Your Match Made In Heaven… Organizational Fit Trumps Job Fit

One of our key questions around this idea is: What characteristics are most important in terms of employment marital bliss? Dating sites have isolated key variables leading to marital satisfaction by matching people correctly, can’t we get better at doing the same thing for employers and employees and save us all a lot of time and headaches?

In all the reading we’ve been doing around this idea, organizational fit seems to matter more than almost anything, but what does this mean? Consider how Jennifer Chatman who is a Professor at the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley, describes this:

“Those who fit well with the [organizational] culture stayed longer, were promoted faster, and demonstrated greater commitment to the firm. Interestingly, these outcomes of person-culture fit mattered more for performance than did the more typical person-job fit we think of which is how well people’s knowledge, skills, and abilities fit the specific job.”

What this means for employers:

• You need an organizational “job description” that defines your organizational culture. We suggest driving this by defining your organizational values (which lead to your competitive advantage).   For example, seven organizational values for defining organizational culture that a prominent research theory suggests are:
  • Innovation
  • Stability
  • Respect for People
  • Outcome Orientation
  • Attention to Detail
  • Team Orientation
  • Aggressiveness
• Assess and select candidates based your organizational job description more so than on individual job descriptions.
• If you do these two things, you’ll get more satisfied and engaged employees who will produce better business results for you.
• Define who you are through your values. There are a lot of good career card sorter activities based on values. The Work Importance Locator is one tool you can use for free.
• Vet potential job opportunities for a fit with your values. For example, if value teamwork and collaboration and the organization recognizes and rewards individual contributions, it may not be a perfect marriage for you. Neither is right or wrong, it is just the way you and the company are “wired” which is hard to change.
• If you do these two things, you’ll be happier in your work life, which will lead to more happiness in all aspects of your life.

Do any of these values contribute to a competitive advantage for your company?

What this means for employees

• Define who you are through your values. There are a lot of good career card sorter activities based on values. The Work Importance Locator is one tool you can use for free.
• Vet potential job opportunities for a fit with your values. For example, if value teamwork and collaboration and the organization recognizes and rewards individual contributions, it may not be a perfect marriage for you. Neither is right or wrong, it is just the way you and the company are “wired” which is hard to change.
• If you do these two things, you’ll be happier in your work life, which will lead to more happiness in all aspects of your life.

Have you found your employment match made in heaven? If so, why is it a perfect match?

Read more about Chatman’s research here: http://amj.aom.org/content/34/3/487.short