Today, when unconscious bias is plaguing the Human Resource (HR) industry, diversity hiring is rising to occasion and addressing the challenge. It is hitting the racial, physical, and mental biases of the hiring process and pushing companies to break the hiring barriers.

Adding back the human factor in the process, diversity hiring has made hiring less transactional and more human now.

HRs are no longer ticking off their tasks for the sake of it. Instead, they’re transitioning to see the bigger picture which unknowingly obstructed the company and candidates’ growth in the past. As a result, 78% of companies today have started considering diversity hiring as an extremely important part of their recruiting strategy.

But when a new practice breaks into the market, it’s always coupled with confusion and myths. And one such myth surrounding diversity hiring is “Companies should overlook the cultural fitness of the candidates if aiming for a diverse workforce”.

In this blog, we will bust this myth and understand how cultural fitness contributes to the diversity hiring goal. But before diving into the depth, let’s first understand the basics.

Understanding Diversity Hiring

Diversity in the hiring process was embodied to ensure the workplace is a reflection of society. Like a society that comprises people from all walks of life, workplace should also include employees from all backgrounds irrespective of their societal differences.

As enforced by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC),

It is unlawful for agencies to discriminate against employees and job applicants on the bases of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or age.

Discriminating on these differences is not only unethical but also ineffective. Researchers have found that ethnically diverse companies are 35% more likely to yield higher revenue, while gender-diverse companies are 15% more likely to yield higher revenue.

This revenue increase testifies that a diverse workforce brings more productivity and creativity to the table than the non-diverse workforce. Working in the same direction, there are a number of diverse hiring portals sprouting in the hiring industry. PDN Recruits, iHispano, Black Career Network, and Fairygodboss are few of the front runners of this market.

Why Add Cultural Fit into Your Diversity Hiring Plan

As already discussed, it’s a common myth that evaluating a candidates’ cultural fitness undermines the diversity hiring goal. While it’s evident that companies must embrace differences in the employees’ societal footprint. At the same time, it’s also necessary to ensure that diverse employees align with your company’s vision and mission.

Missing on this crucial aspect can result in irreversible damage ruining the internal and external health of your organization. Here are a few reasons that will help you understand why compromising on the cultural fitness of the employees can be injurious for you.

1.  Resumes Only Reveal Half-truth

If resumes told you everything about the candidate, half of the recruiting efforts would get eliminated. But sadly, resumes only tell half the story. In fact, 75% of HR managers caught people lying on their resume.

Therefore, relying totally on resumes isn’t a good approach. Moreover, it only provides answers to the ‘what’ of a candidates’ career journey. ‘How’ and ‘Why’ majorly remain unanswered in the resumes.

To understand the cultural fitness of the employee, you need to find answers to these questions. How did they achieve these milestones and why was it important to them?

It will help you dig deeper into their core values and beliefs and understand what drives them forward. It’s also called value-driven hiring – where the values are paramount than skills.

For instance, if your company has a dynamic work culture that hustles constantly from one task to another and relies on the employees’ proactiveness, then an employee with a passive work approach can be a huge misfit. Whereas, if you are a structured organization prioritizing processes above everything else, then over-enthusiastic employees can be a red alarm.

Therefore, you must first lay your workforce values to understand your work culture. And then seek candidates from diverse backgrounds to suit your work culture paradigm. Because it’s easier to train a person to do their job, but it’s impossible to train values and culture.

2. Culture Synergizes Diverse Talent

It’s imperative to have a common goal or purpose that channelizes the diverse talent in the same direction. Evaluating the cultural fitness of the candidates serves this higher purpose which is fundamental to any organization’s growth and harmony.

For example, if your organization thrives on the passion and self-drivenness of the employees, then the synergy of passionate employees having diverse perspectives can do wonders for you.

The idea here is that irrespective of what social fabric your employees belong to if they’re culturally aligned with a larger goal of the organization then results will always be astonishing. On the contrary, if they’re not culturally aligned then negativity can fester the work culture and bring a bad reputation to the company.

3.  Retaining Employees Becomes Effortless

Researchers have found that people whose values are aligned to those of their organization are more committed to the company, more satisfied with their job, and less likely to leave.

Well, it is a no-brainer to understand if employees don’t feel comfortable and fit in the workplace then they’re most likely to leave the job sooner than expected. Applying “prevention is better than cure” formula is, therefore, the only effective solution in this situation.

In place of hiring employees who do not fit your work culture, hire people who align with your values.

Recruiting a wrong fit not only proliferates your hiring efforts but also hurts the overall company budget. On average, it costs 150% of a mid-level person’s salary to replace them. So, it’s always a wiser choice to go for prevention than making the wrong choice.