HR Vision Podcast #04 – Company Culture & Cultural Fit ft. Pinar Şardar Yetim

Ivo:
Hey everyone, and welcome to the HR Vision podcast. I'm Ivo, your host, and every week I'm going to have a conversation that matters about HR. This week I have with me Pinar Şardar Yetim. Hi Pinar, how are you?

Pinar:
Hi! I'm doing great. I just got my first shot so doing well.

Ivo:
Awesome, good to know. So Pinar is an implementation consultant at FourVision, more focused on recruitment systems and today she's here with me to talk about the broad topic of company culture and cultural fit. She has quite some experience in recruitment in HR, so that's that's where where our conversation will lead us. But, you know, for starters like I do every time: Pinar, please introduce yourself. A bit of a personal background and professional background.

Pinar:
Yes, thank you, so I was born in Turkey and I studied sociology. I graduated as sociology student and then I have worked as an implementation consultant. In Turkey, but also I have worked as an expat in Australia, so then I just changed my sector. Mainly my focus became HR. So I have done many recruitment projects, just really from the sourcing till the interview and then the placement. And then life happens and I've moved to Netherlands. My husband got a job offer and while I was in Netherlands I looked for a job and that's where I am now. I have landed in FourVision and at FourVision I'm doing mainly implementation projects but it's mainly for our partner Phenom. So my focus is on the Phenom implementations, but we have different customers around the world and trying to find the best solutions for their HR and recruitment.

Ivo:
OK cool. For people that don't know Phenom. Probably there's some - Phenom works in the talent recruitment area, right?

Pinar:
That's correct. Yes, Phenom is a relatively young company compared to us. And they are located in the United States and they offer solutions for the recruitment stream, but more about the talent sourcing and they are also offering different systems both for the recruiters and also for the management level. So it's a whole platform.

Now that we are on the implementation, it's more about how we can capture talents before they apply. So that also helps recruiters to earn more time for themselves to actually assess their talents. Rather than, more for daily jobs, try to, for example, schedule some interviews or try to do invest more time on sourcing. So it is actually the Phenom platform which is doing it for the recruiters.

Ivo:
Alright, cool. Just a follow-up question on your expertise. I do this with every with every guest. HR, why did you pick the area, was it an interest for long. How did it happen? What was the process there?

Pinar:
Yeah, I think it was a combination, but I already told you that I was an implementation consultant so I was working in the mainly the manufacturing places like big cement factories or other manufacturing places. So I was looking for their processes and how to improve their processes? But my background results always with HR, so it when I was doing that job I was still talking with the people all the time and try to see actually how make their lives a little bit easier. And then I just would like to switch a little bit more on the HR side because that's where I feel more strong about myself. Just assessing people and try to understand and listen to people. And as sociology actually brings me that, because it was a really famous code that I learned during the whole bachelor degree. Just putting ourselves into other people's shoes. So this is a good way in the sector just to get professional experience. Just putting myself into both the customers shoes and also the candidates' shoes.

Ivo:
Yeah interesting very interesting, alright. So let's go into the subject or the theme of this conversation which is the company culture. I would like to start just to ask you: What do you understand by company culture?

Pinar:
Good question also. So far it's a broad one!

Ivo:
I know it's a broad one!

Pinar:
So if you just take the culture, it's all about the behaviors and all about the people's behaviors. So if you think about the companies, a company's culture and again, it's about to hold a strategy of a company and also it's about other people's beliefs about the company. And also it's about how other people's behaviors and beliefs are matching with the strategy of the company. So I think it's just a big mixture of what old employees of a company and also the management level (I'm including also them) how they're shaping everyday lives together with the company strategy. So I'm seeing just a mixture of both the strategy and also the behavior. In the end you get the company culture.

Ivo:
Alright and then why do you think it's important? You know people talk about it a lot of times? Why is it important? Company culture? Why is it important to have one actually?

Pinar:
I think every company has a has its own culture, so it's already there, but I think the most important question here is "why is it so important to mention all the time or have some references about company culture?". Because, sometimes people fit on this company cultures that you don't hear any complaints, but sometimes you hear complaints or sometimes you realize that some people actually do not exacty match with the company's culture. Then you feel actually things are not going on the side that you would like to have. So I think on that point, the company culture, all the behavior of the employees are just going in one direction and then if it's OK for you as a person, then you also change your behavior and try to fit in. So it's like a it's like a society but on a small scale.

