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Identifying Your Best Work Environment
The culture of a workplace can be a hard thing to describe. So how do you decide if a company’s culture is a fit for you? Luckily, there is a process for understanding culture and deciding if a workplace is the right place for you. Companies screen applicants for culture fit. Now you can do the same to guide you in your job search.
When selecting a workplace, applicants typically assess their strengths, abilities, and interests to find the job that will be a fit and move them along a desired career path. But achieving job fit is only part of the formula for finding fulfilling work. Job seekers must also find the best workplace in which to do that job. That’s where the additional focus on culture fit comes into play.
Understanding Yourself: Your Purpose and Your Principles
Deciding whether a company culture is a fit begins with reflecting first on the things that matter to you. To flourish, you want to find an organization whose work feels meaningful. You should also seek a work environment that operates by principles and values that are consistent with who you are. Therefore, your first step in determining culture fit is to clarify what is important to you: your purpose and your principles.
Understanding Your Purpose
Think for a moment about the things you are passionate about:
• What do you care about?
• What causes have a particular link with your life?
• What type of work would make you feel fulfilled?
When you are able to identify the things that matter to you, you gain vital information for deciding if an organization is a fit.
To understand how purpose applies to you, consider those who work in the nonprofit sector. Many people who work for a nonprofit have a genuine interest in its cause. It’s not unusual for them to have a relative or friend who has been affected by the issue the nonprofit is seeking to remedy. Often, the passion of nonprofit workers is an output of their closeness to the cause on a personal level. Working for that organization is more than a job—it is the opportunity to make a difference in an area that deeply matters to them.
In contrast, for those in the for-profit world, making money has historically been viewed as the ultimate purpose. But that singular financial focus has proven to be a limited perspective.
Today, companies are more often seeing their work as a means for making a contribution to the global community. And having a purposeful focus not only promotes a thriving business, but also supports an employee’s desire for achieving meaning through work. This broader lens generates high levels of energy and commitment from employees who care about the cause.
For example, Kellogg Company states its purpose as “nourishing families so they can flourish and thrive,” while Starbucks exists “to inspire and nurture the human spirit.” CVS Health describes its purpose as “helping people on their path to better health,” and Nike seeks “to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” And as they say at Nike, “If you have a body, you are an athlete.”
In February 2012, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to prospective investors in the company’s initial public offering filing, stating that Facebook “was built to accomplish a social mission—to make the world more open and connected” (Zuckerberg 2012). The company wanted to “strengthen how people relate to each other.” By enhancing openness and transparency, Facebook believes they are building understanding and connection.
So what causes matter to you? Think about the things that spark your energy. Is it helping people, preserving the environment, improving health, creating happiness, or something else?
There may be a number of areas in which you could make a meaningful contribution. Your aim is to determine which areas will make you feel fulfilled in your work. Identify the purposes that resonate with you. Don’t focus on the products or services you feel skilled in providing; that is important for job fit but can be limiting when considering culture fit. If you limit your view, you will miss an array of potentially fulfilling opportunities.
Your life experiences can be a guide for your thinking. With the choices you have made, do you see any patterns? Are there particular areas that attract you? Use your past as a resource but not a limitation.
Defining Your Purpose
Answer these questions to help uncover the areas that feel purposeful to you.
• What are the things you love to do?
• What issues do you genuinely care about?
• What industries do you feel a personal connection to?
• In what types of activities do you lose track of time?
• What causes really matter to you?
• What topics do you often talk and read about?
• What events in your life have had a lasting impact because they touched you?
• What work excites you and makes you feel fulfilled and alive?
• What problems that worry or sadden you would you like to solve?
• What interests tend to repeat in your life?
• Knowing your strengths, is there a cause that you personally gravitate to?
• How would you like to use your talents to contribute to a better world?
• If you did not have to work, what would you do?
• If you could not fail, what impact would you like to make in your life?
• How do you want to be remembered?
Based on your responses, compile a list of your personal purpose options in your job journal. Put each purpose in a statement format, for example: I want to help people; I want to preserve the environment; I want to improve health; I want to make people happy.
