INTERVIEW EDGE • JULY 1991

Defining a Changing Organizational Culture

Interviewers often struggle with hiring someone for an open job while also considering the candidate's potential for future advancement or fit with future workforce needs.

One of our clients, Doug Weed, director of Placement for Coors Brewing Company in Golden, Colorado recently took a fresh look at this question.

Doug was invited to tour several facilities in the Midwest where employers use a multi-step assessment process for hiring new employees to work within a team environment. The multi-step process involved recruitment, application (where viewing a video about the work environment and employment process led to a significant number of candidate's voluntarily dropping out of the process), skills and team member assessment, and behavioral interviewing.

A key learning from this trip was the need to integrate selection systems with other HR management processes. For example, the attributes on which selection is based should also be factored into pay, promotion and development systems.

Further, hiring for future potential and fit is much more challenging at an established facility like Coors than a totally new start-up facility. The challenge in the retrofit situation is that the very qualities you want in a future workforce may not be accepted in the interim by co-workers in the current workforce.

Doug Weed's observations coincide with our belief that employers must thoughtfully define their current organizational culture before they can effectively predict candidate fit and make the right hire.