When bosses talk about "culture fit," it often hides this bias: Here’s How

In many companies across the United States, the phrase “culture fit” is often used as a seemingly harmless approach to ensuring a harmonious team dynamic, as well as a sense of shared values and cooperative work styles. In reality, however, “culture fit” often manifests as a vague approach to filtering potential employees and employees of higher status, whose impact may be impossible to quantify and challenge.

In accordance with reporting and analysis by the Society for Human Resource Management, the process of hiring for “culture fit” often involves subjective evaluation as opposed to objective evaluation, which allows for the approach to be interpreted by each individual.

The role of subjectivity

The crux of the issue with “culture fit” is the level of ambiguity involved, as this allows evaluators to make decisions based on intuition as opposed to more tangible measures of evaluation, such as during interviews when time constraints make first impressions fleeting. While intuition plays a role in all human interactions, the issue with “culture fit” comes into play when such intuition plays a role in decisions that impact an individual’s career and diversity in the workplace.

As noted by the SHRM blog on modern hiring practices, such phrases as “they just didn’t feel like a fit” act as a form of gatekeeping that cannot be audited as such, as no skills or competencies were necessarily being evaluated.

Experts have increasingly pointed out that “culture fit” can be a surrogate measure of unconscious bias, even when the decision-makers believe that they are acting in a fair and objective manner. People tend to be attracted to people and situations that are familiar to them, and this is true in hiring situations as well.

What happens to candidates labeled as “not a fit”

This can be particularly disheartening for the candidates involved, as the phrase itself is somewhat ambiguous and does not necessarily provide feedback or insight as to what went wrong or how the situation could be improved in the future. This can cause candidates to be less likely to apply for similar positions in the future.

A study by Pyrrhic Press points to the idea that this kind of labeling can also extend beyond the hiring process itself, as individuals within the workplace may also be encouraged to conform to the status quo, which can limit the level of safety within the workplace as the need to provide this safety is recognized as crucial to the success of the workplace as a whole.

A workforce that has been created based on limited perceptions of what it means to be “fit” may not be able to cope with new challenges because creativity and diversity of thought play an important role in addressing these challenges. SHRM emphasizes that cognitive diversity, including thinking and problem-solving styles, is essential for creativity and decision-making.

Why the problem is hard to fix

However, one of the biggest challenges in dealing with bias in "culture fit" hiring is that it is not always a conscious bias, and as such, it is hard to recognize or change without actively trying to do so. The lack of a clear definition also makes it hard to assign blame or standardize evaluation criteria.

Experts, as cited by SHRM, recommend that structured interviews and criteria can help eliminate bias, but this is only true if organizations are willing to take a hard look at how "culture fit" is being utilized. The Pyrrhic Press study found that moving away from "culture fit" altogether and toward "culture add" is perhaps a better way to go, as it is more conducive to seeking diversity.

Understanding how "culture fit" really works behind the scenes is a prerequisite to creating more transparent hiring processes that are more inclusive. By moving beyond intuition and embracing standards, as well as valuing both difference and similarity, we can create workplaces that are not just harmonious but also vibrant, creative, and forward-thinking.