So it's like for example: I'm from Turkey and when I came to Netherlands it was really important for me just to be on time. All for the meetings and everything, but in the Mediterranean, just to be fair, it's more relaxed. So it's OK to be fashionably late. Let's put in the really politically correct way. It's OK just to be in the meeting, at least for maybe 5 minutes just to hang around and talk. Maybe some daily talks, but here you just have some for each company. Maybe we can say that. And this company is just working so direct and so efficient. But if you are not that person, then you have actually hard time to just improve yourself. Or, you just have some, maybe discouragements to just fit in this company culture. And this can, on that part, could be a problem.

Ivo:
Yeah, yeah, I like that comparison in between, you know like societies or culture of a country and the companies being actually a small society within themselves. And following up that, do you think leadership is the fact that most influenced the culture of a company? Or do you think it's just the behaviors within the company as it grows, that will shape and form that culture?

Pinar:
I think leadership has the most influenced on it. Of course you get influenced by your colleagues or just the rules or just other things. But of course, if you see that leadership just decides some rules, and then it shapes the other behaviors and shapes the whole the culture. And for example, when we begin at FourVision, it was about it was before Corona that we have the option for working at your Home Office. So it was already there. So for our company culture we already gets used to just working from home and but it was a hybrid work environment, so we have the option to go to office - which has some specific dates. But when Corona happened, we saw that many companies actually struggled because they don't have this habit in their organizational structure. But in our company culture we had it already, so it was relatively a smooth transition just to have OK, let's go and work from home. So it was our company culture, but I believe that this was because of the leadership baby side and they said OK. Let's try, let's go for it. And then, at the end I think we got some results.

Ivo:
Yeah, yeah, I think we didn't. We didn't feel as a company the impact as much of the the working from home because it was already our culture. We were already doing that. So that's a good point.

So you already mentioned it a bit, the cultural fit. So let's move to the to the culture fit. Because company culture is one thing. But then, when you are recruiting someone, when you are looking for a talent, there's a lot of talk about this cultural fit. For starters, what is it and why are recruiters so obsessed about it?

Pinar:
So I think, you get this cultural fit during first; well it's hard to read from the CV in my opinion. It's really hard to read from CV, but you just actually assess people with some questions. But also there are some tools to assess people more analytically. But let's go for the more approachable way just during the interviews, you can actually see that how these people; what people actually expect from the company. And as a recruiter, you already knew that your company is at flexible environment or it's not.

Sometimes companies are really hierarchical, so when the hierarchy is already there, you have some really hard relationships between the management and the employees. But if you are in a relaxed environment, then you already know and for these type of specific things that. If you have in your mind, then you can actually assess the candidates and to see if that person is really highlighting their importance or their success for example. In their stories, if you ask as a recruiter "Wat was your most successful job before you got this job?" and if they share some stories about an organization like the army. Or I'm just now speculating, but like the army.

And if you see that you're a startup and this person will have really hard time to adapt to a really agile environment, then they can easily access it. So I think for recruiters really have just a couple of questions for every candidate and then try to understand what the candidates are expecting from the company. Is it always the systematic rules really a sales-driven ,everyday changing, but a quite adaptive person? So they can be quite good fit for your startup culture. But if you're a absolutely a really big corporate company, then you already have your rules. Everything is written there, and a person who is just doing a comparatively repetitive job, it could be boring for them. For them just to replace it there.

So I think some questions like "What was your most successful job and who was your, maybe the best manager, or maybe the worst manager?". So these times these type of questions actually give you some clue as a recruiter. So what this candidate is expecting from you and from the company. Then I think the assessment will be easy for a recruiter.

Ivo:
Yeah so. So I think like, I'm not a recruiter. But like all of us, we sometimes apply to jobs and I think sometimes even the question of "How do you see a day of work" you know, like "How would you? How would you say your first day in the company?" or something like that? I think it might be one of those questions right?

