What is Culture Add? Meaning and Definition

The concept of ‘culture add’ is a hiring strategy where the company selects and recruits people based on their unique skills and behaviours that can enhance the existing culture. Rather than just hiring people who fit into the current team culture, the focus is on the discovery of candidates with new ideas, new views, and character features that complement or even improve existing team dynamics.

Through the acceptance of diversity and specifically searching for applicants with different perspectives or skills, hiring for culture promotes the formation of more inclusive and diverse teams. Through this strategy, the company adds to its culture, and employees become more innovative and creative.

Culture add vs culture fit

Culture Fit:

• Definition: “Culture fit” is a concept of hiring candidates who are very close in terms of their customs or beliefs to the existing company culture. These candidates have similar values, beliefs, and conduct to the current workers.
• Emphasis: The main focus is on the search for candidates who can easily adapt to the culture that is already established, which most of the time is done by putting similarity in front of diversity.
• Benefits: Hiring for culture fit can facilitate the process of team building and bring the employees closer since they have the same code of values and outlook.
• Challenges: It may result in homogenization and the lack of different perspectives, which might block the flow of new ideas. It may also bring about groupthink and in turn, diminish the organization’s capability to change
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Culture Add:

• Definition: “Culture add” is a process of recruiting candidates who inculcate new skills, ideas, and experiences into the organization. These candidates do not merely blend into the existing culture of the organization but inject fresh ideas and perspectives.
• Emphasis: The focus is on diversity and inclusion, on respecting differences, and on actively searching for people who can bring more to the company culture.
• Benefits: Among the culture hires, the organization can expect more innovation, creativity, and agility. It is a way of creating a more diverse and inclusive workplace.
• Challenges: It requires careful consideration and management to ensure that diverse perspectives are effectively integrated into the team and that conflicts arising from differing viewpoints are addressed constructively.

   

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Interview Questions for a Culture Add

The interview process of assessing applicants to determine whether they can contribute culturally or offer “culture add” requires creating questions that uncover their diverse experiences, skills, and viewpoints. Here are some interview questions tailored toward evaluating culture:

1. Tell us of a moment when you were the one to propose an idea or a point of view that contested the existing norms. What was your strategy for it and what was your result
2. Would you mind giving me an example of a situation where you had to work with people of different backgrounds to solve a problem or finish a project? How did you cope with that experience?
3. What kind of influence do you think your background or skills could have on the company culture of our team?
4. Tell about a time when you experienced a cultural difference or misconception in a workplace. What did you do against it, and what was your main lesson from that situation?
5. Talk about the time you were able to fit into a new office or company environment and culture successfully. What techniques did you utilize to become more integrated into the community?
6. How do you make sure that you don’t get lost in the crowd and that people around you hear your ideas and understand their value when there are other opinions?
7. Are you able to share an experience when you truly wanted to listen to the opinions of people with different viewpoints to improve your work?
8. State a project that you have initiated to bring about diversity, equity, and inclusion within your previous organization. What were the results?
9. Please share with us an instance when you had to leave your comfort zone to face a fresh challenge or take advantage of a new opportunity. What did you do to make it through, and what did you get from this experience?
10. In your opinion, what part does diversity play in the process of innovating and creating new things by a team or an organization? What do you do to help realize a workplace of diversity and inclusion?

     

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