Make sure each purpose is a meaningful cause that you will be willing to dedicate your energy to. With this list of potential purposes, you have taken the first step in understanding yourself so you can pick the right company culture.
Understanding Your Principles
The next step toward understanding yourself involves clarifying your beliefs and values. For a company to be a fit, you must feel a sense of harmony with the principles and values that are core to the organization’s culture. To diagnose whether that harmony exists, you must think about yourself and the values that guide your life.
Many values may seem important, but the objective is to identify the ones that are most important to you. These are the values that would cause a disconnect if they were inconsistent with the workplace’s values. Some workplace cultures are people focused while others are numbers focused. Some cultures take pride in being frugal while others see extravagance as core to who they are. Reflecting on the values that matter most to you will give you information you need to guide your job search. Keep in mind that clarifying values is also beneficial for many other endeavors in life, such as selecting a life partner, so understanding the values that matter most to you and any beliefs that ground your views will help you make good life choices.
Tool: Identifying Your Principles
Review the list of values in Table 3-1, and select the ones that matter most to you. If any significant values are missing from the list, add them to the Other Values section at the end. Be sure to pick values that meet these three criteria:
• The value is very important to you.
• The value guides how you live.
• You would require this value to feel comfortable in a workplace.
Table 3-1. List of Values
Now list your top values in the left column of Table 3-2. Include no more than 10. Next, in the middle column, write a principle that explains the value so you are clear on what matters to you. For example, if you selected the value “can-do attitude,” the principle might be, “I do what it takes to get the job done.” Or if you selected “change,” you might write, “I thrive on change and see changes as opportunities.” Finally, in the far right column, add an example of each principle.
Table 3-2. List of Top Values
| Top Values | Principle | Example |
If these principles and values guide your life, then they must also be important at the company where you work. Otherwise, you will not be in harmony with the culture, and the tension will reduce your ability to flourish.
Once you are clear on the purposes and principles that matter to you, the next step is to assess the workplace culture to ensure you understand the organization’s contribution and character.
Understanding the Organization: Purpose, Philosophy, and Priorities
Once you have clarified your purpose and principles, you’ll need to compare them with the purpose, philosophy, and priorities of your prospective organizations. This is not always easy to do, but there are ways for you to gather clues about a company’s culture, even from the “outside.”
To evaluate your fit with a particular company, you will need to become familiar with the organization’s core culture, which includes the reason why the organization exists and the beliefs and values that guide how employees do their work. The components of a company’s core culture include its purpose, philosophy, and priorities (Figure 3-1).
Figure 3-1. Core Culture
Understanding the Organization’s Purpose
Most organizations have a purpose statement that answers these questions:
• What is the purpose of this organization?
• Why is the work of this organization important?
• What is this organization’s contribution to society?
An organization’s purpose is a statement clarifying its reason for existence. For example, many of the companies led by Elon Musk seek to improve our planet and positively affect the future of humanity. The purpose is a heartfelt contribution and a cause that serves as a source of meaning for the organization’s employees.
Think of the purpose of the organization as something that is rarely completed. If it is accomplished, then the organization no longer needs to exist. Products and services change over time, but the ultimate reason for the organization’s existence typically endures. The company may modify the wording of the purpose, but the essential contribution continues. The purpose serves as a filter for action and a stimulus for desired behavior. Some companies have the purpose to make people happy, while others may view their contribution as saving lives or helping people achieve their dreams. A broadly stated but genuine purpose widens the focus of a company, opening up a number of possibilities of products or services to offer. This broad perspective allows a company to thrive in a changing world.
So how do you determine a company’s purpose?
• Begin by looking at the messages the company delivers through its website, its marketing, and even speeches given by its top leadership. The purpose may also be included in a mission statement.
• Network with employees, if you can, to see how they describe the company’s contribution. Do they talk about the purposefulness of their work? Do they share a passion for a cause that is the foundation for their work? Do they describe why their work is important?
