Different Personalities
When hiring healthcare professionals, you should also be aware of culture mismatches, when a candidate does not fit the culture of the facility. This can lead to issues in communication, team dynamics, and organizational structure. The best way to avoid these issues is to ensure that your hiring team focuses on both culture fit, and culture add when interviewing candidates.
This way, they can best discern which candidate is best suited for the role and the culture of the healthcare facility. When scouting for talented healthcare professionals, it is important to evaluate the personality of each candidate to make sure they will be able to collaborate with the entire team. There may be differences in opinions, attitudes, and personalities of new hires but spend some time investing in activities that foster better collaboration and team bonding.
Looking Ahead: Technology to Help with Hiring
No matter the size of the healthcare facility, technology can help you when it comes to hiring. Solutions such as AI-driven chatbots, ATSs, and psychometric assessments are commonly used today to hire the best-fitting candidates for any organization. This type of technology enables employers to sort large stacks of resumes, prioritize candidates, fight bias in hiring processes, and create a comprehensive overview of the skills, education, and experience of potential candidates.
However, technology alone cannot assure whether a new hire will be a culture fit. So, when you’re posing difficult questions to your candidates, bear in mind that it isn’t only their qualifications but also how they fit in with the rest of the team that’s at stake.
Bottom Line
Recruiting healthcare professionals can seem daunting and confusing, but understanding the difference between what you’re looking for in terms of culture add and culture fit can help you with the often-tricky hiring process. By keeping an eye out for how personalities and values will fit into an organization and how a potential team member’s skill will be utilized effectively, you can make sure you make the right decision when bringing new candidates on board.
MLee Healthcare can help healthcare facilities hire healthcare professionals to enable a seamless hiring process. Our experienced recruiters are well-versed in finding candidates who combine both culture add, and culture fit for your workplace. MLee’s services are specially tailored toward your organization’s needs and goals.