Pinar:
Exactly so. Rather than asking "Where do you see yourself in five years?" That's a relatively vague question. But you can still get some idea, but still just asking about. "OK, what do you expect in your first day?"; "Are you really expecting a good onboarding and everything is ready for you?" Or you just want to go to the field and try to learn everything by yourself so? This is just all the questions as you said, so just yeah, more interaction with the candidate and maybe picking up a few questions that will give you good hints about whether this person is open for this company - for our company culture. Or for example, now it came to my mind: traveling. So are you open to travel or not?

Ivo:
Those kind of questions. Yeah, I think to sum up, I guess it's just trying to assess what are the values, behaviors, expectations the candidate already has with the those same behaviors and values that the company has, and see if there's a match. So that's basically what we can define as a cultural fit, right?

Pinar:
Exactly. But also, as I said, there are many tools for it. Really heavy tools, but I think at the end of the day those tools are, although it's analytically and it's really data driven, but still just a personal touch is always at the end. The preference of me.

Ivo:
Yeah, uhm, now why? Why are people you know, I've been seeing a lot of this conversation going to cultural fit, the importance of it. Why you should hire for cultural fit? How do you see that? Do you really think companies should absolutely go for cultural fit? Do you think there's room for you? Know, sometimes getting some people to divert a bit, or or how do you see it?

Pinar:
Yeah, I think it depends on also the function, not only the company. So if I will be an accountant in a company, then already my my daily job will similar. So it needs to be in order and I will deal with some numbers and I need to be very well organized. Although it's a startup company, still I need to be organized. So it really does not matter at that point whether I'm obsessed with the organization and everything, so it's still there are some finetuning areas for that one, but of course for everyone it's always good to be diverse. So also not for the personality, but in terms of the skills. So if everyone is so sales-driven in that company, then it, then you can actually have some lacking in that company. So somebody needs to be a little bit system-oriented. For IT. And somebody needs to be more analytical for the accountant department. So this needs to be also a good assess on the hard skills. So I think these hard skills also shape yourself in terms of your personality. It really needs to be well balanced.

Ivo:
And yeah, I guess like for marketing for example, you can't or you shouldn't have a team of full of creative people. Because you're going to have a lot of problems that should have someone more systematic, more organized, plan-driven. Because you know creativity is great, but you need to execute as well. So I think that goes into the what you're saying. So you should aim for cultural fit, but don't forget the diversity.

Pinar:
Yeah, exactly. And also company culture is just maybe a big heading, but under that, every function needs specific people. So this needs to be specific about the role. It again needs to be highlighted.

Ivo:
Now I was thinking about diversity and we talked before about the companies being small societies by themselves. Imagine we are in the Netherlands right now. We have a company built in the Netherlands, but we hire a lot of people from other countries, other languages, English. Do you think? Now let's try to be like cold analysists. Do you think the company would work better? With only people from the Netherlands for example? Only Dutch people, knowing already the culture of the country, know exactly how it works. Being very direct. Or do you think the company works better with you as their case. Me, as a Portuguese and other people that we have here? What do you think?

Pinar:
So that's a good question, and I think, we need to think about how we would like to approach. So do we, really? Uh, need to assess? Maybe it's kind of radical, but do we need to really see people's background, an nationality, or their culture? Or, let's put a hiring procedure in the system that we will only focus on hard skills. Wherever these hard skills are coming from, that we are getting these people, so at the end, so of course I'm not saying that OK, these jobs is only open for Dutch nationals, but let's open this job on LinkedIn and let's focus on more hard skills. So whoever applies for it can get the job. And it doesn't matter that I'm Turkish and you're Portuguese or anyone who is Dutch, but I think just focusing on this part because it can actually help more. So sometimes, you have only Dutch nationals and it can also work if you are targeting only Dutch speaking companies, but also if you think about like big engineering companies, it's really hard for women to survive there just to get in from the front door. I'm just speaking in general, not pointing out any company, but always if you just look for the numbers. And women in STEM (science, tech, science, technical engineering and mathematics), the number is already low. So in order to create some visibility, you can put some quotas. But then again it can begin some questioning whether these people are here because of "There is a quota" or because they are already awesome and we need these people.