Evaluating a company’s purpose is an important step in determining if it matters to you. Compare your list of personal purpose statements with the purpose of each company you consider for employment. Decide if the work of the company is meaningful to you. Without a personal connection to the company’s purpose, you won’t feel as strong of a commitment to the company. And work may not feel as meaningful.
Understanding the Organization’s Philosophy
Where purpose is the why of the organization—why it exists—the philosophy is its distinctive and enduring how. Think of the philosophy as the personality or character of the company. It is what employees believe sets the organization apart from other companies—especially its competitors. Philosophy is a value or small set of principles or values that guide how employees do their work. It is usually derived from the company’s founder or the principles and ideals that drove the organization’s creation.
Uncovering a company’s philosophy can require researching the company to discover what principles and values guide employees’ decisions and actions. Often these values are posted on company walls, incorporated in employee communications, and shared on the company website. The values listed are not always the values practiced, however, so be careful in evaluating the authenticity of the stated values.
Tool: Practical Steps to Uncover a Company’s Philosophy
Use the following resources to gain more insights into each company you are evaluating:
• Research the company’s history on the company website. Search the Internet to find information on its founder. Read as much as you can about the founder and the principles and ideals that were important to that individual. A founder’s personality and character often influence the company’s philosophy.
• Identify the company’s core values, which are often listed on the company website. Often, they are included in the About Us or Careers section.
• Look at websites such as Glassdoor (www.glassdoor.com) and read employee reviews about the company culture. You can uncover themes in the comments that indicate what is most important at the company. Also search the site for interview questions the company has used. These interview questions may indicate what the company values.
• Check out company pages on LinkedIn and Facebook, the tweets they post on Twitter, and the photos and videos they share on Instagram. Company values may be revealed through such entries and images.
• Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For, Glassdoor’s list of Best Places to Work, LinkedIn’s North America’s 100 Most InDemand Employers, and the website www.GreatPlacetoWork.net are good resources. Review the companies you find on these lists by reading company descriptions and employee interviews. These sites can reveal what life is like working in the company. Blog posts on the sites often dive deeper into exposing the company culture.
• SlideShare (www.slideshare.net) posts an array of presentations on company culture. You can search by the company name or “culture code” with the company name to find a presentation on the company you are interested in.
• The Muse, an online career website (www.themuse.com), offers behind-the-scenes looks inside companies, including employee videos. This site provides a colorful picture of hundreds of companies that can deliver added insight for your decision making.
• CareerBliss (www.careerbliss.com) is an online career community that offers data on job satisfaction, pay, and employee happiness, as well as a national job board. You can read company comments, reviews, and culture ratings.
• Vault (www.vault.com) is a website that ranks companies, provides extensive information, and offers ratings and reviews clustered as “uppers,” “downers,” and “the bottom line.”
• Another way to uncover the company philosophy is by observing the behaviors of its employees. If a company has a lobby or restaurant where employees tend to congregate, you may be able to observe their behaviors. If you have an interview, arrive early enough to observe employee behavior.
• Current or former employees can be a good resource. If you don’t know anyone who has worked at the company, consider attending a professional association meeting that company representatives would attend. Strike up conversations to discover what it’s like working for that organization.
• In the interview process, observe how you are treated—before, during, and after the interview. Also, the physical environment of the workplace and even the setting where the interview takes place can reveal clues about the company’s character and the things that are valued.
• During the interview process, ask employees questions that reveal the principles that are most important. Some examples include:
– What words would you use to describe this company?
– What principles or values are core to this organization? Ask for examples of any principles or values they discuss.
– How would you describe the founder (or leader) of this organization?
– If you could change one thing about this culture, what would it be?
– What qualities do your star performers exhibit? What behaviors are rewarded? What actions are celebrated?
– What traits does a person need to fit in well at this company?
In healthy organizations with a clearly defined core culture, the principles or values are easy to decipher because employees behave in ways that express them. For example, if heartfelt caring and respect is part of a company’s philosophy, then employees would demonstrate heartfelt caring and respect when interacting with one another and with their customers. If this value is genuine, you would also be treated with heartfelt caring and respect in the interview process.
