The most successful organizations strategically plan to hire employees based on cultural fit in addition to skills. To be strategic about all of this, you must analyze the organization’s practiced culture. By practiced, I mean actually understand the values that are lived by in the organization.

Often when doing strategic planning, organizations develop mission, vision and values which sound great, and look wonderful on the website, but may not be the actual culture of the organization. A realistic evaluation of your organization is imperative to developing a true picture of your practiced culture.

From there you can set up a plan to hire all employees that will fit into that culture. If you hire employees based on what you want to have, but do not have, you may run the risk of hiring people with the values you are seeking to attain, but have not done so yet. That will only make your new hires, misplaced, and may not be successful if the organization does not catch up quickly.