Ivo:
It's about getting the best people to do the job. Or having a set of rules that actually select people by those rules. No, I think it was a great answer because I was looking exactly for that. Like the question is actually more nuanced than people might think. There's not a clear hands answer when you're looking through people. At least that's my view. It's a very complex situation. So to analyze, we will never know how a company like ours or any other with a lot of diversity works better without that diversity. We don't know because we don't have two companies the same. So I think it was a a good question there.

Pinar:
Exactly. It was a really a good question. But also again let's go back and take the discussion. The first question. It's again a a decision that comes from leadership. So they they said OK, so we will hire people based on their skills, so I don't care if they speak fluently Dutch if they speak English, that works fine for me. And if they are from UK and if they can work from their Home Office, then it works for me. So these are some rules and that shapes the company culture and after that I really don't think that there was some criteria in FourVision that we will have 2% Turkish or we will have 5% women, so it's it's always encouraged but encouraged to have more people in the company. But still I think it's good to just, analyze people for the hard skills.

Ivo:
Yeah, for the skills, makes sense. I would agree with that. Do you think is there besides like lacking diversity maybe? Do you think there's any other downside to hiring, solely focusing on cultural fit?

Pinar:
I think especially nowadays if you if you think about every company trying to be more diverse and also maybe we need to put a term a little bit updated. We need to update the term. Not diverse. Diversity is not enough now it needs to be also inclusive so this company could be diverse. They can have 25 women and they can have 10 LGBT people. But if they're not inclusive enough in the management level or in the decision-making level, then it they are just numbers. So if these these companies and in many companies, I think if they would like to be seen as a more accepted in the global sense, then it's always good to just hire more and more people. But if they're focusing on only a small neighborhood in Eindhoven. And their only target group is Dutch nationals I think, again, it's a company decision. So this is my really honest ideas and I'm not of course expert on that subject. But I think in many companies now they have their diversity and inclusion departments and this topic is now more challenged by media or challenged by Daily News and everything. So everyone is now getting access to management levels and other places. So people are recognized and people can be seen. So more female managers, more female executives and more nationalities who are in the decision making level. So it's always now - I think perception is also changing so but still, it's a decision for every company. But if you think about society, I think it's another story.

Ivo:
Yes, I think at the end of the day is about the meaning behind the actions right more than than having the numbers and having 50/50 women and men. But the payment as well the the payment gap and all that. It's about the actions and not and the meaning behind that. Then actually having the numbers you know. Saying black life matters when you have factories exploiting people of color in other countries is not the way to go as well right? So yeah, I understand. I understand what you mean.

But following up on that, do you think the cultural fit or having people that are fitting into the culture or people that actually can, you know, bring something else to the to the company. Do you think that also helps changing the company culture? Because the leadership establishes everything at the front. But the people that they hire also start to shift a bit can also start to shift a bit to the culture of the company. Don't you agree?

Pinar:
Yeah, I absolutely agree. And also just culture itself. It's about traditions. It's about behavior. So I'm bringing my own culture to company and I'm bringing. Although I'm an asset for the company, let's say, but still I'm bringing my own culture. I'm bringing my idioms to every day that I'm translating from my mother tongue to English. And even these aspects are just a really nice touch in the daily work life. So we are learning from each other and I think it adds a really broad perspective so it can encourage work life. But also it can encourage the whole big company culture because it's about all behaviors; everybody is thinking. Maybe in another sense I'm learning a new Dutch way of speaking. And also I'm learning different things from all my colleagues and also they are learning from me. So it's really a good exchange and I really believe that is also enhancing companies culture so it's more and more rich.

Ivo:
Nice, nice. Just now shifting a bit towards the end we are towards the end now shifting a bit to HR technology, which is something that we provide with FourVision. Do you think there are some tools that we might use, you know that helps with company culture with cultural fit tools that we can use it within HR.