Understanding the Organization’s Priorities
Another layer outside the purpose and philosophy are the organization’s priorities. What separates priorities from the other components of the core culture is the fact that priorities change over time to enhance an organization’s success. They are not as stable as the purpose or philosophy. Priorities are determined by what the company needs to focus on to compete in the current business environment.
Figure 3-2 shows the two types of priorities: strategic priorities and universal priorities.
Figure 3-2. Strategic and Universal Priorities
Understanding Strategic Priorities
Strategic priorities are values related to an external customer and market focus. They can be uncovered by understanding what the organization needs to focus on to achieve its business goals. If the economy is undergoing a recession, then cost control might be a strategic priority. If competition is moving quickly to take over future markets, then speed might be a strategic priority. If cybersecurity and privacy are an issue, then security might be a strategic priority.
Identifying strategic priorities can be difficult; however, you can often uncover them during the interview process by asking:
• What are the current goals of the company?
• What are the most pressing issues employees need to focus on?
• In this department, what are the priorities? What are the biggest opportunities?
Additionally, you can find priorities mentioned in the company’s latest annual report, usually in the CEO’s letter. Read the entire report to get a clearer picture of the company’s strategy and vision. A company’s website often includes sections titled Investor Relations and News or Press. These pages hold a wealth of material—including news, reports, slide presentations, and blog posts—on the company and its strategic focus. Sites like www.vault.com and www.guidestar.org offer information on strategy and financial performance for many organizations. They provide up-to-date information for a more comprehensive understanding of the company’s strategy and finances.
Each industry has unique challenges. Search for industry information for the companies you are considering. The issues they face may affect their strategic priorities.
Once you understand a company’s strategic priorities, you’ll be able to assess how you can help the company achieve its goals. If you highlight how you can contribute to the company, you’ll be able to show them that you’re the right fit.
Understanding Universal Priorities
Universal priorities are values that have an internal, employee focus. They are the areas the company needs to focus on to have an engaged workforce. The universal priorities include fit, trust, caring, communication, achievement, and ownership. Practicing these universal priorities brings out the best in the individuals who work at the company.
In your job search, try to uncover how well a prospective company practices each of the universal priorities. Because these priorities drive employee engagement, their presence or absence will inform you about the desirability of the workplace.
Fit
Does the company successfully hire people who are a fit with the organization’s culture and with their jobs? Companies should screen each applicant around these culture fit questions:
• Is the purpose of the organization meaningful to the applicant?
• Are the values of the organization in harmony with the applicant’s values?
Companies should also screen applicants around these job fit questions:
• Will the job to which the applicant is applying feel meaningful?
• Does the job fit the applicant’s strengths, abilities, and interests?
Based on the questions asked during the interview process and the information provided to you as an applicant, you can determine whether the company screens for culture fit, job fit, or both. Be clear on what the organization is looking for in the person who will be filling the position. How does the organization describe the ideal candidate? Are they seeking applicants who will find meaningfulness and harmony in their jobs at the organization? To have an engaged workforce, the organization must effectively screen for both culture fit and job fit.
Trust
Is this a workplace where employees trust their leaders? A lack of trust generates fear and disengagement. Try to understand the nature and style of the leader and the direction the leader seeks for the company. Character, consistency, competence, connection, and fairness promote trust. Employees who trust top leadership and their immediate supervisors are more engaged. It may be difficult to evaluate trust from the outside. However, if you can network with past or current employees, you may be able to uncover employee views. Listen to how employees describe the following areas that affect trust:
• Do they describe leaders as competent?
• Do they describe leaders as honest?
• Are leaders’ actions consistent with their words?
• Do leaders inspire employees?
• Do leaders communicate effectively with employees?
• Do leaders show that they care about employees?
Caring
Employees are more engaged when the workplace supports a sense of belonging, where leaders and supervisors care about employees, and where employees have friends at work.
