Making diversity work: transforming assessment and selection to hire for culture-add, not culture-fit

Abstract

Many organizations are striving to diversify their workforces, hoping to counter inequality while boosting team performance. Assessment tools and processes have been adapted to reduce the impact of bias, yet to realize the benefits of diversity, more is needed. The hiring paradigm needs to shift from assessing competence and culture fit to assessing each candidate’s unique contribution to an organization and team – i.e. their culture-add. While this idea has gained some currency in recent years, it has far-reaching implications for assessment and recruiting that are discussed here – a key implication being that no (individual-level) test can exist to assess culture-add and rank candidates accordingly, so that assessment needs to be approached more broadly. This needs to considered alongside the current rise of algorithmic selection tools, and occupational psychologists are called on to play an active part in ensuring that greater diversity comes about and that its potential benefits are realized.