Pinar:
Yes, and I think I will just approach that part in a little bit more critical. A critical part, because when we think about the AI, so it's artificial intelligence. Let's think that it's already making some decisions on behalf of us because it's just saving us some time. But also AI is set by people who have already some bias. So and on that part I think there are big rooms for improvement. Just to be set correctly about becoming more and more diverse and inclusive. So this type of tools and if you are, for example, if you are making an application from scratch then you have to actually think twice. Nowadays, just include other cultures. Just to include maybe other priorities. It's not only being white, being male, and coming from a Caucasian background, but it's more about being more inclusive and trying to see. So I was so surprised when I was watching something on, I think it was on Netflix, and when you would like to get some hand sanitizer, it does not recognize a color people of color's hand because it is already created by a white people and it doesn't recognize the color of people. So they are actually putting a napkin and then they are getting the sanitizer.

So it was just a really just basic though, but these type of things, as I said, we just need to be more careful. And when you are creating something you just need to think twice. So for example, for the AI, especially for the for the platform that now I'm implementing for picking up the good candidates or the ideal candidates for a position, you have the opportunity to add a couple of series. For expedition for example. What I will; What I'm following right now is actually adding more and more diverse candidates from different backgrounds, just to give more data to artificial intelligence just to get and do the funneling for that system. So this is my way of working as I said, so I'm trying to enrich all the background information and just. Doing some biased, to be honest, seeing some biased interventions on that part, but I think in that way we can overcome these type of small issues that can cause at the end the big issues.

Ivo:
Yeah, I understand that, but taking a step back on what you were saying about the tool. So basically what the tool does, maybe we'll get a bit technical here, but what the tool does is do like a screen of CVs for example? It reads basically the words the keywords in there and then makes a selection based on the set of rules that you actually set up before, right? So what you're saying is that you, as a human resources professional, you are able to set up those rules to actually be more inclusive to just not detect the overarching keywords, but actually go a bit more into detail so that the inclusion is a part of the analytics or the data analysis of the tool, right?

Pinar:
Exactly. So on the tool you have option to add three different CVS for that position. So let's say that I'm trying to hire a marketing manager. I have the option to share three series with AI and saying that these are my ideal candidates. And please, in my talent pool bring me the best options; best candidates who are actually approaching these three candidates. So this is something AI is doing. But if I just share, let's say, a really similar backgrounds from the similar, let's say the cultures and nationalities, then also AI, because AI will be fed by data and data. So it will learn from data. So now I'm trying to find different examples, but who are also ideal candidates in my opinion. So this is what I'm doing in order to establish some diversity, set up the rules. So this will be my way and when I have when I'm responsible for the positions, but tool enables this. So at that point, it is the recruiter who needs to decide what type of series and who's CVs that will be shared by AI. But of course you have the authority to just to bring some diversity and bring some inclusion on the tool. So the tool allows us.

Ivo:
Yeah, I think the main message there is that: Never forget the human side. And that's that's basically what it is right? That there are many tools, there's an overwhelming choice that you can make in recruitment in any areas of HR or any other area perse, but but just keep in mind that you need to have a human behind it to make sure that the tools are doing what we want them to do and not something by themselves, specially with automation and AI.

Pinar:
Yeah, exactly, because they are fed all the time by data. And if you feed it with similar data, then of course they will go into that direction. It's artificial intelligence, but still we had the intelligence to just add a little bit of human perspective and so why not?

Ivo:
Yeah, I agree. I agree with that. All right, that's all I have for you today. I don't know if you if you want to say something else regarding this order or the theme. Otherwise I'm going to let you go.

Pinar:
OK, so, uh, thank you first of all, for just taking me as a guest on...

Ivo:
It's a pleasure!

Pinar:
And I think for the diversity management there are tons of books, there are tons of articles, lots of academicians are working on this area, so there will be lots of changes in the in the couple of years that I'm. This is what I'm expecting, but I think we can talk for hours on that part. Still, we will be seeing changes, but I think we set the good thing at least. Still, humans can actually decide whom to include in the processes, whom to include in the companies and how to create the company culture. So it's all for us and it's all by done by us, so it's always good.

Ivo:
Yeah, humans are still very necessary. Yeah, the machines should not forget that. Still robots are waiting.

Pinar:
Yeah, exactly exactly.

Ivo:
They will not take over. Not for now at least.

Pinar:
Not for now..!

Ivo:
All right. Pinar, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for joining me today. And, let's maybe book another session to talk about inclusion and diversity. One of these days.

Pinar:
Why not? Thank you so much. So thank you, have a good day and I'll see you guys next time.