If you can observe employees at the company, note how they behave with one another. Their interactions will provide clues to the presence or absence of teamwork and friendships at work. Do you see family photos in offices or on desks? Do you see pictures of employees on walls? A caring workplace wants to bring the total person to work. When you go for an interview, consider asking a few of these questions:
• How does the organization treat its employees?
• How do managers interact with those they supervise?
• How do employees treat one another?
• Do employees socialize with one another?
• Do employees have the support they need to do their jobs well?
• How effectively do departments work together?
Communication
Communication is a key driver of engagement. Employees seek an open workplace as exhibited by honest dialogue and the ongoing flow of information. Effective communication is essential for increasing employee satisfaction and engagement.
When you go for an interview, try to collect employee newsletters or other forms of communication to discover the types of information people share in the organization. Ask to view the employee portal of the company website to get a sense of the company’s openness with employees. Consider asking some of these questions in your interview:
• In what ways does the organization share information with employees?
• How do employees get the information they need to do their jobs well?
• How often does the staff meet? Ask about the variety of meetings held and how information cascades throughout the organization.
• What types of information are shared with employees? Are they kept up-to-date on the company’s strategy, goals, and metrics?
• How does the company solicit information and ideas from employees? How frequently does the organization act on employee suggestions that will benefit the company?
• Are systems in place that encourage departments to communicate with one another?
Achievement
How does the organization support employee growth and development? Helping employees feel they are achieving and growing through their jobs promotes a greater connection with work, and thus increases engagement. During the interview process, try to uncover the organization’s views on developing its employees. Consider asking some of these questions:
• What position did you have when you were hired at this company? What positions have you held?
• Does the organization have an onboarding process?
• What is the company’s attitude about employee development? What training and development opportunities are provided to employees?
• Do employees have a development plan? What does it look like in the first year of employment? Do employees have someone in the company who supports them in their development?
• What opportunities for growth exist within the company? Are stretch assignments offered?
• Do employees receive frequent feedback on their work?
• How is employee performance evaluated?
• How does the company recognize employee achievements?
Ownership
A workplace that encourages autonomy, participation, flexibility, and accountability supports the engagement of its employees. During the interview process, try to determine how well these values are practiced. Seek to understand the areas in which you will have control and responsibility, and look for company policies that support flexibility and enable employees to balance their work and personal needs. Consider asking:
• Does the company encourage a degree of autonomy for employees at work?
• Are employees making decisions that affect them? Give some examples.
• Is there flexibility in how or where employees do their work?
Companies are typically strong in practicing some of the universal priorities, but there are always some areas the company needs to focus on and pay attention to. Ask whether employee engagement is measured at the company. Uncover the strengths of each company and the efforts they are making to improve the workplace.
By learning all you can about the organization’s priorities—strategic and universal—particularly in the area where you would be working, you will be able to gauge whether the workplace is a good match for you.
Summary
To evaluate for culture fit, job seekers must have a clear picture of their own purpose and principles, as well as a picture of each prospective company’s core culture—its purpose, philosophy, and priorities. This understanding will guide you in determining if a workplace will provide meaning and harmony and promote engagement:
• Is the company’s purpose something you care about?
• Is the company’s philosophy in harmony with your principles and values?
• Can you contribute to the company’s strategic priorities?
• Does the company practice the universal priorities that promote employee engagement?
Not every organization will be a perfect fit. The aim of this process is to determine how aligned you are with each organization that could be a future workplace. The greater the alignment, the greater the culture fit.
Using the process outlined here will help you gain a better understanding of what you are choosing when you accept a position. For additional tools and information on culture fit, refer to my book, Job Seeker Manual: A Step-by-Step Guide for Using Culture Fit to Find the Right Workplace for You.
Once you have evaluated your fit with the culture of an organization, it is your responsibility to close the deal by showing the company how you can contribute to its purpose, philosophy, and priorities. By understanding these details of the company, you will be able to sell yourself and show how you can support the culture and goals of the organization.